A Study of Intra-Sentential Code Mixing in a Multilingual Context

Abstract

This paper investigates the phenomena of wide spread borrowing and mixing of English words and phrases into Urdu also termed as Urlish Nadeem (2012) by the Multilingual educated community of Urban Pakistani Punjab. For this purpose, quantitative approach was preferred to exhibit the trend of Intra sentential code mixing by means of embedded grammatical and structural sequences of the spoken discourse occurring in a natural environment. Investigating the phenomenon understudy, a close - ended questionnaire was administered to 100 randomly selected students studying in public sector male colleges in Lahore (Pakistan). The data was analyzed quantitatively through different tables to show results. The study also intended to identify whether or not a significant difference existed between the Graduates (Arts and humanities) and Masters Degree Holders specifically English, regarding the usage of Intra - sentential code mixing ISCM woven within the hierarchy of ground structures of the Matrix language. During the analysis, data revealed that all the sentences have vivid similarities in their choices despite the mixing of two languages. The findings of this study reflected that there were definite similarities with special reference to the infusion of inbuilt grammatical structures in the discourse of common everyday conversations.