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Anthropological Linguistics

Certain Aspects of the Form and Functions of Hindi-English Code-Switching

Author(s): Ashok Kumar
Source: Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 195-205
Published by: The Trustees of Indiana University on behalf of Anthropological Linguistics
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 ASPECTS
CERTAIN OF THEFORM
ANDFUNCTIONS
OF
HINDI-ENGLISH
CODE-SWITCHING1

Ashok Kumar
Central Institute of English
and Foreign Languages
Hyderabad

This paper attempts to bring into focus formal and

ABSTRACT.
functional properties of Hindi-English code-switching. Formal
features of this bilingual phenomenon are examined mostly with
reference to three major grammatical categories: NP, PP, and
VP. The analysis is suggestive of the implications of code-
switching for language change in contact situations. Two broad
categories of the functions of code-switching -- social and
stylistic - have been posited to highlight some of its uses in
the bilingual societal network. Finally, some theoretical
issues related to code-switching have been raised and sugges-
tions made for new areas to be explored.

there
0., INTRODUCTION, In a speakers
is a natural
bilingual
to
speech community,
mix lexical items,
tendency among
phrases, clauses, and sentences during verbal interaction. This
is an essential part of their communicative competence, the
"ability to switch linguistically and appropriately according to
the situational changes" (Verma 1975:35). The elements mixed
belong to the "host" language which, for historical and socio-
economic reasons, has acquired more prestige than the "guest"
language which receives them. "Code-mixing", "code-switching",
and "borrowing" are some of the labels used in linguistic liter-
ature (e.g., Bloomfield 1933, Haugen 1956, Kachru 1978, Sridhar
1978, Poplack 1980, among others) to describe various kinds of
mixtures resulting from language contact. There is no reason
why code-mixing and code-switching should be distinguished.
These processes are so intermingled and the differences so sub-
tle that it becomes quite problematic for the linguist to pro-
vide explicit definitions for them. But, borrowing ought to be
separated from either of them: while borrowing results in the
integration of linguistic items in the system of the "host" lan-
guage, such is not the case with either code-mixing or code-
switching. Instead of going into the details of these distinc-
tions, I would like to propose, for the purpose of this paper,
the following working definition of code-switching which is the
main concern of this paper:
"Code-switching", which is influenced by extralinguistic
factors such as topic, interlocutors, setting, etc., is
the alternate use of lexical items, phrases, clauses, and

195
196 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2

sentences from the non-native language (English) into the

system of the native language (Hindi) (code-mixing is here
subsumed under code-switching).
The systematic use of code-switching by bilinguals as an
important strategy for communication has prompted scholars to
study the phenomenon in all its details. Gumperz (1964, 1970,
1982), Verma (1975), Woolford (1983), and Dua (1984), among
others, have dealt with its linguistic, socio-linguistic, and
psycho-linguistic aspects in order to solve some of the theoret-
ical issues relevant for a theory of bilingualism in general,
and of code-switching in particular. This paper attempts to
discuss the formal and functional aspects of code-switching with
reference to Hindi and English. The generalizations arrived at
are significant in that they project regular code-switching pat-
terns in interaction with the social meaning of discourse. The
primary source of data for the analysis of this bilingual behav-
iour consists of some film magazines brought out in Hindi (e.g.,
filmii kaliyaa and maadhurii) with a wide circulation in all
parts of India. The examples of code-switching extracted from
these magazines come from reported interviews and independent
written discourse in Hindi. In addition, the speech of fifteen
Hindi-based bilinguals2 was also tape-recorded in real-life sit-
uations to elicit instances of code-switching.

