Linguistics and Language
The Benefits and Downsides of Intermingling Languages
While bilingualism has always been an object of interest and thorough research for scientists of various fields, mixing languages had been, until the last few decades, cast aside as its defective by-product. However, recent linguistic studies show that intermingling languages should not be considered an ill-conceived overlapping tendency that implies carelessness and a improper use of language, but a linguistic phenomenon with its own intricate rules and purposes. The addition of objectivity towards this subject has enabled linguists to describe in length the downsides and benefits of intermingling languages. None of the pros and cons can be treated with absolute certainty as language mixing itself is often subject to different interpretations. The term ‘intermingling languages’ is sometimes replaced with ‘code switching’ or ‘code mixing’, and the latter two treated as synonyms, although their meaning differs in multiple aspects. Code switching implies that the alternation between languages takes place after longer periods of time. Since code-switch mostly occurs at a clause or sentence boundary, it is referred to as intersential switching. According to the Sridhar brothers (1980) code mixing comprises of changing languages after shorter utterances within a single sentence, and can therefore be considered intrasential. Unlike code switching, it is not accompanied by a shift in speech situation. Code mixing also differs from borrowing, which is a less comprehensive form of using multiple languages in a short period of time. Code mixing, unlike borrowing, is not necessarily caused by a lexical gap in the host language. Neither are the mixed elements limited to a collection of terms accepted by the speech community. The mixed sequences are longer than single words (as is immanent to borrowing), but they are not always assimilated into the base language according to usual grammatical rules.
While bilingualism has always been an object of interest and thorough research for scientists of various fields, mixing languages had been, until the last few decades, cast aside as its defective by-product. However, recent linguistic studies show that intermingling languages should not be considered an ill-conceived overlapping tendency that implies carelessness and a improper use of language, but a linguistic phenomenon with its own intricate rules and purposes. The addition of objectivity towards this subject has enabled linguists to describe in length the downsides and benefits of intermingling languages. None of the pros and cons can be treated with absolute certainty as language mixing itself is often subject to different interpretations. The term ‘intermingling languages’ is sometimes replaced with ‘code switching’ or ‘code mixing’, and the latter two treated as synonyms, although their meaning differs in multiple aspects. Code switching implies that the alternation between languages takes place after longer periods of time. Since code-switch mostly occurs at a clause or sentence boundary, it is referred to as intersential switching. According to the Sridhar brothers (1980) code mixing comprises of changing languages after shorter utterances within a single sentence, and can therefore be considered intrasential. Unlike code switching, it is not accompanied by a shift in speech situation. Code mixing also differs from borrowing, which is a less comprehensive form of using multiple languages in a short period of time. Code mixing, unlike borrowing, is not necessarily caused by a lexical gap in the host language. Neither are the mixed elements limited to a collection of terms accepted by the speech community. The mixed sequences are longer than single words (as is immanent to borrowing), but they are not always assimilated into the base language according to usual grammatical rules.
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