LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Code-Mixing as a Communicative Strategy among
the University Level Students in Pakistan

Furrakh Abbas, Ph.D. Scholar
Sahar Aslam
Abdul Majid Khan Rana

Abstract

This paper explores code-mixing as a communicative strategy among the students at the university level.

A sample of sixty students from four universities was selected for the purpose of collecting spoken data. The instrument used to collect spoken corpus was a short interview, seeking information about their life. A questionnaire comprising 20 items was also distributed among 150 students of these institutes in order to analyze their perception of code-mixing as a communicative strategy.

The transcription and analysis of the recorded data reveals that the university students employed code-mixing as an authentic communicative strategy. The results of the questionnaire also show that they conceived code-mixing as a strong communicative tool. There was not much difference in the perceptions of male and female with regard to code-mixing as a communicative strategy.

Thus, the research concludes that the university students perceive code-mixing as a communicative strategy as well as use code-mixing to facilitate communication.

Introduction

The world has entered such phase of globalization where the phenomenon of bilingualism/multilingualism has become a norm. Though languages have never ever been considered linguistically good or bad, the social attitudes have played an influential role in determining the future and lot of languages.

In the present scenario, the importance of English language cannot be undermined. It has become an international language and the language of science and technology. It is being used as a global lingua franca in many countries. It is among those five languages that claim maximum number of speakers in the world (Kachru, 1993) with Chinese at the top and Hindi-Urdu, Russian and Spanish following in the same order. In such circumstances, 'the ideological, cultural and elitist power of English' (Kachru, 1997) is evident.

Situation in Pakistan

For Pakistan, there is another major reason for the widespread use of English language. Pakistan is situated in that part of the world which remained a colony of the British. The British and their language ruled the subcontinent for over a century.

Colonization is an important factor responsible for the development of bilingualism (Kachru, 1986; Bolton 2002). The education policies of Lord Macaulay, especially his idea of 'black men with white thinking' played a significant role in the development of English language in the subcontinent.

According to Wei Li (2000), 'Language is a human faculty: it coevolves with us,' and unilingualism which even in normal circumstances is a rare phenomenon (Wardhaugh, 1998) is beyond imagination in such situation where English has coexisted with the indigenous languages over a long period. Also English still is the official language of the country and documentation at higher level takes place in this language. It is taught as secondary language in schools, colleges and universities and is used as a language of education, science, economics etc. There is English inside the classrooms at the university level, at the college level and even at the school level. In domestic setting, Urdu, Punjabi or any other local language may be preferred. So, in situations outside the classrooms in the universities or in different social settings, the mixture and switching of codes becomes inevitable.

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