Bachir Bouhania

• Professor of Sociolinguistics
• Professor at Ahmed Draia University

This paper is about the observable fact that the majority of place names in the Gourara-Touat-Tidikelt area are of Tamazight origin. The paper gives also examples of the French missionaries who tried to link some place-names of the Touat to Latin and Greek.

this paper is about the use of status titles and social honorifics in the Arabic speaking community of the Touat in southern Algeria.

The Covid-19 pandemic forced Algerian higher education institutions (HEIs) to shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT) whereby face-to-face interactions were dismissed and the home became the new classroom. However, most universities and higher education schools preferred a blended system, where students were taught in class for times and remotely...

Algerian Arabic is an under-resourced Arabic dialect. Few corpora and natural language processing tools were developed for it. This is due to a variety of factors such as its lack of written content and of a standard orthography as well as the frequent code-switching and script switching exhibited by its speakers. These factors render developing ho...

This investigation describes linguistic hybridization that is, mostly, neglected by Algerian linguists. It presents a case where spoken Algerian Arabic and French are involved. It discusses hybrid usage among FFL (French as a Foreign Language) students of at Tiaret university and studies how both codes are merged to form a hybrid variety that share...

Literature on the use of the first-person pronoun in abstracts and conclusion sections of final-year projects is limited. In case of Algerian Master students, it is too scant. The present paper aims at filling this gap through a study concerned with students’ and engagement in their final projects (memoirs). This quantitative study examines the use...

Several factors are involved in the implementation, success and failure of emergency remote teaching (ERT). Distance Education (DE) brought to the fore many issues to local Algerian higher education institutions (HEIs), along with teachers and learners’ educational and social inequalities. This paper focuses on the disparities that EFL instructors...

The field of contact linguistics has gained a considerable attention from researchers in the field during the last few decades. As a matter of fact, the contact of languages results from the coexistence of many codes in one setting. This phenomenon leads to different linguistic changes that touches all aspects of the codes involved. This article at...

This paper compares between Algerian Arabic and English consonants, and how their surface realization may be hindering EFL learners performance.

After more than seventeen years of implementation (2003) in the Algerian educational system, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers react unexpectedly to the Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT). They show resistance and resilience to change via variable attitudes towards CBLT. The paper reports the results of a field investigation carri...

After more than seventeen years of implementation (2003) in the Algerian educational system, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers react unexpectedly to the Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT). They show resistance and resilience to change via variable attitudes towards CBLT. The paper reports the results of a field investigation carri...

This research paper presents a version of "the poem of the scarf" ," El Burda" , phonetically adopted in a region of the Algerian south, Béchar , where the religious festivities are still celebrated in a special way. In one of these festivities " El Mawlid Ennabaoui" , prophet Mohamed's birthday, the men read this poem in a phonetically adopted ver...

Success at university depends on the possession of outstanding writing skills. Yet of all language skills, writing is the most arduous to master and the situation gets even worse in the case of second or foreign languages. The current study investigated the suitable ways to overcome the difficulties students of English face with writing especially...

In the present study, we argue in favour of adopting a moraic approach to the syllable to describe and explain phenomena in prosodic phonology. We indicate that the implementation of the mora (Hyman, 1985) in the Saoura Spoken Arabic (henceforth SSA) syllables helps in explaining morpho-phonological processes, namely 'the Disparity in Epenthesis '...

For the last few decades, difficulties encountered by non-native English students in the process of thesis writing have attracted considerable attention from researchers. However, most of the previous research on this topic has given priority to the language-related/linguistic problems and has focused on international students studying in L1 contex...

The indispensability of ICT tools in EFL classrooms is rather taken for granted, often in a way to promote the teaching /learning experience. Accordingly, teachers more than ever are encouraged or even explicitly instructed to use different tools inside the classroom. However, the lack of a systematic approach that governs the design and the delive...

Une variété de langue Tamazight en danger Au Touat, dans le sud Algérien, l'Arabe Standard Moderne est écrit et enseigné à l'école alors que la Touatia est une variété de langue arabe principalement parlée; le Zénète quant à lui, est un dialecte Tamazight (Berbère) mineur qui n'est pas promu au niveau sociétal. L'objectif de la présente publication...

In Algeria, education is compulsory for males and females. This foundational decision was taken right after the independence of the country in 1962. Soon after, in 1963, the central government decided the Arabisation of the whole educational levels starting from primary school till university. At the same period, illiteracy-eradication programmes w...

This paper explores the linguistic behavior in relation to the identity of speakers who stay in their hometown and speakers who travel from one dialect region to another. Following the methodology of sociolinguistic variation studies, combined with qualitative analyses, this study examines two noticeable linguistic features of Tiaret compared to th...

