مجلة النص

Code-switching In Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Constructional Networks And Performative Dialogue In Algerian Dramatic Texts

Auteurs : Guessas Abibaker Seddik . Benhattab Abdelkader Lotfi .

Résumé

This article examines Algerian Arabic–French code-switching in dramatic texts and everyday peer interaction through the framework of Cognitive Sociolinguistics (CSL). Moving beyond formalist paradigms that reduce bilingual alternation to structural interference or performance errors, our analysis treats code-switching as an integrated, usage-based constructional network that fulfills specific performative and pragmatic functions. Drawing on Goldberg’s and Bybee’s Construction Grammar alongside Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar, we first analyze original ethnographic field notes recorded among students discussing academic writing in an Algerian university English department, and then demonstrate how Algerian playwrights—specifically Kateb Yacine, Abdelkader Alloula, and Haroun Kilani— use these same insertional and alternational schemas on stage. By combining constructional slot-analysis with Lakoff’s framing theory and MacLaury’s Vantage Theory, the study shows that bilingual dramatic dialogue operates as a socio-cognitive laboratory where everyday communicative habits are stylized and intersubjectively grounded for theatrical effect. Keywords: Code-switching; Cognitive Sociolinguistics; Construction Grammar; Algerian theatrical texts; performative dialogue; cognitive framing.

Mots clés

Code-switching ; Cognitive Sociolinguistic ; Construction Grammar ; Algerian theatrical texts ; performative dialogue ; cognitive framing