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Motivations For Code-Switching Among Igboenglish Bilinguals: A Linguistic And Sociopsychological Survey
Abstract
Code-switching and code-mixing are known to be universal phenomena among bilinguals. Not until recently, codeswitch ng/
mixing was seen as evidence of “internal mental confusion, the inability to separate two languages sufficiently to warrant the description of true bilingualism” (Lipski 1982:191). Studies have shown that code-switching is not a manifestation of mental confusion but a rule-governed behaviour among bilinguals which is motivated by various socio-psychological as well as linguistic factors. It has been observed that code-switching is more predominant among Igbo-English bilinguals compared to any other linguistic group in Nigeria. This paper seeks to explain why the Igbo people code-switch a lot by looking at the history of the Igbo language contact with English, the socio-psychological factors as well as the Linguistic factors that contributed to the predominance of code-switching among Igbo-English bilinguals.
... The relationship between English and the national languages is diglossic. Thus, an individual's code-switching behaviour could be classified as instinctive because there is a constant need to move up and down the language hierarchy (Obiamalu and Mbagwu, 2010;Adaora et al., 2022). ...
... In Nigeria, code-switching is a strategy for convergence and divergence. It is not an unusual language practice, and its genesis could be traced to the nation's colonial history (Obiamalu and Mbagwu, 2010). ...
... Two possible interpretations for the shift could be because I was in a British academic context or because British English is the model in the Nigerian education system. Just likeObiamalu and Mbagwu (2010) reported in their findings that English is considered prestigious, I viewed British or British-like English as more prestigious. I established an academic identity through British-like English instead of my ...
... These terms have been expounded as the act of "alternation of two languages within a single discourse, sentence or constituent" (Poplack, 1980, p. 583). Be that as it may, Obiamalu and Mbagwu (2008) clarify that "code-switching refers to the alternate use of sentences from two languages in a single discourse, while code-mixing refers to the alternate use of constituents from two languages within a sentence" (p. 27). ...
... 27). The examples I and II below provide an illustration to this clarification by Obiamalu and Mbagwu (2008): Extract 1 I. Yo n dende na ya kɔ. I don't want us to be late. ...
... CM occurs within a sentence and thus, "it is intrasentential, constrained by grammatical principles and is motivated by sociopsychological factors" (Ennin & Afful, 2015, p. 428). This agrees with Obiamalu and Mbagwu's (2008) understanding that CS like CM is sociopsychologically motivated. This involves a case where the speaker switches or mixes codes for the sake of either social identity or otherwise. ...
In Ghana, most of the recent studies on codeswitching (CS) have largely considered formal settings like religious centers (specifically the church) and the educational arena (specifically classrooms). Such studies show that CS is common in the classroom and churches and has academic and religious implications. In the general Ghanaian context, most of the CS situations among the major indigenous languages like the Akan, Ga, and Ewe investigated also report the effects of this language phenomenon on such languages. The CS situation among the “not widely spoken” indigenous languages such as Anufɔ is still opened to scholarship. The paper scrutinizes the employment of CS in informal settings among the Anufɔ people in Ghana. It employs ethnographic data collection techniques for the analysis. The analysis is framed within the Markedness Model of using CS in conversations. The study reveals that CS involving Anufɔ and English is linguistically and sociopsychologically motivated by such factors as: (i) vocabulary/lexical gap; (ii) language incompetence; (iii) preference for English; (iv) clarity and repetition; and (v) unintentional/subconscious habit. The effect of this CS situation is the emergence of a kind of Anufɔ/English language. This study is a contribution to the CS studies in Ghana.
This research explores the occurrence of code-switching in translation, focusing on instances where translators switch between languages within the same textual context, both intentionally and unintentionally. This study investigated the influence of linguistic factors such as language structure, semantic complexity, and intended communicative purpose on code-switching. The analysis employs qualitative methods to identify the strategies and challenges that translators face in managing code-switching. The study reveals that code-switching significantly contributes to semantic and cultural nuances in multilingual texts, emphasizing its critical role in translation accuracy and reader comprehension. The findings offer theoretical understanding and practical guidance for translation practice, enhancing the framework of multilingual translation studies. This research highlights the importance of code-switching in preserving the integrity and richness of multilingual communication in translated works. This study was conducted through the author's personal efforts without any external funding or grants. | KEYWORDS
This research explores the occurrence of code-switching in translation, focusing on instances where translators switch between languages within the same textual context, both intentionally and unintentionally. This study investigated the influence of linguistic factors such as language structure, semantic complexity, and intended communicative purpose on code-switching. The analysis employs qualitative methods to identify the strategies and challenges that translators face in managing code-switching. The study reveals that code-switching significantly contributes to semantic and cultural nuances in multilingual texts, emphasizing its critical role in translation accuracy and reader comprehension. The findings offer theoretical understanding and practical guidance for translation practice, enhancing the framework of multilingual translation studies. This research highlights the importance of code-switching in preserving the integrity and richness of multilingual communication in translated works. This study was conducted through the author's personal efforts without any external funding or grants.
Problem of ageing is appearing as a major issue in modern age because the improvement of medical
science has raised the life expectancy of the people. As a result, the number of old age people is
increasing all over the world. According to UNESCO estimate the number of old people aged above
60+ in the world is likely to go up from 350 million in 1975 to 590 million in 2005. About half of them
are in the developing countries. In the advanced countries like Norway, Sweden and Japan the
population of the aged above 60 is 20 per cent. However, the percentage of the aged in other advanced
countries in the West is in the neighbourhood of 14 Per cent. So far as India is concerned as a result of
the change in the age composition of the population over time, there has been a progressive increase in
both the number and proportion of aged people. The proportion of the population aged 60 years or more
has been increasing consistently over the last century, particularly after 1951. In 1901 the proportion of
the population aged 60 or over of India was about 5 percent, which marginally increased to 5.4 percent
in 1951, and by 2001 this share was found to have risen to about 7.4 percent. About 75% of persons of
age 60 and above reside in rural areas.
