(1) Specificity. Sometimes it’s hard to find a …show more content…
Sometimes a person can only think of a word in the language other than the one being spoken at the time. “When we are using Chinese, we sometimes have to drop an English word into a sentence because we don 't know the Chinese word yet.” -American missionary in Taiwan
The linguistics features of code-switching are: (1) Phonology. Words undergo changes when code-switching. Sometimes the stress of a word affects the changes as well. (Gibbons, 1987, P. 44-56) (2) Syntax. The English words people code-switch is usually one or two words. In this case, it’s easy to code-switch without changing a lot of the grammar or structure.
In conclusion, people code-switch for all the above reasons. Code-switching is commonly seen in Hong Kong or among any bilingual communities. It’s not only because of social reasons but other reasons like efficiency, equivalence and habits are something that affects people’s choice of languages. The linguistics features also happen to help enhance this phenomenon because with the similar form of phonology and syntax, it gives people a better advantage to