Attitudinal aspects of Arabic-French billingualism in Morocco.

This study is concerned with the Moroccan bilingual's attitudes towards Arabic and French and the kinds of role each of these languages plays in Moroccan society. Chapter One describes the language situation before and after Independence. Chapter Two examines previous approaches to the study of bilingualism, and contrasts Arabic-French bilingualism with other types of bilingualism. In Chapter Three we discuss the kinds of attitude towards French, Moroccan Arabic and Classical Arabic which bilinguals express in response to direct questioning. We also look at the possibility that the bilingual's outlook and cultural values vary according to which language he uses. Chapter Four discusses the bilingual's choice of language in various types of situation, isolating the contribution made by such factors'as the type of interlocutor, topic and setting. It also examines his preferences for one language or the other in certain receptive contexts. Chapter Five deals with the phenomenon of code-switching, whereby the bilingual uses a mixture of the two languages. Samples of speech are examined to determine whether code-switching is governed by structural constraints, and to discover the factors which provoke a switch. Bilinguals' attitudes to code-switching are also discussed. In Chapter Six we demonstrate by means of matched guise tests that a bilingual's personality may be perceived quite differently by other bilinguals depending on what language he is speaking. Finally, Chapter Seven examines language planning in Morocco and discusses the difficulties facing arabisation. Bilinguals' feelings towards the present and future situation are discussed, and some tentative proposals for future development are made