ASPECTS OF BILINGUALISM IN AN ALGERIAN CONTEXT: Case of First -Year Biology Students at Ain- Temouchent University Centre

Abstract

Bilingualism is a pervading sociolinguistic phenomenon that has characterized Algeria for many decades. Indeed, along with Arabic, French continues to be used in various domains such as administration, education and particularly in some streams of higher education. In Belhadj Bouchaib university centre of Ain-Temouchent, researcher aimed at investigating such phenomenon among students studying in the department of biology. Therefore, through gathering and analyzing data by means of a questionnaire, we attempted in this study, to show the extent to which Standard Arabic and French are used in the university context first, by exploring the main reasons that stand behind students’ linguistic low achievement and second, by detecting whether their different attitudes towards French affect their linguistic performance in the context of their studies.