Bengali - English Code - Switching in Commerci al Signboards in Bangladesh

Abstract

Like many other countries, Bangladesh also accepts English lang uage as an international means of communication. A s English is not officially recognized as a second language so bilingualism is not really the norm here, rather a consequence of biling ualism is obviously present in various forms of language use as code - s witching . One such form is the inflection of English words and phrases in commercial signboards and business naming found in the big metropolitan cities of the country. This visual representation of code - switching, an important and interesting sociolinguis tic phenomenon as it is, can be very useful to discover the socio economical perspectives of language contact , and how it is intertwined with the linguistic behaviors of the language users who go through the process. Closely related with this is the symbol ic association of power and development with the language in question, namely English. Thus the demonstration of code - switching into English in the commercial signboards simultaneously shades a light on the social strata that shows a lucid tendency to this switching, how they take it as a vehicle to cope with the widening domain of English and how it affects the authenticity of the native language. This paper investigates the cause, pattern and sociolinguistic dynamics of the process.