Abstract :
The aim of this study is to show how photo-elicitation, which is embedded with
ethnographic work, is used to collect sociolinguistic data. It also aims at showing
how these data have demonstrated Algerians’ awareness about the use of borrowings
from French and how these borrowings are adapted to the mother tongue i.e. Algerian
Arabic. The study was conducted in Tlemcen speech community in a stratified sample
population of 57 informants whose age ranges from less than 15 to more than 60
years. In the research, the photos were not taken but were downloaded from the
internet. The informants were asked to identify each of the 50 photos in the mother
tongue, i.e. Algerian Arabic then, to give the plural form of each. This allowed us to
compare the way in which adaptation was made according to age, gender, and level of
education. On the other hand, this technique enabled to describe the way in which
nouns inflect from singular into plural form. The analysis of the results enabled to
discover the factors under which such or such form is chosen.
As Algeria was long colonised by France, almost all Algerians are bilingual; their
everyday speech is characterized by code-switching and by the use of borrowings
from French. In that respect, the present study shows that the informants are
conscious that the words they were using in the dialect were in fact derived from
French, except for some words. Even children showed that they were conscious that
they used words which originate from French.
