The Functions of Code Switching in the Second Year Students at the University of San Carlos

THE FUNCTIONS OF CODE SWITCHING IN THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS

Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

INTRODUCTION

Introduction and Rationale of the Study

Code switching has always been a subject of tremendous debate among linguists, educators, institutions, and even students who are interested in investigating the boundaries, and perhaps the unknown and evolving extents of this phenomenon. While they have been and still are calling this a phenomenon, code switching, its nature, functions, improvisations, factors, and elements have been scrutinized and have been constantly attempted to be completely understood, due to its linguistically diverse and elusive nature, so naturally the debate still goes on.

Why should it not when language and its dynamics transcend and change relatively from time to time. And as language changes so does its speakers and interlocutors. The dynamics may vary depending on the users—the bilingual speakers, yet the functions and factors are still grounded on the same universal theories.

Code switching is a widely observed phenomenon especially in multilingual and multicultural communities. In university classrooms, code switching comes into use either in the teachers' or students' discourse. Although it is not favored by many educators, one should have at least an understanding of the functions of code switching between the native language and the foreign language and its underlying reasons (Sert, 2005).

Although in almost all occasions, students and even teachers are not always consciously performing code switching and are not always aware of the functions and outcomes of the process (Sert, 2005). These functions maybe triggered by the ability or the lack of effective and efficient communication and expression strategies and the outcomes may or may not result to a substantial educational discourse.

Filipinos, a multilingual and multicultural community share the same underlying reasons, although may vary in terms of the frequency and tendencies of code switching as well as the functions that trigger Filipinos, (for emphasis and for the purpose of this study, Cebuano students) to switch codes. Bautista (1994) postulates that Filipinos' switching behaviours (from English to another local dialect) are driven by proficiency, the competence of both languages (the standard and local) or by deficiency, the incompetence of either language and has to go back to the other language thereby labeling these two as the two types of code switching.

While the vast majority of studies in code switching were mainly focused on social groups and how cultural and ethnic diversities in social interactions and discourses