Abstract:
Code Switching as a topic in linguistics has been dealt with so extensively that it no longer needs to be defined. For
some people it means a “dialectal mixture” (see, for example, Labov, 1972:188). For others it means “…some sort
of relationship – negative or positive – between languages” (Khati, 1992:181) or even “…switching languages or
linguistic varieties within the same conversation” (Slabbert and Finlayson, 1999). The present study uses a
naturalistic approach to examine development of lexical, morphological and syntactical mixing of English L2 and
Sesotho L1 in the same utterance between ages 3;0 and 6;0. In this way it differs from some current local studies
whose focus is on the sociological (Khati, 1992; Slabbert and Finlayson, 1999; Kamwangamalu, 1999; Matee,
2000) and educational (Keiswetter, 1995; Akindele and Letsoela, 2001, du Plessis and Louw, 2008) functions of
code switching. It shows a bell-shaped rate of code switching development from the beginning of exposure to the
second language, where there is very little switching to L2, through the “grey area” period, where children switch
easily from one language to another, to the period where they largely separate the two linguistic codes. It further
shows a productive switching of morphemes, lexical items, phrases and sentences from one language to the other.
