Code-switching among Arab undergraduate students : motivations and threats to mother tongue

Abstract EN

This study aims to investigate the occurrence of code-switching(CS) among Arab undergraduate students and the motivations that encourage them to switch from Arabic to English while communicating orally or via social networking websites with their friends or family members who have the same native linguistic background.

In addition, it sheds light on the impact of English on the Arabic language and Arab identity from the students’ perspective.

To accomplish the objective set for this study, the researcher used questionnaires that include closed-ended statements as well as open-ended questions.

Thirty copies of the questionnaire were given to 13 female and 17 male university students.

The findings of the study reveal that expressing oneself better, not being able to find suitable equivalents for some English words in Arabic, and improving English speaking skills were some of the reasons why most Arab students would resort to code-switching.

Interestingly, around 70% of the students believed that code-switching would have a negative impact on Arabic as it could weaken the ability to express oneself in Arabic fluently.

In addition, many words would be threatened with extinction and replaced by English words.

Although Arab students tended to mix languages as they live in an English speaking environment, many of them showed a positive attitude towards their mother tongue considered as a significant part of their identity and gave several suggestions to maintain it such as teaching Arabic to children and non-Arabic speakers, reading Quran, Arabic books and stories, practicing classical Arabic, holding conferences, etc.