Students' Names:

-Reham Bassam Abu Alrub

-Sanaa Khalid Melhem

-Lujain Moti' Almaayta

Students' IDs:
0154880

0151201

0155574

Subject:
Code switching
Introduction
Social network sites allow people to interact, correspond with each
other and deliver their thoughts in different ways .There are several
phenomena that facilitate communication among people and make it
more effective and meaningful .One of these phenomena is code
switching . Some scholars consider code switching and code mixing to be
different and others consider them to be similar. However, they are not
of great concern to us here because we use the term 'code switching' in
this study to refer to the use of words from two languages. Bokamba
(1989) indicates that code-switching has become a common tendency
among students from multilingual societies to switch in certain personal
and social conditions in their interactions .

Code switching is more prominent in social media than in formal texts.

For instance, in Facebook which is one of the most popular computer
mediated communication on the Internet and a place where
occurrences of code switching is high. Users often switch their languages
.while communicating

Literature review
Klintborg defines CS as” the inclusion of an element from one language
into another language without any adaptation of that element to the
other language” (1999,P.36). In the other words, is the practice of
moving back and forth between two languages or between
two dialects or registers of the same language at one time. Haugen
(1956) indicates that it happens when students or teachers are speaking
and haven't the equivalent word either in Arabic or English language so
they tend to use code switching .Also, refers to a variety of systems that
enable people to communicate with other individuals via means of
computers and networks, such as computer conferencing, electronic
mail, discussion lists, bulletin boards (Romiszowski & Mason, 2004), chat
rooms, blogs and social networking sites. Furthermore, Auer (1995) sees
code-switching as a strong discourse strategy where code-switches can
indicate change of participant, parenthetical comments, or a topic shift,
along with other discourse features. Researches that have been made in
the area of CMC generally distinguish between two types of
.communication, namely synchronous and asynchronous

Three types of code switching were classified. Firstly, tag switching

which is phrased by Romaine (1989) and he indicates that it's
enrollment of word with an outlines of a sentence without breaking
any grammatical rules of a sentence. Secondly ,inter- sentential
switching and it is defined by Romaine( 1989) as the alternation in a
single discourse between two languages, where the switching occurs
after a sentence in the first language has been completed and the
next sentence starts with a new language. Also, it is known as extra-
.sentential switching

Yletyinen (2004) proves that intra-sentential switching as when

words or phrases from another language are inserted into a sentence
of the first language .There are two constraints regarding intra-
sentential CS. The first one is the Equivalence constraint, which states
that word order immediately before and after a switch point must be
grammatically possible in both languages. Based on this constraint,
allowable switch points are before and after tags, before predicate
adjectives, and between clause sand it has a problematic to maintain
when the two languages are typologically different from each other.
The second constraint is Free Morpheme constraint, which states
that CS may occur after any morpheme as long as it is a morpheme
that may occur independently or not attached to other morphemes.
It is important to note that these are not the only switch points that
intra-sentential CS may occur. Bilingual speakers may also switch
.languages at a particular part of the sentence

There are many functions of English to Arabic code-switching. The first

one is to show solidarity. Holmes (2000) states that people may use code
switching to express solidarity between each other weather they are
from similar or different ethnicities. The second one is to inflect social
status which means that people may switch from one language to
another to show that they are belong to different social classes. The
third function is topic; people may switch within one same utterance
according to the topic. The fourth one is affection, that is to say that CS
is used to express feelings. For example, people may switch because
they are happy, sad or angry. The last function is to persuade people.
Nerghes (2011) concludes that CS is an effective way to present strong
arguments. Several studies of code-switching in different type of social
media texts found that social functions might be the most common.
Shafie and Nayan (2013) indicated in a study on Facebook comments
that people switch to mark in-group membership. Similar result was
obtained by Book (2013) in a study on chat massages in English and by
Sotillo (2012) who explored the types of code switching occurring in
short text messages, analyzing an 880 SMS corpus, indicated that the
switching often takes place at the beginning of the messages or through
simple insertions for the same reason.

