Code-Mixing and Code Choice

Code-mixing is a fast developing area of interest for those concerned with bilingualism, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. Just as the language phenomena produced initially by contact between groups who did not share a language - pidginization and creolization - have proved to be revealing in the study of second language development and language universals, so also the examination of the mixing of two or more languages within bilingual communities is beginning to throw light on several important issues. In this book John Gibbons uses a range of different approaches to code-mixing and code choice, evaluates them and attempts to integrate them in a composite mode of code choice. The study is located in the fascinating bilingual community of Hong Kong.