1.0. FORMAL ASPECTSOF CODE-SWITCHING,The fact that

users of code-switching can communicate effectively with each
other is enough motivation to maintain that code-switching is
not a matter of random or arbitrary choice of linguistic ele-
ments. Rather, it is highly systematic with some underlying
rules of usage operating throughout. Several studies (Timm
1975, Kachru 1978, Pfaff 1979, Woolford 1983, and Joshi 1984)
have shown an increasing concern with the syntactic characteri-
zation of code-switching. They have concluded that there are
syntactic limits to language alternation with a given bilingual
sentence. In other words, a set of rules or constraints is in
operation in all bilingual speech; and for effective code-
switching, ability to control these constraints is obligatory.
Hence, while focusing on the formal features of Hindi-English
code-switching (with special reference to NP, PP, and VP), cor-
responding constraints will also be presented wherever neces-
sary. The following examples are representative; items in Eng-
lish have been underlined (the horizontal bar above a segment
indicates nasalization):
1. apnii image banaane ke liye usne bahut koshish kii magar
kuch bhii nahil huaa. He tried a lot to build his image
but nothing happened.
2. diipak apne bhaaii ke liye musiibat create kartaa hae lekin
khud hii musiibat me paR jaataa hae. Deepak creates prob-
lems for his brother, but he himself Zands up in trouble.
3. duusre cases bilkul complete h~, koii cintaa kii baat
nahTi hae. Other cases are fully complete, there is noth-
ing to worry about.
Hindi-English Code-Switching 197

4. dharm duusre logo kii tarah nahil hae. uskii limit kam hae
aur apne kaam mg vo hameshaa punctual rahetaa hae. Dharm
is not like others. His limit is very low and in his work
he always remains punctual.
5. kaun jaantaa thaa ki suresh itnaa mahigaa director hogaa.
Who knew that Suresh would be such an expensive director?
6. inko ham tabhii accept karte hag jab hamko inke baare mg
puurii suuchnaa mil jaatii hae. We accept them only when
we get the complete information about them.
7. mahesh ke saath meraa s~yyukt production acchaa nahil
rahaa; vo script par bilkul dhyaan nahil detaa thaa. My
joint production with Mahesh did not turn out to be good;
he paid no attention to the script.
8. vo zyaadaatar tragic bhuumikaag hii kartaa hae; isliye
jantaa usse bahut attracted hotii hae. He mostly does only
tragic roles; for this reason the public gets much
attracted towards him.
9. puunaa institute mg har ek ke liye technical shreshThtaa
kaa honaa bahut zaruurii hotaa hae. At the Poona Insti-
tute, technical expertise is very important for everyone.
10. shooting se, shafii fauran bagle gayaa lekin bahut der ho
cukii thii. From the shooting Shafi went to the bungalow,
but it was too late.
1,1, SWITCHINGWITHIN THE NOUN PHRASE, Let us look at the
following patterns of code-switching:
(i) apnii image (v) sayyukt production
(ii) duusre cases (vi) tragic bhuumikaag
(iii) uskii limit (vii) technical shreshThtaa.
(iv) mah~gaa director
From the data we observe that determiners (e.g., apnii,
duusre, uskii) are not switched to English, whereas the head
nouns and adjectives (e.g., image, director, production, tragic,
and technical) are. In the slot of the head noun and the modi-
fier there is an option to use either Hindi or English, but no
such option holds good in the case of determiners. This is
because determiners, unlike adjectives and head nouns, are
"closed class" items peculiar to the grammatical system of the
language. The term closed class here refers to those sets of
items which cannot normally be extended by the creation of addi-
tional members (Quirk and Greenbaum 1973:19). Structure words
(e.g., articles, demonstratives, pronouns, conjunctions, and
interjections) and bound morphemes (e.g., aspect/tense markers,
etc.) would, by this definition, be treated as members of a
closed class system.
It we look carefully at the constituents of the noun phrase
in the examples above, we find that four different combinations
of elements in the noun phrase are possible. Two of these
represent normal patterns of the noun phrase where all constitu-
ents belong to either Hindi or English, and the other two repre-
sent mixed patterns of the bilingual noun phrase where English
198 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2

