Code-switching and Code-mixing

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2.3, University of Stuttgart (Institut für Linguistik), language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a complete overview over the phenomenon of

code-switching and code-mixing. The history of the research of code change has

undergone various periods that have shown how complex the phenomenon of codeswitching

and code-mixing are.

In the course of research of code change it has become clear that code-switching

and code-mixing can be investigated from different perspectives. Researchers

focused on code change after they had realized that linguistic forms and practices

are interrelated. And code-switching/-mixing, in their turn, embodies not only variation,

but the link between linguistic form and language use as social practice. Research

from a linguistic and psycholinguistic perspective has focused on understanding the

nature of the systematic of code change, as a way of revealing linguistic and

potentially cognitive processes. Research on the psychological and social

dimensions of code-switching/-mixing has largely been devoted to answering the

questions of why speakers code change and what the social meaning of code

change is for them. The sociological perspective later goes on to attempt to use the

answer to those questions to illuminate how language operates as a social process.

Throughout the history of research on code-switching/-mixing it has been proposed

that it is necessary to link all these forms of analysis and that, indeed, it is that

possibility that is one of the most compelling reasons for studying code-switching/-

mixing, since such a link would permit the development and verification of

hypotheses regarding the relationship among linguistic, cognitive and social

processes in a more general way (Heller, Pfaff 1996). As with any aspect of language contact phenomena, research on code- switching

and code- mixing are firstly plagued by the issue of terminological confusion. In communications, a code is a rule for converting a piece of information (for

example, a letter, word, or phrase) into another form or representation, not

necessarily of the same sort. In communications and information processing,

encoding is the process by which a source (object) performs this conversion of

information into data, which is then sent to a receiver (observer), such as a data

processing system (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code)

. . .

In semiotics, the concept of a code is of fundamental importance. Saussure

emphasized that signs only acquire meaning and value when they are interpreted in

relation to each other.