Patterns of language mixing

More about the book

In this book codeswitching among Turkish immigrants in Holland is investigated. Codeswitching is the alternation of two (or more) languages within a conversation. The book attempts to describe the type of codeswitching which is found in the Turkish community in Holland. It turns out that it is a very prominent aspect of informal peer-group interaction. The data, which are included in the Appendix, show that Turkish sentences alternate with Dutch oncs, and that there are also many sentences with Turkish syntax but including many Dutch words. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistic literature on this subject, showing that the Turkish-Dutch case bears many resemblances to bilingual communities all around the world.