elements can be used either as modifiers or as head nouns. The

following combinations are illustrative:
(i) The entire noun phrase is in Hindi (e.g., apnii chavi,
duusre maamle, mah6gaa nideshak, etc.).
(ii) The head noun of the NP is in English (e.g., apnii image,
duusre cases, mah6gaa director, etc.).
(iii) The modifying adjective is in English (e.g., expensive
nideshak, tragic bhuumikaaU, technical shreshThtaa, etc.).
(iv) The entire noun phrase is in English (e.g., his/her image,
other cases, expensive director, etc.).
Switching of the determiners apnii his/her, duusre other,
and uskii his/her will result in unacceptable patterns:
*his/her chavi
*other maamle
*his siimaa.
(Such patterns are, however, marked possibilities in the use of
English by a bilingual.) On the contrary, patterns such as
apnii books/buckets/cars, etc., are allowed by the code-
switching grammar since books, buckets, and cars are open class
items occurring in the grammatical slot of the head noun.
A brief note on the compound nouns in Hindi will not be
inappropriate at this point. Compound nouns in Hindi generally
follow the Noun + Noun pattern. Together, they constitute the
compound head of the NP; in terms of function, the first head
modifies the second. The following are illustrative:
aatm gyaan self knowledge
grih pravesh house entry (house-warming)
sicaaii yojnaa irrigation planning
shiit kaal winter time
raaj gaayak court singer.
The examples above suggest that it is quite normal to
switch the entire compound into English. But when one of its
constituents (either the head or the modifier) uses English, the
pattern becomes unacceptable, as in
*self gyaan *aatm knowledge
*house pravesh *grih entry
*irrigation yojnaa *sicaaii planning
*winter kaal *shiit time
*court gaayak *raaj singer.
Timm's (1975) constraint on switches involving pronominal
subjects and objects can also be applied to the data from Hindi.
Thus, in the following examples switching of the Hindi pronomi-
nal subject vo he and the pronominal object us-ko him is not
possible:
*He ghar gayaa hae He has gone home.
*maene him jaate hue dekha I saw him go.
Like pronouns and determiners, genitives are also closed-
class items and therefore not prone to switching. The modifying
noun and the head noun can, however, be freely switched. The
following possibilities of the patterns, hero-heroine kaa milan
meeting of the hero and the heroine and magazine kaa printing
Hindi-English Code-Switching 199

order printing order of the magazine are illustrative:

(i) hero-heroine kii meeting. magazine kaa printing order.
(ii) naaek-naaikaa kii meeting. patrikaa kaa printing order.
(iii) naaek-naaikaa kaa milan. patrikaa kaa chapaaii aadesh.
(iv) hero-heroine kaa milan. magazine kaa chapaaii aadesh.
(v) *hero-heroine of milan. *magazine of chapaaii aadesh.
(vi) *hero-heroine of meeting. *magazine of printing order.
The ungrammaticality of (v) and (vi) can be explained with
reference to the position of the genitive phrase in Hindi and
English in relation to the head noun. NP-gen. occurs before the
head noun in Hindi, whereas its counterpart in English "of NP"
occurs after the head noun:
English: N of N *meeting kaa hero-heroine.
[head]
meeting of hero-heroine
Hindi : N kaa N *hero-heroine of milan.
[gen.] [head]
hero-heroine kaa milan
The same holds true in the case of bilingual patterns
involving other post-positions like se from, with, mg in, into,
par on, upon, and others. These, like the genitives, do not
allow a switch to English. Thus, patterns like shooting se,
puunaa institute mg, script par, etc., would be acceptable; but
combinations like shooting from, puunaa institute in, and script
on would be ruled out. This is because English has prepositions
which precede the noun whereas Hindi has postpositions that fol-
low the noun. Their positions cannot be interchanged.
1,2, SWITCHING THEVERBPHRASE.The compoundverb
WITHIN
in Hindi basically consists of two elements: verb root and
operator. The operators form a class of verbs which express
lexical as well as aspectual meaning. For instance, karnaa to
do, honaa to be, and rahenaa to live/to be can either function
like lexical verbs or as auxiliaries to the main verbs. The
first element of the compound determines the meaning of the com-
pound as modified by the verbal operator. The contact of Hindi
with English and the highly productive nature of the operators
(in particular karnaa and honaa) has resulted in a number of
bilingual patterns constituting the verb phrase. The following
examples obtained from the data show regular patterns of code-
switching within the verb phrase:
create kartaa hae
complete h
punctual rahetaa hae
accept karte h
attracted hotii hae
Hindi elements of the verbal group that fill the lexical
slot (e.g., nirmN (N), paaband (adj.), puurN (adj.), swiikaar
(verb), aakrishT (adj.)) have undergone a switch to English.
They function as main verbs in the bilingual compound verb, and
200 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2

