Code-switching-u si fenomen te studentët bilingë kosovarë
Code-switching as a phenomenon in Kosovar bilingual students

Summary/Abstract: English is known to be a “Lingua Franca” in the global sense, whereby it is the language of communication in international meetings in Europe and beyond. As such, English is a language from which many languages, especially of Europe, have been borrowing words. Albanian is no exception to this new global trend. In this newly created reality, not just in Kosovo, where English has the status of a bridge language, a lot of Albanian students who study abroad have English as their language of study and communication. Being under the exposure of English, code-switching, alongside borrowing as common aspects of bilingual speech, has become part of their everyday communication. Given their widespread use in recent times, attention will be paid on code-switching as a phenomenon in the speech of Kosovan bilinguals. More precisely, it seeks to analyze the extent to which code-switching is used among Kosovan bilingual students who were highly exposed to English with the latter being the language of their studies, followed by grammatical analyses of the switches, gender differences, the exposure to English at an earlier age, as well as the motivations for code-switching. Data was collected by means of tape recorder in a focus group gathered for the purpose of this study. The study reveals that CS is used to a great extent, notably when surrounded by people of similar backgrounds. In terms of structure, the intra-sentential CS is used more than the inter-sentetial one. Besides their preference to use either intrasentential or intersentential CS, no gender differences appear to be significant in the use of CS among participants of the focus group.

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