The Manifestation of Code Switching Among 3 Year-Old Yoruba/English Semilinguals

Abstract

Communication is the most symbolic function of language. Hence, The present study explored the manifestation of code switching with reference to ten selected 3 year- old school children .Code switching as a sociolinguistic phenomenon has been studied by various scholars but efforts have not been made to assess its manifestation among school children in the context of Yoruba/English. The Yoruba language serves as the children first language and the English language serves as the second language (L2). The children at this acquisition age code-switch for diverse reasons and these showed that the manifestation of code switching at this age is distinct from that of adult since the children are at the language acquisition stage. With a critical focus, the paper presents appealing case studies and analysis that are useful in gaining deeper insights into reasons that make code switching as a linguistic phenomenon an unavoidable ornament in the beautification process of language learning of children known as language acquisition.