Factors, Forms and Functions: An Analysis of Senior High School Students' Filipino-English Code Switching Behavior

Abstract

People who learned two languages demonstrate an interesting behavior known as “code-switching.” A ‘code’ is defined as a language or a dialect, thus, code-switching (CS) is an alternation of words and phrases between two languages or dialects.  Considered as a form of “bilingualism”, researches proved that code-switching may improve understanding of a concept.  ESL teachers, linguists, and researchers believe that code-switching is not necessarily a blockage or deficiency in learning or using a language. Bilingual speakers alternate the codes for various reasons during a conversation. Thus, this Descriptive-Quantitative study explores the factors, forms, and functions of senior high school students’ code-switching behavior in academic or classroom interaction. In order to satisfy the said aims, researcher-made survey-questionnaires were administered to thirty (30) Senior High School students who were selected through Quasi-random Sampling. As per the results, it can be inferred “Loss of Words” is the most dominant factor in why students switch between two languages. In terms of the forms of LCS, most of the students (56.7% answered “most of the time”) tend to use Inter-sentential Code Switching. Ultimately, Personification is the most dominant (43.3% answered always) function of LCS. It can be concluded that code-switching could be used to help gain mastery of subject contents. Teachers should know when to use the first language (L1) and when to use a second language (L2) appropriately and strategically in order to enable comprehension and meaningful involvement of the learners, which will lead to enhancing academic achievement.