After more than ten years of implementation in the Algerian educational system, the Competency Based Approach (CBA) and the Competency Based Language Teaching (CBLT) present more drawbacks than advantages. For example, conversely to the traditional methods of teaching and learning, CBLT is not teacher but learner-centred. Consequently, EFL learners...

This paper is about the substitution of [gh] for [q in the Arabic spoken dialect of El-Meni'a in southern Algeria.

Feedback is an important part of the learning cycle, and is, undoubtedly, an effective teaching tool in developing the EFL students’ writing skill. However, both students and teachers frequently express disappointment and frustration when it comes to cope with assessment. This study aims to contribute to the literature on foreign language writing a...

Since English has become the worldwide lingua franca of science and technology, university teachers and researchers found themselves bound to look for a way to cope with this situation especially in a country like Algeria in which French is predominantly the language of higher education and scientific research as well. This paper sheds some light o...

The use of IMRAD (Introduction-Methodology-Results-Discussion) for writing academic abstracts in the Algerian context proves to be different. Most scholarsprefer to put forth the discussion before any results. Data are taken from abstracts submitted to an international conference at the University of Adrar.

The present research uses field research techniques developed by ‘Perceptual dialectology’ (Preston 1986, 1989 and 1996; Garrett 2001), ‘Folk dialectology’ (Benson 2003), or ‘Folk linguistics’ (Niedzielski and Preston 2000) to an Arabic diglossic speech community, the Tuat. It aims at showing that historical events justify today’s speakers “cogniti...

This paper tackles the problematic issue of the use of AT translation most particularly by Arabic-medium writers. Instead of relying of human experienced translaters, most Arabic-medium writers resort to AT and submit their translated texts without any proof-reading or editing. The data are taken from Adrar university's journal Al-Hakika.

The lesson brought by the last seismic events demonstrates that a building can be parasismic only if it is the product of a close cooperation between an architect and a civil engineer as of the early phases of the design. However, in the Algerian context neither cooperation is provided nor device tools are used by architects during the earthquake d...

Since English has become the worldwide lingua franca of science and technology, university teachers and researchers found themselves bound to look for a way to cope with this situation especially in a country like Algeria in which French is predominantly the language of higher education and scientific research as well. This paper sheds some light o...

The present research investigates the natural and noticeable phenomenon of ElHchachna vernacular which is the use of the pragmatic markers [bba] and [wa] whether at the beginning or at the end of speech. This speech behavior is prevalent in Ouedi Righ’s speech community; the area located in the south­east of Algeria. In addition, El Hchachna who ar...

This paper reports the results of a field research within the paradigms of Communication Accommodation Theory and Speech Accommodation Theory in an Arabic diglossic situation. Its main context is the local Adrar radio broadcast system. The data are elicited from various programs and newscasts. The study considers the use of contracted conjunctions...

The book reports the results of an ongoing research in the field of Error Analysis (EA) that explores the nature and frequency of a written error committed by south Algerian university students. It analyses the grammatical misuse of the English verb to exist as *to be exist such as in *is exist(-s), *is not exist, *are exist (-ed), and *existness....

in this paper, the focus is on the use of citations and references by EFL students at the University of Adrar, southern Algeria. In particular, the research deals with the mix that the students make between Arabic and English standards of referencing. The sample consists of 190 final projects submitted during the period 1999-2011.

This paper gives a glimpse about the changes that are underway in the Tuat, in particular the position of Zenet both at the institutional and societal levels. Recently, i.e.:2006, the Tamazight variety has been introduced to the radio of Adrar to broadcast both the news and cultural programmes. Yet; at the social level, that language variety is sti...

This study is based on the design and use of an experimental set-up dedicated to visualize and treat the thermal boundary layer over a heated horizontal grooved disc in ambient air. The shadowgraph technique is used in order to visualize the flow and get quantitative data. On the one hand, a remotely controllable camera, installed carefully on a ra...

In this paper, the focus is on the students' perception of the linguistic boundaries that delimit their own mother-tongues. The research was carried in two ways, through hand-drawn maps and with a questionnaire. The results of the hand-drawn maps show that the students do not agree on the isoglosses, neither on the transition zones. the questionnai...

This communication reports the results of a research which surveyed more than 2525 exam papers of soouth Algerian EFL learners. The aim is to analyse grammatically and statisticaly the misused verb 'to exist' as *to be exist, for instance as *is exists, * was exist, existness, etc.

the present paper is about a feature that characterises Arabic dialectology, linguistics, and sociolinguistics: the divergence between /q/ and /g/ at the lexical and phonological levels. For some Arab linguists and Western oriental researchers, the velar stop is a ‘surface’ reflex of the uvular stop. For others, they are two different phonemes. On...

