Code Mixing and Code Switching: A study of the Electronic Media of Pakistan

Code mixing and code switching, the alternate use of low level constituents and higher level constituents (Weinrich, 1968; Kachru, 1975; Bloomfield, 1993), are such common phenomena, in many cases, of bilinguals (Grosjean, 1996) that any program in the electronic media of Pakistan is hardly witnessed without them. In this study, the instances of code mixing (insertion, alternation and congruent lexicalization) (Muysken, 2000) and code switching (extra – sentential code switching, inter sentential code switching and intra – sentential code switching (Hamers & Blanc, 2000) are identified along with different constraints like adjective and verb constraint (Bokamba, 1988), conjunction constraint (Kachro, 1975) and free and bound morpheme constraint (Poplack, 1980) being switched from the host language (L1) and the guest language (L2). Free and Equivalent morpheme constraint (Poplack, 1980) is vastly observed. English verb allows Urdu verb infinitive, only suffix unlike Lingala, double verb infinitive, prefix and suffix (Bokamba, 1988); whereas other functional and lexical heads follow the shifting similar to other languages. Urdu extra elements are observed with English sentences. Switching of sentences and extra sentences also found within sentences.  Grammaticality, mainly, of the L1 is kept intact. Urdu – English code mixing and code switching occur mainly for putting emphasis on a particular point, clarifying it, absence of lexicon and substitute a word which is more concrete to the situation (Susanti, 2012).