Investigating the Use of Code Switching in Email Writing.

Abstract

The present study aimed to describe the linguistic behavior students and teachers at the department of English in Ibn Khaldoun university in the course of writing their emails. Particularly, it investigates one of the outcomes of language contact phenomenon namely codeswitching (CS) and whether it manifested in the process of writing email. Methodologically, this work is couched under qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect representative data. The research instruments used in the course of this study is self-filling written questionnaire designed for 44 Master students and semi-structured interview recorded with 5 teachers of English at the department of English. Findings related to teachers' interview suggests that teachers do not use code switching with their students, they prefer to use the target language only with their students while they use French when they address the administration. In addition, the questionnaire shows that students use code switching with each other and they have to use formal language with their supervisors.