The Morphosyntax of Code-Mixing

Abstract

語碼混用是語言接觸後的產物。在社會文化的規範內外，這都是雙語的使用者不可或缺的溝通策略。這樣的結果來自於兩種在結構及規則系統上一定會有所重疊的語言。在本篇文章，我們以埃菲克語—英語的雙語人士為例，檢視了這個社會語言現象的構詞句法層面。我們討論語碼混用做為一個語言行為背後的語言基礎，並推斷雖然語言混用似乎反映了共同經驗、強調說話者的投入（或語氣）及想要被完全了解的渴望，但是這樣的行為也形成複雜的結構，而這樣的結構並沒有表現在雙語人士的意識中。

Code-mixing is a product of language contact. It is an indispensable communicative strategy of the bilingual performer within the socio-cultural paradigms and beyond. The result is drawing from the resources of two languages, which invariably overlap in terms of the structure and system of rules. In this paper, we examine the morphosyntactic dimension of this sociolinguistic phenomenon, using the Efik-English bilinguals as our reference point. We discuss the verbal underpinnings behind code-mixing as a linguistic behaviour and conclude that though language mixing seems to reflect shared experience, and underlines the speaker's involvement (mood) and the desire to be well understood, it however, forms complex structures which are not represented in the conscious mind ofthe bilingual speaker.