Code switching as a poetic device: Examples from rai lyrics

This paper looks at the use of code switching between colloquial Arabic and French in a set of song lyrics belonging to the genre of rai music popular in Algeria and Morocco. The many examples discussed demonstrate that switching is skilfully exploited to add to the rhetorical and aesthetic effect of the lyrics. It is shown that switch patterns may interact with elements of lyric structure, such as rhyme, line divisions and stanzas, serving to reinforce links and divisions and enhance various types of patterning. Switching may also make a semantic contribution to the lyric’s message, as when it is used for the incorporation of specific lexis or diction characteristic of the genre, or when it serves to place emphasis on certain lexical items, to highlight semantic oppositions or similarities, or to achieve parallelism, repetition or reformulation.