Abstract:
Code-switching and code-mixing, two by-products of language contact
situations, are widely used linguistic strategies, not only in informal
conversational contexts but also in the informal media discourse. The
reasons hitherto applicable for the mixing of codes seem non-relevant in
some code-mixing situations today. This is true to certain segments of
the Sri Lankan media context, too, in that the popular Sri Lankan
commercial broadcasting media is accused by prescriptivist groups of
making excessive use of code-mixing. The purpose of this paper is to
synthesize and explore the seminal research articles available in the field
of code alternation so as to better understand the Sri Lankan situation of
code-switching and code-mixing, as practiced by its general bilingual
populations and by the popular commercial media channels.
