Code-Switching Between Arabic and English as a Communicative Strategy Among Preschool Bilingual Saudi Children

Abstract

This study was conducted on four Saudi preschool children enrolled in an international school in Saudi Arabia. It aims at investigating the social motivations for the occurrence of code-switching in the speech of the study sample. In order to investigate the presence of this phenomenon, both qualitative and quantitative research designs were applied. For the purpose of the study, two research tools were used: a parental questionnaire and a storytelling activity session. Furthermore, to identify the different types of code-switching that occurred in the participants’ speech, Poplack’s (1980) classification approach was used. Findings show that Saudi children use only two types of code switching, and inter-sentential code-switching is used more frequently than intra-sentential code-switching. The results also indicated three communicative functions of Arabic/English code-switching among Saudi preschool children, i.e., to decrease the social distance, ask for the equivalent word in another language, and express feelings and thoughts.