INTRODUCTION
One major feature of bilingual communities is the ability of bilinguals to alternate codes (languages) in one discourse. An alternation may be a total switch from one code to another or a mixture of two distinct codes in one discourse. This concept is widely known as code-switching. Other features of a bilingual speech are interference – transfer of elements of a language into another and borrowing – the use of items from one language in the utterance of another.
3.1 Code Switching
Code switching refers to the use of two languages simultaneously or interchangeably in a communication. Code switching is an inter-sentential phenomenon specific to bilinguals. It involves the use of two or more language codes from one sentence to another. Code switching may be language switch or variety switch. Language switch is a switch from one language to another in one communication, while variety switch is a switch from one variety of language, e.g., a dialect (social, regional) or even a register to another. It is a deliberate act whose motivation is usually clear to the people involved in the discourse.
Code-mixing on the other hand is an intra-sentential phenomenon; that is the use of two or more language codes within a sentence. It is also referred to as interlarding. Code mixing involves the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes, words, phrases and clauses in the speech of a bilingual. According to Akindele and Adegbite (1999: 37), it is “a situation whereby two languages are used in a single sentenced within major and minor constituent boundaries. The term code mixing emphasises hybridisation, and the term code-switching emphasises movement from one language to another.
Code switching has the following functions:
(a) Translation: A bilingual speaker who is addressing a mixed bilingual audience who has different levels of competence in the two languages may need to switch from one language to another to reach the audience.
(b) Tenor: Bilingual speakers switch from one language to another when they consider the participants in the speech event – their age, status, and relationship between them and the speaker.
(c) Attitude: A speaker’s attitude to what is going on in the speech event determines the extent to which they switch from one language to another.
(d) Stylistic: A writer may switch from one language to another. This is especially common in creative writing in order to get their message across to bilingual readers.
People code-switch for several other reasons, such as:
(a) To exclude others or some people from the conversation;
(a) To mark group identity;
(b) To serve a linguistic need of providing lexical, phrasal, or sentence filler in an utterance;
(c) To quote someone;
(d) To amplify parts of an utterance, etc.`
3.2 Interference
Interference is an instance of transfer of elements from one language into another. This is also a feature of bilingualism. This kind of transfer may cut across any level of language – lexical, phonological, syntactic, semantic, etc.
Scholars have identified two basic kinds of transfer-positive and negative transfer. A positive transfer refers to a situation in which the bilingual learner transfers the similar structures and concepts of their mother tongue into the target language (the language being learnt). This is described as positive transfer because it facilitates learning.
Our concern here however is on the other type of transfer, described as negative transfer. This transfer leads to incorrect expressions in the target language. It is called Interference. For interference to occur there must be two languages which overlap. However, one of the languages is dominant. Interference occurs when the features of the dominant language are transferred to the subordinate or target language. This can occur at any level of language. In the next section, we will quickly discuss the different kinds of interference on the basis of the level of language in which they occur.
3.2.1 Syntactic Interference
Let us examine the following utterances by a Yoruba-English bilingual:
1 *My biro fell down from my pocket.
2 *The people they are stingy.
3 *You suppose to know the truth.
These utterances manifest different negative transfers. In the first one, there is the wrong use of the phrasal verb *fell down from instead of fell off. This is as a result of the translation equivalent in the mind of the speaker (jábọ́, Yoruba for fall down).
The second sentence is an instance of subject copying. The subject – The people is copied by replacing it with a pronoun they, which is redundant in the context. The utterance is also a translation equivalence of the Yoruba sentence AwQn eniyan yen, wQn ya ahun.
In the third sentence, the word ‘suppose’ is normally preceded by an auxiliary, and in this case, the auxiliary ‘are’. However in Yoruba, the idea is expressed with one word ye as in ó ye. The correct English expression is ‘you are supposed.... ’
3.2.2 Lexical Interference
This occurs when speakers semantically extend the meaning of some English words, coin or create new words to express ideas that English do not have expressions for. For instance, the word brother has been semantically extended in Nigerian English to include any body from one’s ethnic group. In Nigeria, there are coinages such as go slow, chewing stick, long leg, which are meant to uniquely express concepts that cannot be found in the standard British English, but are realities in Nigeria.
3.2.3 Phonological Interference
This occurs in situations where bilinguals lack some sounds in their mother tongue, which are present in English. There is a tendency to simply replace the sound with the one closest to it in the mother tongue. For instance, a Yoruba English bilingual will naturally replace the labio- velar sound as represented in the first sound in think with /t/. It is also likely that a Hausa speaker will substitute the sound /p/, which is absent in their language with /f/, which is the closest to /p/ in the language.
3.3 Borrowing
Borrowing in language terms refers to the act of picking words and expression from other languages and using them in a language because the concepts the expressions talk about do not exist in the language we speak. Borrowing is a very common language feature. It is a feature of situations in which speakers of different languages interact. In the course of interaction, words and expressions filter into each of these languages from speakers’ usage. When the borrowing is a lexical unit, it is called a loanword.
Usually loanwords adjust their external form to the rules of the grammar and phonetics of the receiving language. Neologisms are words that have appeared in a language in connection with new phenomena, new concepts, but which have not yet entered into the active vocabularies of a significant portion of the native speakers of the language.
English has borrowed a lot of words and expressions from other languages in the world. Some of such borrowed words and the languages where they come from are listed below
Afrikaan:
apartheid, commando, slim, trek
Egyptian:
ebony, ivory, paper.
French:
ambulance, diplomat, restaurant
Hebrew:
amen, messiah, hallelujah
Latin:
calendar, data, maximum
German:
dollar, quartz, kindergarten
Greek:
athlete, museum, democracy
Arabic:
alcohol, clibre, zero
Turkish:
yoghurt, tulip, kebab
Russian:
mammoth, vodka, perestroika
Portuguese:
marmalade, flamingo, breeze
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
i. Watch video in any of the local languages in Nigeria and identify
the types of interference that manifest in the utterances of the actors.
ii. Write out 50 borrowed lexical items in your local language.
iii. Listen to the speech of some bilinguals you know and identify
how they code-switch and code-mix.
4.0 CONCLUSION
This unit examines the common features of languages in contact. We observed that when two or more languages are in contact, they influence one another somehow. Then users of these languages may either start interlarding the forms of one language in the other, or they, in the process of learning make faulty generalisations, which leads into error in performance. It may also be the case that they would borrow lexical items and expressions where they lack the appropriate ones for expressing some ideas.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we examined three features of languages in contact: code- switching, interference and borrowing. We looked at how these features creep into the language of bilinguals, especially in linguistically bi- /multi-lingual communities.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What is code-switching?
2. Explain the possible types of interference that may occur in a Nigerian speaker’s speech.
3. Why do people code-switch?
4. Write out some borrowed English words and the languages from which they were borrowed. Do the same for your language.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Akindele, F. & Adegbite, W. (2005). The Sociology and Politics of English in Nigeria. Ile-Ife: OAU Press.
Bell, R. (1976). Sociolinguistics, Goals Approaches and Problems. London: Batsford.
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