Code-switching

The linguistic phenomenon wherein multilingual speakers alternate between two or more languages or language varieties within a single conversation, sentence, or even phrase. Code-switching represents a systematic and rule-governed practice that reflects speakers’ linguistic competence across multiple language systems, occurring at various structural levels—from individual words (lexical switching) to entire clauses (intersentential switching). Rather than indicating linguistic deficiency, code-switching demonstrates sophisticated metalinguistic awareness and the ability to navigate complex sociolinguistic contexts, with speakers selecting specific codes based on factors such as addressee, topic, social setting, and communicative intent.

This practice manifests across diverse contexts and serves multiple functions: expressing cultural identity, signaling group membership, filling lexical gaps when concepts exist in one language but not another, achieving particular rhetorical effects, or navigating power dynamics in multilingual communities. Digital communication has spawned new forms of code-switching, with multilingual users seamlessly blending languages in texts and social media posts, while computational linguistics increasingly recognizes code-switched data as essential for developing robust natural language processing systems that reflect authentic multilingual usage patterns.