The Status of the aged not only differ between younger and olds but also from country to county on the
socio-cultural background. Venkoba Rao (1979) has indicated that as to how the prevalent cultural
conditions are affecting or contributing to the problems of the aged. Ghosal (1962) has observed that
the problems of old age tend to be multiple rather than single. Due to the multiple natures being
observed in the old age causes different problems. Based on these types of problems vary between
tribes and non-tribes.
Keywords: Aged People, Old age, Elderly, Tribes, Tribal Community
Aim. The aim of the article is to reveal gender realisation peculiarities in English and German advertising texts. The concept of the research work is focused on the idea that representatives of different languages and cultures make unique world environment. The work proves the concept validity of the unique language nature in the distinctive idea of its cognitive base formed by an ethnic group. Methods. The concepts of universality and uniqueness of the linguistic and cultural features of gender perception are revealed using the methods of analysis and generalisation. Results. The result of the research work is in the necessity for advertising texts to have special gender language markers which are the kind of signal influencing the conscience of men and women while making purchases. The authors stress that social characteristics of men and women, such as age, social or family status expressed in the form of various degrees of comparison of adjectives are used mainly in English magazines; while German advertising texts put the use of adjectives and articles on the first place. Advertising for women have the set of a special expressive and emotional language tools complex while for men the use of vocabulary stressing the main type of activity of a man-energy is of the top priority. Conclusion. The research work presents cognitive value in theory and practical recommendations to gender linguistics specialising in advertising texts structure illustrating peculiar features of men and women as consumers being influenced by language, cultural, psychological characteristics.
Language is inherent and compulsory for human communication. Whether expressed in a written or spoken way, it ensures understanding between people of the same and different regions. With the growing awareness and effort to include more low-resourced languages in NLP research, African languages have recently been a major subject of research in machine translation, and other text-based areas of NLP. However, there is still very little comparable research in speech recognition for African languages. Interestingly, some of the unique properties of African languages affecting NLP, like their diacritical and tonal complexities, have a major root in their speech, suggesting that careful speech interpretation could provide more intuition on how to deal with the linguistic complexities of African languages for text-based NLP. OkwuGb\'e is a step towards building speech recognition systems for African low-resourced languages. Using Fon and Igbo as our case study, we conduct a comprehensive linguistic analysis of each language and describe the creation of end-to-end, deep neural network-based speech recognition models for both languages. We present a state-of-art ASR model for Fon, as well as benchmark ASR model results for Igbo. Our linguistic analyses (for Fon and Igbo) provide valuable insights and guidance into the creation of speech recognition models for other African low-resourced languages, as well as guide future NLP research for Fon and Igbo. The Fon and Igbo models source code have been made publicly available.
This study was aimed at analyzing the difference between male and female speakers in code-mixing of local languages in English. It was also aimed at ascertaining the factors that have the potential to motivate indigenous speakers to do code-mixing, subsequently, the results were also differentiated on the basis of gender. This is a mixed-method study in which the first part of the analysis is qualitative, and the other is quantitative. The results show a significant difference between male and female speakers regarding the syntactic differences and motivational factors behind code-mixing.
Mixture of Spanish and English, whether in isolated loan words or in code-switching of clauses and sentences, while socially motivated, is subject to clear linguistic constraints. Quantitative analysis of mixing in conversations of Mexican-Americans suggests specific functional constraints to express tense/aspect/mood and subject/object relationships, as well as structural constraints which permit only surface structures which are grammatical in both languages. Resolution of structural conflict plays a key role, so that lexical cores trigger longer phrasal switches if they govern rules which create non-shared surface structures. The relative frequency of mixes without structural conflict is constrained by discourse function.
The occurrence of codeswitching, or the seemingly random alternation of two languages both between and within sentences, has been shown (Gumperz, 1976; Pfaff, 1975; Wentz, 1977) to be governed not only by extralinguistic but also linguistic factors. For the balanced bilingual, codeswitching appears to be subject to an ‘equivalence constraint’ (Poplack, 1978): i.e. it tends to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a surface syntactic rule of either language. If correct, the equivalence constraint on codeswitching may be used to measure degree of bilingual ability. It was hypothesized that equivalence would either be violated by non-fluent bilinguals, or that switch points which are ‘risky’ in terms of syntactic well-formedness (i.e. those which occur within a sentence) would tend to be avoided altogether. To test this hypothesis, I analysed the speech of 20 Puerto Rican residents of a stable bilingual community, exhibiting varying degrees of bilingual ability. Quantitative analysis of their switches revealed that both fluent and non-fluent bilinguals were able to code-switch frequently and still maintain grammaticality in both Lx and L2. While fluent bilinguals tended to switch at various syntactic boundaries within the sentence, non-fluent bilinguals favoured switching between sentences, allowing them to participate in the codeswitching mode, without fear of violating a grammatical rule of either of the languages involved. These results suggest that the codeswitching mode proceeds from that area of the bilingual's grammar where the surface structures of Lx and L2 overlap, and that codeswitching, rather than representing debasement of linguistic skill, is actually a sensitive indicator of bilingual ability.
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