Code Mixing and Code Switching

Sounds like you're writing an essay at university level.

No, I don't agree to code-mixing in Hong Kong, because it makes people influent in both English and Chinese. Code-switching is not a problem, but is often a result of adjustment to speakers' different language background. Code-mixing, however, is possible only between bilingual speakers of the two target languages. From the view of language proficiency, code-mixers are often poor in expressing in only one language alone. However, code-mixing is often a result of a bilingual society with bilingual people, and more often a result of psychological and social need, than of language necessity, since there's no such thing as a native born code-mixer in HK.

Not just in advertisements, people, esp educated young people and university students, have an urge to code-mix in their everyday conversation. It seems to me many people are unable to converse in one language alone, be it English or Chinese. If native chinese speakers are unable to speak in Chinese alone, what does this mean? Language degradation? Code-mixing is often the opposite of speaking good english/chinese, though it may give people an illusion as such.

Just the other day, I was mentioning a term in chinese, and the person I was talking to mentioned the english term as if to correct me or to confirm, or to get the better of me. That little gesture gave me what sort of a person she was. I'll make sure next time I meet her I'll code-mix whenever possible, to show her she's not the only one belonging to her class. That is, code-mixing is often due to social, psychological rather than the necessity of coveying meanings.

Another thing to notice is the english pronunciation of the code-mixer. The accuracy of the pronuciation may shed light on his/her english level.

Below are a whole lot of sites which may be of help. Are you a language or sociological student by any chance?

The purpose of this study is to explore young Chinese/English bilingual children’s code switching behavior in a Chinese ... In particular, bilingual children’s mixing of languages in the process of language acquisition has been viewed ...
www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/5jan2148l2.htm - 46k

Code-switching and Code-mixing. In areas where two languages or dialects are spoken, people may switch from one ... This is called code-switching 語碼轉換. Sometimes, the term code-mixing 語碼混合is used to emphasize the mixture of two ...
www.ctlwmp.cityu.edu.hk/lingintro/english/lang-soc/summary-e.htm - 45k -

More broadly defined, code-switching occurs when people alter their speech and behavior so as to fit into different ... Code-switching within a sentence tends to occur more often at points where the syntaxes of the two languages align; ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching - 27k -

Code-switching and code-mixing are well-known traits in the speech pattern of. the average bilingual in any human society the world over. ... exhibited to a very large extent the traits of code-switching and code-mixing in ...
www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol15num1/ayeomoni.pdf -

[8]Chan,B.H.S.How Does Cantonese-English Code-Mixing Work?[A].In Pennington,M.C.(ed.) Language in Hong Kong at Century s End[C].Hong Kong:Hong Kong University Press,1998. [9]Clyne,M.Constraints on Code-switching:How Universal Are They? ...
scholar.ilib.cn/abstract.aspx?A=wgyywx200402003

2006-11-21 11:16:04 補充：
That explains why many people can't speak in a complete sentence in Chinese, not to say English.