Advantages Of Code Switching

INTRODUCTION

In linguistics, code switching is when a user alternates between two or more languages i.e. a user can use more than one language at a time in the same sentence or word while the meaning of the message remains the same. When the people of different languages live at same place they use languages which sometimes intermingle with each other and the inhabitants may mix the words or the phrases of two languages consciously or unconsciously. The best example is of Urdi, which is a combination of Urdu and Hindi.

English has become an international language and it is taught in many countries as second language including Pakistan. The code switching between English and Urdu is very common in Pakistan. There are some social and technical

59), defined code switching as “the juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems of subsystems." Myers-Scotton 's (2006, p. 239) general definition of code switching is “the use of two languages varieties in the same conversation”. A related concept to code switching is code mixing. Researches often differentiate between the two terms. One of the differences between the two terms is the way each of them is used as proposed by Muysken (2000) in that code switching is used for cases in which the two codes maintain their monolingual features, while code- mixing is used for cases where there is some convergence between the two languages. On the other hand, Myers-Scotton (1993) differentiates between the two terms, stating that code switching occurs when bilinguals alternate between two languages during one interaction with another bilingual person while code mixing is the use of words, affixes, phrases and clauses from more than one language within the same sentences. In this study occurrence of code switching is evident in the context of the science class between English and Urdu among Sialkot students and teachers, in which English is the common foreign language for the students and the

SIGNIFICANCE

Within the world of languages use, code-switching has often been perceived as being of lower status, a strategy used by weak language performers to compensate for language deficiency. In teaching it is a very useful resource and its very helpful for the teachers to convey their ideas in the most convenient way. Students would be able to understand the concept clearly in their native language as well as technical language such as English. This study would be helpful for students as well as teachers to know the benefits of code switching.

RESEARCH