occur with the auxiliary verbs (kar do, ho, rahe be, etc.). The
aspect/tense markers -taa/-te/-tii hae/ha, being closed-class
items, are not switched. They are attached to the operators
kar, rahe, ho since these cannot be stranded. These observa-
tions help one to see why patterns like
*nirmaaN do *create do
*puurN are *complete are
*paaband remain *punctual remain
*swiikaar do *accept do
*aakrishT be *attracted be
are not possible in the code-switching paradigm. Switching of
the tense markers and the operators makes the patterns above
unacceptable.
We have so far discussed a sample of bilingual NPs, PPs,
and VPs highlighting their formal properties and focusing on
constraints on the switchability of certain elements in these
major grammatical categories (i.e., NPs, PPs, and VPs). How-
ever, there is yet another class of items in Hindi - the
reflexives (apnaa) and reciprocals (ek duusre) - which are
closely knit to its grammatical system and therefore cannot be
switched. In the following pairs of sentences, A and B, notice
that the post-posed Hindi case marker ko (acquisitive) of the
reflexives/reciprocals does not improve their acceptability when
an English reflexive/reciprocal is used:
A: vo apne ko gaayak samajhtaa hae. ??voh himself ko
gaayak samajhtaa hae. He considers himself a singer.
B: sudhaa aur avinaash ek duusre ko pyaar karte ha.
??sudhaa aur avinaash each other ko pyaar karte ha.
Sudha and Avinash love each other.
Studies by Nadkarni (1975) and Pandharipande (1983) have
shown that when two or more languages come into contact, there
is mutual transference of features of one language onto the sys-
tem of the other. In other words, in any normal bilingual situ-
ation, one language colours the other by its linguistic features
(phonological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical) and is itself
coloured by it, resulting in "language change" at different
levels. The influences of language contact are thus not uni-
but bi-directional. The direction and frequency of this influ-
ence depend largely on the relative dominance and prestige
attached to the languages in question by their speakers. A dom-
inant and prestigious language (like English) shows its linguis-
tic impact on the one (like Hindi) which is relatively less dom-
inant and prestigious in the social hierarchy. The following
data extracted from the speech of Hindi-based bilinguals and
twenty-four issues of a bi-monthly film magazine in English
(Stardust (1985)) illustrate the bi-directional influence of
Hindi and English as a result of language contact:
i. mere aafis (office) mE to faail5 (files) kii bhiiR lagii
rahetii hae. koii klark (clerk) kaam hii nah11 karnaa
caahetaa hae. In my office there is always a crowd of
files. No clerk wants to do any work.
Hindi-English Code-Switching 201

