Lebanese university students’ perception of who they are : a study about identity and language choice.

Abstract

This study uses a three-part survey (quantitative data) to explore the language choices made by the Lebanese educated youth in 33 different contexts of daily communication, educational and personal activities as well as their perceptions concerning the importance of different aspects of identity: personal, relational, social, and national. The language choices made by the participants are a little different from what the previous literature suggests. Most participants speak Lebanese Arabic (LA) for daily communication and interaction showing that on a social level, the Lebanese prefer to use their mother tongue. In the educational context, the Lebanese prefer the language used by the institution they go to. And for personal activities, a combination of LA and French or English is used by the participants. As for the different aspects of identity that were examined, personal identity was viewed as the most important by the majority of the participants, and national identity was perceived as the least important by most participants. The present study establishes a relationship between identity as seen by the young Lebanese and the language choices they make by observing that LA is used exclusively only in social contexts, and is used along with French or English in personal contexts (the most important aspect of the Lebanese’s identity), and is not used at all in educational, academic contexts.