This communication tackles the problem of Zenete, an endangered language variety in the south of Algeria. The paper reports the results of a field-research whereby h Arab and Zenete botstudents answered a questionnaire about their attitudes vis-a-vis Zenete in the Touat area

In the present paper, the focus is on the variation that characterises women’s speech with a particular attention to their recitation of the Quran. This linguistic phenomenon illustrates a sociophonetic variation and a stylistic variation in the speech of a particular group of people, i.e.: old Touat women, and is at the intersection of two scienti...

In this communiction, the focus was about the use of some contracted conjunctions and particles in the local radio of Adrar as markers of solidarity with the audience

this book describes Touat spoken Arabic from various angles, among which communication, dialectology and sociolinguistics.

In this communication, the results of a questionnaire about the perception of the vitality of American versus British English is discussed. Various questions were asked to which the students answered differently according to their own perception of which language they prefer, would like to have its accent and so on

this article describes the various Arabic dialects of the Touat area.

the communication is about the sociophonetic variation in the speech if young Touatians, who simplify the pronunciation of the dental fricatives /th/ and /dh/ and realise them respectively as [t,s] and [d, z] it is noteworthy that the boys and the girls have different tendencies regarding the use of the latter variants

this paper deals with the phonological contrast between the velar and uvular stops /g,q/ in Touat spoken Arabic. The use of either variant gives a different meaning, which leads to the conclusion that /g/ is not the variant surface realisation of /q/ but is a phoneme on itself.

in this paper, we describe the sociolinguistic reality of the Touat. as it is a diglossic area. In the Touat, many language varieties are used, for instance Touat spoken Arabic , French, Tamachek, and Zenete. It is also important to note that some families use Bambara, and Hausa. Hence, sociolinguistic phenomena take place, such as borrowing and co...

Résumé : Notre article s‘articule autour de quelques aspects sociolinguistiques rencontrés dans le Touat, actuelle Wilaya d‘Adrar dans le sud Algérien. Parmi ceux-ci l‘exo-diglossie (selon Fishman 1968, 1970, et 1972), le multilinguisme, et la pluriglossie. Dans le Touat, plusieurs variétés de langue sont présentes : l‘Arabe (dialectal et standard)...

the communication makes a link between the ames of place found in the Touat area, such as Touat, Tamentit and others found in the old Egyptian mythology, such as Douat,godess Amentit, and god Amon

in this communication, the concern was about the multiltude of mistakes found in abstracts of academic papers submitted for peer-reviewing , in particular those paper written in Arabic and which abstracts are in French or in English Most abstracts were automatic-text translations full of irregularities

The aim of this paper is to describe how Touat women recite the Qoran differently from men as pat of their genderlect styles

in this paper, the importance is given to the young Touat Arabic speakers' attitudes towards Arabic, French, and Zenete. It tries to measure the ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic vitality of the latter language varieties according to the youngsters.

the paper is about the use of some local vernacular linguistic items in formal situations such as the local radio boradcast.

in this communication, the concern was about the societal rejection of French by Touat Arabic speakers. The question raised was whether that attitude was a consequence of the French colonisation of Algeria, and eventually of the south of the country.

This communication tackles the controversial topic of Arabic dielctology, which is the attitude of Arabic speakers towards the use of the velar and uvular stops /g, q/ as either standard or prestige variants.

This communication is about the pluriglossic situation that prevails in the Touat area. It shows that there is a diversity of language varieties used for various contexts and situations. these varieties are MSA, colloquial Arabic (Touatia), French, Tamashek ,and Zenete (Taznatit).

the communication was about the coexistence of the local language variety, Touat spoken Arabic along regional varieties as Tamachek and Zenete in the Touat area,

in this communication, the focus was about the variable attitudes of Arabic speakers towards the foreign languages taught in the Algerian curricula, namely English and French.

the paper illustrates with examples the phenomenon of borrowing between Touat Spoken Arabic and such language varieties as French ,Bambara and Hausa.

the paper is about an old controversy that characterizes the use of the velar and the uvular stops in Arabic dialects, in particular in such a Saharan dialect as Adrar Arabic. The article brings examples, such as minimal pairs, to show that the use of one or the other changes the meaning of the words; hence the contrast is phonological rather than...

This paper describes the phonetic-phonological contrast that characterizes the velar and the uvular stops in Adrar Arabic, a Saharan language variety in southern Algeria. Various examples of minimal pairs are provided to account for the discrepancy.

During the seminar, a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Algeria was given. the concepts of diglossia and bilingualsim were used to describe the complex situation that characterises the country.

This is my MPhil thesis, which describes the sociolinguistic phenomenon of the substitution of French borrowings for Arabic counterparts. This results mainly from the application of Arabisation to the primary, the intermediate, and the secoondary school levels starting from the 1960's.