A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF CODE MIXING AND CODE SWITCHING IN NIGERIAN INSTITUTION: A CASE STUDY OF UMARU MUSA YAR’ADUA UNIVERSITY KATSINA

This work intends to conduct a sociolinguistic study on code-mixing and code-switching and to also carry out a practical study of how these concepts occur in the conversation of Nigerian undergraduates especially students of Umaru Musa Yar’adua University. One aspect of language study that attracts much attention today is Sociolinguistics. It examines the use of language by considering social parameter. This field is relatively wide and it encompasses a lot of variables like the context of the situation, age, status. prevalent behavior among the respondents, with 76% engaging in it frequently. Specifically, 20% of the respondents switch between languages often, 56% do so very often, and 24% engage in it rarely. This suggests that code-switching is ingrained as a habit among most participants, with few maintaining the ability to separate the two languages entirely. The reasons for code-switching are multifaceted. A notable 32% of respondents switch languages due to a lack of fluency in English, while 46% switch because they consider Hausa their mother tongue. Additionally, 22% of respondents indicated that their fluency in Hausa often leads them to switch from English to Hausa. This highlights the influence of language proficiency on code-switching behavior. The study therefore, throws light on this language phenomenon by demystifying issues ranging from its wide spread features , reasons and consequences to the speakers of language involved.