Reasons and Motivations for Code Mixing and Code Switching
This paper presents why bilinguals mix two languages and switch back and forth between two languages and what triggers them to mix and switch their languages when they speak. These bilingual phenomena are called 'code mixing' and 'code switching' and these are ordinary phenomena in the area of bilingualism. According to Hamers and Blanc (2000) 'Code mixing' and 'code switcing' were considered as signs of incompetence. However, Khnert, Yim, Nett, Kan, and Duran (2005) remark that an alternative view is to recognize the cultural, social, and communicative validity of the mixing of two traditionally isolated linguistic codes as a third legitimate code. As mentioned, these phenomena may influence bilingual's language positively. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the positive factors of code mixing and codeswitching for language education by discussing societal factors related to the reasons and motivations for these phenomena.