The Tunisian Multilingual Digital Context: A Corpus-Based Statistical Analysis of Code Switching in Arabizi

This study focuses on the Arabizi system used to write Tunisian Arabic in order to examine the distribution of certain linguistically connotated features, in terms of diastratic, diafasic, and to a lesser extent, diatopic variation. After providing an initial description of Arabizi, its motivations for emergence, and its linguistic peculiarities, the focus of the study will shift to the implications of its use in a digital context. Specifically, the role of Tunisian Arabic in society will be observed in relation to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and French, with the aim to capture the various facets of the linguistic ideology within the multilingual Tunisian society. Therefore, by examining data from a corpus of texts originating from the context of digital informal communication and through the use of statistical methods, the distribution of French terms will be examined, while taking into account different variables characterizing the users and the specific context in which their digital texts are disseminated.