THE SOCIO- LINGUISTICS ASPECTS OF CODE-SWITCHING AMONG EDO- ENGLISH BILINGUALS

ABSTRACT

This study examines code-switching among Edo- English bilingual speakers.It identifies how code- switching or mixing are used interchangeably among Edo speakers and English speakers. The data used in this study were collected from recordings of utterances, through interview of Edo native speakers using the ethnography of communication theory that was adopted by Dell Hymes (1981:11) Hymes proposed his theory to describe a new approach to understanding how language is used. We discovered that Edo language can be effectively code switched with English, and that these coded words or phrases can be in any sentence position in Edo language. It is therefore established that coded words from Edo- English are prevalent in Edo- English sentence constructions.