Name : Rafislam Dilapanga

NIM : 321417001

Class : A

Meeting 9.

Bilingualism, Code-switching, Code-mixing, Transfer, and Interference

This essay will be discussed about Bilingualism, Code-switching, Code mixing,

Transfer, and Interference. The first topic discussion is Billingualism. Bilingualism is the

ability of an individual or the members of a community to use two languages effectively. For

example, being bilingual is a person who can speak both Bahasa and English. Another

example of bilingual is bilingual education, when a student is taught in both English and the

language of their native country.

Discussing about bilingualism, it closely related to code-switching and code-mixing.

Code switching happens when a speaker alternates between two or more languages (or

dialects or varieties of language) in one conversation. It means that code-switching is the

mixing of two or more languages in sentences. For example, the speaker says, “Aku mau

pergi ke rumah hantu. I will go there with my friends”. On the other hand, code-mixing is the

mixing of two or more languages in words, phrases, or sentences. For example, someone

says, “Next week, aku mau shopping.”

The third topic discussion is about Transfer. Transfer is the application of linguistic

features from one language to another by a bilingual or multilingual speaker. Language

transfer may occur across both languages in the acquisition of a simultaneous bilingual, from

a mature speaker's first language (L1) to a second (L2) or third (L3) language they are

acquiring, or from an L2 back to the L1. There are two kinds of transfer.  The first is negative
transfer which occurs when differences between the two languages’ structures lead to

systematic errors in the learning of the second language or to fossilization. The second is

positive transfer which occurs when areas of similarity between the two languages facilitate

learning.

With regard to transfer, negative transfer can be defined as interference which means

the effect of language learners' first language on their production of the language they are

learning. The effect can be on any aspect of language grammar, vocabulary, accent, spelling,

and so forth. Interference also is transferring of aspects in one language to another language

and it will provide bad impact to the language production of the speakers or writers so the

listeners or readers will misunderstand. For example, Indonesian who does not fluently speak

or write using English will make interference from Bahasa to English and it possibly causes

errors in spelling, sstructure or even in grammatical.