Cultural Hybridation For Identity Construction: The Case Of The Algerian Secondary School Efl Education

Viewed through the concept of cultural hybridity, the approach to language learning and communication triggers cultural contacts among language users. It places the Algerian learner in the position of a multi-language user (mother tongue, national language, school languages). This creates cultural diversity fostered by the existence of a diversity of understandings of the local, regional, national and international environments. Compared to a monolingual speaker, a language learner who becomes multilingual is expected to respond differently to a variety of situations. This suggests that his/her understanding is deepened thanks to “cultural dialogues” and that he/she becomes more aware to accept the other by recognizing and sharing the difference with the other. But, a question arises: does this diversity of culture lead to what H. Bhabha calls the “third place”? In other terms, does this offer opportunity for the learner to see his/her local world through lenses of the “Global Village” without the risk of acculturation? The challenge is therefore to define and construct a learner’s identity through EFL learning. Within this perspective, Guy Oliver Fauve (1993), believes that local allegiances should be reconciled with global affinities. For him, our world is a world of globalization; therefore, the big challenge remains in the capacity to foster “a vision of the whole that accommodates the diversity of the parts” (ibid:vii). Put differently, the function of culture is to preserve the individual’s identity without neglecting the difference with the other’s.