Code-switching in Lebanese Talk Shows

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 2,7, University of Würzburg, language: English, abstract: Code-switching could thus be seen as one of the characteristics that defines life in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, for visitors and its residents. Concerning two different episodes from a Lebanese talk show, the question posed in the given paper is whether, the topic of a conversation or speech influences the usage of code switching by Lebanese native speakers with regard to, for example, frequency or type of their code-switching. Therefore, I also want to look at why a speaker could do code-switching when talking about certain topics.

Arabic is the most widely spoken language by the six million inhabitants of Lebanon, as article 11 of its Constitution states, ¿Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language may be used.¿ Due to the fact that Lebanon was under French rule during the first half of the 20th century (1918-1948), French is unsurprisingly used as a second language today. Nevertheless, since ¿English is seen as the language of business, technology and communications with the non-Arab world¿, it is increasingly gaining status in Lebanon and especially among the younger generation. As a consequence, Arabic, French and English are frequently mixed in written and spoken language. When observing Lebanese television, it even seems as if the English-Arabic code-switching is steadily increasing a few years.

In contrast to the comparatively abundant research on code-switching between Arabic and English (or any other language), whereby the focus here is often on dialects from greater nations like Egypt, Algeria or Saudi-Arabia, research on code-switching between the dialect of the smallest Arabic nation Lebanon and English is rather limited. One of the reasons therefore could be the fact that English was only introduced to schools in Lebanon in the 21st century. The consequence for this is that Lebanon will still be associated with French as its lingua franca, although an increasing number of Lebanese people are speaking English.