Section outline

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    This module invites students to explore what happens when different languages and varieties come into contact in real societies. It uses familiar situations from Algeria and other multilingual contexts to show how phenomena such as diglossia, bilingualism, code switching, language borrowing, pidgins and creoles, globalisation and language planning shape the way people actually speak and the choices institutions make about languages. Rather than focusing only on theory, the module encourages students to connect these concepts to their own linguistic experiences, to observe language use around them more critically, and to think about the social and political implications of decisions taken in schools, the media and government about which languages and varieties are promoted, tolerated or marginalised