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Swedish–English language mixing
Author(s) -
SHARP HARRIET
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.2007.00503.x
Subject(s) - linguistics , casual , perspective (graphical) , conversation , mixing (physics) , language transfer , domain (mathematical analysis) , psychology , language assessment , australian english , first language , computer science , sociology , comprehension approach , natural language , artificial intelligence , political science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , law
This paper reports on the results of a corpus‐based micro‐level analysis of Swedish–English language mixing in the spoken discourse of two distinct domains where the speakers regularly and frequently use English in intranational contexts of communication. The first domain is the transactional spoken discourse of business executives in the Swedish shipping industry, while the second domain is the interactional casual conversation of young adults (19–25 years old). The study shows that the language mixing differs strikingly in the two domains – both from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. In these separate domains, speakers do not use English to the same extent, nor do they incorporate the same types of English constituent or use the same language mixing strategies. It is concluded that the language mixing in these domains is principally the result of a conscious use of English as an auxiliary language for specific purposes in the discourse, rather than the result of occasional, unintentional lapses into English.