Code-Mixing in E-Mail Messages

Abstract

The research work entitled “Code Mixing in E-mail Messages” attempts to present a descriptive study to find out English expressions mixed in Nepali e-mails and Nepali expressions mixed in English e-mails. The study was carried out using secondary sources of data. Since it was a descriptive study the major tools of collecting data was observation. To collect the data the researcher visited different cyber cafes, established rapport with the authorised persons, and took permission to record, download and print out the data. Similarly, she asked different persons to forward the sent and received e-mails to her inbox and she downloaded and printed them out. After the rigorous analysis of the data she found out that both Nepali and English e-mails have mixed codes. It is developed as a trend among teenagers, as well as adults. In both types of e-mails nouns occupied the top position. In phrase level analysis noun phrase has the first position in Nepali e-mails but verb phrase in English e-mails. In sentence level analysis simple sentences have the highest number in both types of e-mails. Regarding the context of code-mixing the major context of code-mixing are; the mood of the interlocutor i.e. happy, sad, serious, the subject matter they are talking about i.e. educational, technical and the way they are instructing others. Both Nepali and English code-mixing was found in both types of e-mails except technical in which no Nepali code was found. The study consists of four chapters. The first chapter deals with the general background, literature review, objectives and significance of the study. The second chapter deals with the methodology used in the study, the sources of the data, population of the study, sampling procedure, tools of data collection , process of data collection and limitations of the study. The third chapter deals with analysis and interpretation of the collected data. Code mixing in e-mails are analysed and interpretated in terms of major word class, phrase type, sentences type and the context of code mixing. The fourth chapter deals with the findings recommendations and pedagogical implications made after the analysis of the collected data.