2. yahaa kii kampaniyaa (companies) ejenT6 (agents) ko baRaa

paesaa detii hag. Companies here give a lot of money to
the agents.
3. All the filmwalla-s (people in films) who came to visit
Mithun have been talking of nothing but this.
4. I preferred the little jokes and mock jhagda-s (quarrels)
of the Chopra family.
5. These days it is Javed's khaas (chief) producer-director
dost-s (friends) who have been maro-ing chakkar-s (taking
rounds of) of Salim's house.
6. No one was allowed to have a dekho (look) at the Thespian's
asli begum (genuine wife).
7. Zuber begged him to tell his hero Kumar Gaurav to manao
(pacify, please) his brother-in-law-cum best friend Sanjay
Dutt.
8. These days you have to eat back your words and masko-fy
(flatter) the Bombay producers.
9. There were hundreds of men falling over each other to patao
(Zure) my mother.
10. Barkha Roy is bak-bak-ing (chattering) all over town that
she pities Priya.
A close examination of examples in (1) and (2) shows that
English items, due to their frequent contact with the Hindi
grammatical system, develop a tendency to adopt its morphology
(for instance, attachment of Hindi plural suffix -6 and -yaa as
in faail6 files, kampaniy&M companies, and ejenT5 agents) and be
used mostly as native Hindi items. A drift of this kind wherein
English expressions are phonologically and morphologically
adapted to the system of Hindi has implications for nativization
of English over a period of time. On the other hand, use of
Hindi expressions with morphological suffixes from English
(e.g., plural morpheme -s as in (3), (4), and (5), and -ing par-
ticle as in (5) and (10)) and other grammatical features of Eng-
lish (e.g., nominalization of a Hindi verb as in (6), and crea-
tion of infinitival complements like "to manao" (7), "to
maskofy" (8), and "to patao" (9)) are liable, though quite
remotely, to lead to Westernization or Anglicization of Hindi.
Mehrotra (1982:162) has made a detailed analysis of Indian crea-
tive writing in English and has rightly pointed out that mixing
of Hindi words within the morpho-syntactic rules of English "is
a necessary offshoot of bilingual situations, particularly when
as in the case of English-Hindi, the two languages have been in
interaction with the same socio-cultural complex for more than a
century." This kind of English-Hindi mixing as shown by the data
and as mentioned by Mehrotra (1982) is peculiar to a particular
kind of creative writing and not a normal feature of the speech
of bilinguals who switch from English to Hindi. Morpho-
syntactic switching from English to Hindi will have to be estab-
lished more firmly before it takes firm roots in the system of
the bilingual.
202 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2

Last but not least, investigation of the instances of code-

switching also demonstrates that syntactic devices such as post-
sentential shifting of the English word or phrase, and topicali-
zation are used as stylistic strategies by Hindi-based bilin-
guals, e.g.,
(i) abhii mujhe milii, ye shocking news. I got this shocking
news just now.
(ii) film kaa publicity manager jo thaa, voh zyaadaa saphal
nahil huaa. The publicity manager of the film did not suc-
ceed much.
In (i) the bilingual phrase ye shocking news occurs post-
sententially to highlight the English phrase shocking news. Its
equivalent in Hindi, viibhats samaacaar, could have been used in
the same position, but probably the emphasis would not have been
as great as when the English phrase is used. In (ii), publicity
manager is attached to the topic-marked relative clause jo thaa
for greater focus.

2, FUNCTIONS OF CODE-SWITCHING, The functions of code-

switching are determined in most cases by the extralinguistic
factors (e.g., topic, participant-relationship, and setting)
that trigger this process. Dichotomies such as situational ver-
sus metaphorical code-switching and situational versus conversa-
tional code-switching have clear implications for the various
uses to which this phenomenon can be put. Since the relation-
ship of code-switching to social context is quite intricate, it
becomes difficult to assign definite functional values to this
process in a multilingual setting. However, for purposes of
clarity, two broad categories of the functions of code-switching
can be posited:
A. Social Functions are associated with the relative signifi-
cance of the languages involved in code-switching in terms of
the role they play as predictors of the socio-economic status,
power, and position of the participants in the social hierarchy.
In addition to this, they also give a clue to in- and out-group
relationships amongst users of code-switching. For example, in
the Indian multilingual setting, where English enjoys more pres-
tige as compared to other Indian languages, there is a natural
tendency among bilinguals to switch from their native language
to English. A Hindi-based bilingual who has acquired sufficient
training in the use of English would, for instance, switch from
Hindi to English in order to encode a powerful content, as is
shown in the following stretch of discourse:
Subordinate talking to his officer:
Sir, m yeh kaam kal hii kar dGngaa, without fail. There
will be no problem. Sir, I will do this work tomorrow itself
without fail. There will be no problem.
B. Stylistic Functions deal with code-switching as a stylistic
strategy used by bilingual creative writers to add colour to
their writings. The following examples taken from Urdu poetry
Hindi-English Code-Switching 203