Methodology

The present research study is conducted on about 20 samples are taken

from accounts of students and instructors of English at The University of
Jordan. We took into account their posts and comments on the faculty
groups and their personal accounts on Facebook that were written
during 2015-2018 . Each student and instructor speaks at least two
languages Arabic, English and a third language as prerequisite for The
Faculty of Foreign Languages. This indicates the use of CS in their
interactions. The samples are analyzed based on code switching, which
were observed in social media, especially on Facebook. We chose this
study because languages are important part of our lives, and having the
ability to code switch from one language to another can facilitate our
interactions. This study discovers the definition, types and functions of
CS.

Findings
:As mentioned earlier, there are three types of CS which are
.Intra-sentential .1

E.X: hat off esmha yashatra sry ineed to anaksek mshan imissed yu

We call it hat off, sorry I need to indicate your mistake because I (

-)missed you

.E.X: Congratulation Dr.Hady.you deserve wallah

-) Congratulation Doctor Hady you deserve it. I swear (

E.X: Happy birthday 7ayati 32bal 100 sana inshallah

-) Happy birthday my life. Hope you live 100 years, God willing (

:Inter-sentential .2

E.X: there is no hope believe me

‫ما بيتغيروا‬

) There is no hope believe me , they don't change themselves (

E.X:I love this baby's reaction this is the definition of thug life

‫ردة فعل البيبي مش طبيعي‬

I love this baby’s reaction this is the definition of thug life , but the (
) .baby’s reaction is really beautiful

-.E.X: success is the best revenge

‫النجاح هو افضل انتقام‬

) Success is the best revenge , success is the best revenge (

Based on the sample we chose from the Face book , we find the
:following in term of the types

Types of CS Number of Percentage of occurrences

occurrence
s
Intra-sentential 8 40%
Inter-sentential 12 60%
There are several functions of English to Arabic switching:

1. Showing solidarity.

E.G: Happy birthday my 3ezweh, wish u all the best of luck

( Happy birthday my attribution, wish you all the best of luck )
E.G: Hello.. 7ad b3raf wain makan ‫مجمع القاعات التدريسية‬
( Hello.. Does anybody know the location of the Hall Complex)
E.G: Leeennttiiiiii.. you don't know how proud I am to have such a
great, lovely, cute, beautiful and ‫ دولة‬friend like you.
( My leen... you don't know how proud I am to have such a great,
lovely, cute, beautiful and a powerful friend like you.
2. Inflecting social status.
E.G: seeing your smiley face around the campus makes me happy
no matter what. Bless you doctora.
( seeing your smiley face around the campus makes me happy no
matter what. Bless you doctor. )
E.G: you're truly an inspiration ‫ألف مبروك دكتور‬
( You are truly an inspiration, Congratulations Doctor. )

3. Topic.
E.G: Dear my instructors& colleagues,
‫اخر سنة ونص في الجامعة مبيتذاكروش‬.
( Dear my instructor & colleagues, the last year and a half of the
university will not be studied. )
E.G: This is made my day the most halirious thing I ever got
HAHAHA ‫لما حدا يشوف الكومنت ويكتبلك على الصراحة‬
( This is made my day the most hilarious thing I ever got, when a
person sees the comment and writes you on Saraha website
hahahah )

4. Affection.
E.G: Thank you dear, kilmie mnk btkhlini athbat 3 mwqfi aktr.
 ( Thank you dear, A ward from you makes me leave over on my
position more.)
E.G: Now you talking My language ‫ معجبة بصراحة بما‬..‫ حبيبتي برافو‬8‫برافو‬
‫تكتبين‬..
( Now you talking My language , very good my beloved very good
is frankly impressed by what you write.)
5. Convincing people.
E.G: There is no hope believe me 8‫ما بيتغيروا‬..
( There is no hope believe me .. they don't change themselves.)
E.G: Perfection is something boring. ‫بك ّفي تحكي ببطئ شديد عشان ما تخطأ‬
‫ برزانة لما الموضوع بضحّك‬8‫ بكفي تبتسم‬.ً‫بدا‬.

