Exploring Code Switching in "The Dancing Girls of Lahore": A mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Code Switching has often been analyzed in spoken language, but the phenomenon of code-switching in written language is not much investigated (Duah & Marjie, 2013). This research aims to decrease the gap which exists concerning the examination of code-switching in written contexts. The research followed Myers-Scotton's (1993) markedness model to explore code-switching in the book "The Dancing Girls of Lahore" (Brown, 2005). The book was analyzed qualitatively as well as quantitatively. The qualitative analysis was delimited to the first chapter of the book only, while the whole book was analyzed quantitatively. The qualitative results show that Brown (2005) mostly uses code-switching to identify different places and to mention something for which English translation may distort the meaning. The quantitative results show that the most used type of code-switching is unmarked code-switching (80%), followed by marked code-switching (18%), while the least type of used code-switching is sequential unmarked and exploratory code-switching (both 0.34%). In terms of the structure of code-switching, mostly intra-sentential code-switching is used (80%), followed by the merging of intra-sentential and intra-word code-switching (19%). While the least used structure in code-switching is inter-sentential (0.34%). This research is significant because most of the previous research has concentrated on code-switching in spoken language, while this research analyzed written language. So this research can be used as a model for further research, in which the researchers want to apply the markedness model to written language.