and Hindi film songs represent the wide use of code-switching in

creative literary compositions:
(i) m!Zne puuchaa kii hae koii scope. I asked whether there
was any scope.
(ii) muskaraa kar kahaa gayaa no hope. Smilingly, it was said
that there was no hope.
(iii) agrezii mE kahete haU ki I love you. In English, people
say "I love you".
(iv) na magne signal dekhaa. I did not see the signal.
na tumne signal dekhaa. You did not see the signal.
accident ho gayaa rabbaa rabbaa. And there was an acci-
dent.
(v) pyaar hae to yes kahe do, pyaar nahil to no kahe do. If
you love me, say "yes"; if you don't love me, say "no".
Notice that the English expressions scope, no hope, I love
you, signal, accident, yes, and no in the examples above are not
inserted at random. They are positioned at stragetic places in
the sentence to achieve the desired poetic effect (e.g., scope,
no hope, and I love you are placed sentence-finally: signal,
yes, and no occupy the object positions, and accident occupies
the complement position). This effect, therefore, is more a
result of the position in which the English expressions are
placed, than their mere use anywhere in the composition. How-
ever, the translations of these English words, phrases, and
sentences (maukaa for scope, koii ummiid nahii for no hope,
etc.) are not likely to convey the message to the readers with
the same force. "The selection of the appropriate linguistic
patterns" (I quote Pandharipande 1983:102) "to convey particular
extralinguistic meaning is then part of the process of creating
the linguistic complex which in turn is part of the whole pro-
cess of transfer of the aesthetic experience to the reader."
It is important to note here that in situations of normal
bilingual usage, use of English elements is constrained by such
factors as the level of education of interlocutors, their inter-
relationship, and the topic of conversation. Therefore, looking
just at their use in creative writing for a particular artistic
effect, it is not possible to make a generalization with refer-
ence to all communicative situations. For instance, in (i) and
(ii) the English expressions (scope and no hope) have been
placed post-sententially for the purposes of focusing. This is
something like an attention catching mechanism which bilinguals
employ in their linguistic performance. They also have the
option of using the Urdu equivalents (maukaa for scope and koii
ummiid nahil for no hope). But this will depend on, as stated
earlier, their level of proficiency in English, and the subject
matter. If the education of the participants is English-based,
the English item will be preferred, otherwise the choice will
fall on the Urdu equivalent. The syntactic devices (e.g., back-
shifting, front-shifting, etc.) remain the same; it is the moti-
vation for their use and person using them that determines the
choice of the code in all verbal interaction.
204 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2

CONCLUSION, The analysis of Hindi-English code-switching

projects a significant generalization with reference to its
formal aspects. Since the process does not distort the grammat-
ical system of the recipient language, there occur no instances
of switching of grammatical elements into the matrix of Hindi.
This is one reason why elements like plural morphemes, posses-
sives, prepositions, reflexives, and reciprocals which are lin-
guistically bound to the structure of the language (Hindi) can-
not be substituted for their counterparts in English.
Though this study is restricted only to Hindi-English code-
switching, there are certain areas which can be explored through
further research. One such area is to find out whether there
are code-switching universals which can be posited on parallel
terms with language universals. Another avenue for research is
to posit a set of linguistic and extralinguistic constraints on
code-switching in the Indian multilingual context.

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NOTES

1. This is a revised version of my paper which was presented at the

XIV All India Converence of Linguists, held at Nagpur on July 5 and 6, 1985.
I am extremely grateful to S.K. Verma for his insightful comments and sug-
gestions on this paper. Shortcomings, if any, are entirely mine.
2. "Hindi-based bilinguals" with reference to this study are those who
are native speakers of Hindi and have learnt English as a subject in their
schools, colleges, and/or universities.