Impacts of Language Policy on Bilingualism: A Case Study of Arabic Use in Public Institutions in Chad

Abstract

Over the decades, human languages have been studied in terms of community preferences for one language over another (Alshahrani, 2019; Anderson, 2008; Aziber, 2021). These studies fall under the framework of language planning and language policy (LPLP) (Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, 2004, 2007). This paper investigates language policy in Chad, a French-speaking country that adopted Arabic as a second official language in the 1970s (Collelo, 1990; Coudray, 1996). The emphasis is on how language policy has been implemented and the extent to which the two official languages are used in public institutions and schools, where English presents additional challenges (Safotso & Ndoubangar, 2018, 2020; Ndoubangar & Etuge Apuge, 2023). Special attention is given to the teaching and rapid growth of English in Chad (Rosni et al., 2016). The data come from government institutions and public schools, as well as official and instructional documents (Fadoul, 2017). The analysis is based on Spolsky’s (2004) theory of language policy and management. The findings indicate that Chad’s top-down language policy has generated negative attitudes toward the teaching and learning of Arabic, even as English is steadily gaining prominence (Aziber, 2021; Cameron, 2006). They also reveal conflicting perceptions of Arabic and insufficient preparation of Arabic teaching materials across different education levels (Alshahrani, 2019; Schiffman, 2006). Furthermore, the results show that use of Arabic in Chad remains very limited, despite its status as a compulsory subject in primary schools in the early 1960s and its designation as an official language in the 1996 Constitution (Collelo, 1990; Coudray, 1996). These findings suggest that, for Arabic to develop effectively as an official language, the government’s language policy must be reconsidered to promote stable bilingualism in Chad (Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, 2007).