(Perfection is something boring. It is enough to talk slowly to avoid

making mistakes. It is enough to smile brusquely when the topic is
funny.)

E.G: Which is a good thing? ‫ما تغيري من حالك عشان شخص معين ما بناسبه‬
‫أسلوب حياتك وطريقة تعاملك‬.
(Don't change your own features because of someone doesn't
suit your lifestyle and the way you treat with others.)

-Based on the samples we chose from Facebook, we find the

following in term of the functions:

Function of CS Number Percentage of occurrences

of
example
s
Showing solidarity 4 20%
Inflecting social 2 10%
status
Topic 4 20%
Affection 4 20%
Convincing people 6 30%
Discussion:
Code switching is used in spoken conversations and in CMC. In CMC,
especially on Facebook, CS is highly used by students and instructors of
English for convincing people based on the results described above.
Students prefer to practice the language because they are learners of
English ,so that they use CS to show their ability to convince others using
words from their second language. They also tend to switch from English
to Arabic because of the element of English. In other words, their use of
CS indicates that they are unable to convince people by only using
English. The use of CS in spoken conversations is determined by the
mood of the speaker. That is to say that the mood of the speaker
determines the type of languages to be used. In a rationale and stable
state of mind, a person is able to think of the right vocabulary to be said
in the target language. Also, the use of CS in spoken conversations is
used as a more habitual experience than for a specific function, like
saying "you know" and " I mean". In term of the types of CS, we found
that students tend to use inter-sentential switching more than intra-
sentential one because they are unable to find the appropriate
terminology when they want to express their thoughts.

Conclusion:
In this study, the samples have focused on the use of English to Arabic
switching on Facebook posts and comments . This study has proved that
all of the Facebook users who are students and teachers of English use
CS as a strategy to achieve their communicative and stylistic objectives
in their interactions. We think that we can over generalize the findings
for all Arab learners of English on Facebook that they are almost use
inter-sentential switching to convince people because of the lack of
English vocabulary usually for beginners and intermediate learners.
Research has increasingly pointed toward the universality of three
linguistic constraints on code-switching: an equivalence of structure
constraint, a size-of-constituent constraint, and a free morpheme
constraint.
Bibliography
Abdel Tawwab, Ahmad, and Sharaf Eldin. "Socio Linguistic Study Of Code
Switching Of The Arabic Language Speakers On Social
Networking." ccsenet. N.p., 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
-Alrashood, A. (2006). Code Switching. [online] Slideshare. Available at:
http://www.slideshare.net [Accessed 9 Apr. 2018].

-Al-Qaysi, Noor, and Mostafa Al-Emran. "Code-Switching Usage In Social

Media: A Case Study From Oman." "researchgate". N.p., 2017. Web. 20
Apr. 2018.
-Das, Amitava, and Björn Gambäck. "Code-Mixing In Social Media Text The
Last Language Identification Frontier?." atala. N.p., 2018. Web. 2013.
-El- saghir, khalil. "Code-Switching In Sociolinguistic Studies:Review And
Analysis." arabguide. N.p., 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2018.
-Glottapedia. (1956). Code switching. [online] Available at:
http://www.glottapedia.org/index.php/code switching (Accessed Apr2018).

-Khadim, Safura Nahar Khan. "Code Switching In Facebook By Bangladeshi

Facebook Users." dspace.bracu. N.p., 2018. Web. 20 Aug. 2014.
Ltd, Elsevier. "The Role Of Code-Switching As A Communicative Tool In An -
ESL Teacher Education Classroom." ac.els-cdn. N.p., 2018. Web. 20 Apr.
.2003
Zhou ph.D, Y. and Wei ph.D, M. (1989). Code-switching as a result of -
language acquisition. [online] files.eric.ed. Available at:
.http://files.eric.ed.gov [Accessed Apr. 2018]
:Appendex