Social and Psychological Factors in Language Mixing

Abstract

Language mixing reflects a natural and universal aspect of bilingual verbal behavior. This chapter addresses the four questions concerning language-mixing/switching (LM/S) – whether it is random or systematic, what its motivations are, what societal attitudes toward it are, and, finally, what the attitudes of bilinguals toward the phenomenon are. A distinction has often been made in the research literature between code-switching (CS) and code-mixing (CM). This chapter uses LM/S as a cover term for both code-mixing and code-switching. From the discussions presented in the chapter, it is self-evident that creativity and complexity are the two salient features of code-mixing and code-switching. The chapter focuses on four factors, which determine language choice and mixing on the part of bilinguals: (i) social roles and relationships of participants; (ii) situational factors: discourse topic and language allocation; (iii) message-intrinsic considerations; and (iv) language attitudes including social dominance and security.

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