CODE SWITCHING

AND CODE MIXING

TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. CODE

• Language peculiar to a specific group.

• Codes are particular "grammars" of specific tongues: rules for
constructing and deriving words and sentences, inventories
of sounds to convey meaning, rules for uttering those
sounds, rules for translating those sounds into graphic
symbols (writing) etc.
2. MONOLINGUAL

• Is the condition of being able to speak only a single

language.
3. BILINGUAL

• being bilingual means being able to communicate

effortlessly in two languages, even if one was
learned later in life and communication takes an
occasional detour

bilinguals are ‘people who need and use two (or more)
languages in their everyday lives (Grosjean 1992:51)
4. MULTILINGUAL

• A person that speaks more that three languages.

5. LEXICAL: Relating to the word or vocabulary of
language

6.
UNPREDICTABLE: likely to change suddenly and
without reason and therefore notable to
be predicted (= expected before
it happens) or depended on.

7. PHONOLOGY: the study of how sounds are

organized and used in natural languages. The
phonological system of a language includes an
inventory of sounds and their features, and rules which
specify how sounds interact with each other
FACTORS THAT MODIFY CODE
CHOICE

• Participants
• solidarity and status
• Social Distance
• Status Relationship
• Formality
• Function
CODE SWITCHING (CS)
WHAT IS CODE SWITCHING?

• Is the practice of *unpredictably changing one’s

language, dialect or speaking style to better fit one’s
environment which
• Also a universal language-contact phenomenon that
reflects the grammars of both languages working
simultaneously.
• code switching is possible in *bilingual or
*multilingual environment but not in monolingual.
CONTINUE…….

• code-switching occurs when a speaker

alternates between two or more languages, or
language varieties, in the context of a single
conversation
• Multilinguals, speakers of more than one
language, sometimes use elements of multiple
languages when conversing with each other.
• Also Style, Register and Voice, whether in
spoken or written language, can then be
included in a broad definition of code-switching.
 Language/dialect code-
switching

Style code-
switching
 REASON FOR CODE SWITCHING

• No similar words in English

• Did not know the English word
• To fill the gap in speaking
• Easier to speak in own language
• To avoid misunderstanding
• To convey intimacy
• So others would not understand
(Privacy)
• To add emphasis
• Other reasons
INTRA-SENTENTIAL SWITCHING

• Is possibly the most complex type among the three, as it

can occurs within the boundaries of a clause or a
sentence.
• In Spanish-English switching one could say, "La onda is
to fight y jambar. We can see in this example the
speaker uses ‘is to fight’ (phrase) instead of using the
Spanish equivalent of it which is ‘par pelear’. ENG-GER

Move der
bleistift (the
pencil) to the
pencil case on
the desk.
INTER-SENTENTIAL SWITCHING
• It happens between a sentence boundaries where one clause or sentence
is in one language and the next clause or sentence is in the other.
• inter-sentential CS takes place within the same sentence or between
speaker turns, it entails fluency in both languages such that a speaker is
able to follow the rules of the two languages
• In Assyrian-English switching one could say:
Ani wideili what happened?" ("Those, I did them what happened?")
ENG-SPA

1st clause 2nd Clause Move the pencil

1st
to the blue
Sentence
pencil case on
the table.
Ya lo hiciste? 2nd
(did you do it?) Sentenc
e
TAG-SWITCHING
• Is the switching of either a tag phrase or
a word, or both, from one language to another,
(common in intra-sentential switches).
• In Spanish-English switching one could say, "Él SPA-ENG
I saw the game
es de México y así los criaron a ellos, you last night and it
know." ("He's from Mexico, and they raise them was chingon!
(awesome)
like that, you know.") Chingon is
popular Spanish
• The example below is speaking Spanish but at tag phrase.
the end of his/her sentence decides to use a tag
phrase which is ‘you know’.
CODE MIXING
 WHAT IS CODE MIXING

• Code mixing is possible in bilingual or multilingual environments

• Is also a language contact phenomenon that doesn't reflect the
grammars of both languages working simultaneously.
• Words are borrowed from one language and adapt it in other language
and it is usually without a change of topic.
• It often occurs within one sentence, one element is spoken in language
A and the rest in language B.
• This term is usually found in mainly in informal interaction
 REASONS FOR CODE MIXING

• Interjection
• Quoting somebody else
• Expressing group identity
• Because of real lexical need
• Talking about a particular topic
• Repetition used for clarification
• Being emphatic about something
• To soften or strengthen request or command
• Intention of clarifying the speech content for interlocutor
• To exclude other people when a comment is intended for only a limited audience
INTRA-SENTENTIAL CODE MIXING
This kind of code mixing occurs within a phrase, a clause or a
sentence boundary.
INTRA LEXICAL CODE MIXING

This kind of code mixing occurs within a

word boundary involving a change in
pronunciation.

Example of this is when Spanish/Latino

people say an English word, but modify it
to Spanish phonological structure. Listen
to the voice clip , it gives an example of
Voice Clip
how a Latino would pronounce words
when talking English when pronouncing
certain letters as they would say it in
Spanish.
For
watching!