Code-Switching in Daily Conversations Among Iraqi Students in Malaysia

Abstract

Code switching is the process of shifting from one language to another one in the same conversation. It is a generally observed phenomenon in bilingual or multilingual speakers’ interactions. It occurs more commonly in the informal contexts where participants of the conversations are among friends, family members or acquaintances. Code-switching (CS) is common among Arabic speakers so they regularly switch codes from English to Arabic in their utterances too. Iraqi students are not an exception so they frequently use English-Arabic code switching. This paper intends to examine code switching behavior of Iraqi speakers and the types of code switching used by them. Furthermore, it seeks to explore the causes and consequences of code switching phenomenon on Iraqi students’ target language proficiency. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers conducted a case study using a survey questionnaire and audio taping a 35-minutes conversation among six Iraqi students in a Malaysian university. The findings of the study indicate that Iraqi students use various types of CS mostly to assert the group identity and as a result of lack of vocabulary in English (L2).