Code-Switching Between Arabic and English as a Communicative Strategy Among Preschool Bilingual Saudi Children

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Literature Review
Code-switching is widely observed in the speech of bilingual children. Many definitions for this phenomenon involve alternating between languages or even dialects in oral or written communication. According to Woolard (2005), code-switching is a linguistic process in which a speaker uses two or more codes together in one conversation. Gumperz (1982) defines code-switching as "the juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or subsystems" (p. 59). In contrast, Myers Scotten (1990) states that code-switching can occur between more than two languages in a single conversation. Moreover, