Facets of the Concept of Syntactic Control of Matrix Language in Codeswitching Instances in Mwea East Sub-County

Abstract

This paper focuses on the facets of the concept of syntactic control of matrix language in code switching instances in a multilingual society, that is, Mwea East Sub-County, Kirinyaga County where eight languages are spoken. Observations and Audio tapes were used to collect data in specific language domains. The data were examined within the sketch of Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Framework that deals with morphosyntactic frame of code switching instances. The result of the investigation established that code switching is a rule-governed linguistic behaviour and so has a grammar. The data shows that for a multilingual speaker, the process of alternating between two languages requires a nonrandom, sophisticated cognitive and linguistic manipulation of their languages. Thus, CS is systematic because each participating language is systematic, particularly in the ways that form-meaning sets are structured. This study hopes to provide insights on the code-switching phenomenon in a multilingual society. Additionally, the findings of this study will be of value for the development of code-switching studies in the sociolinguistic area.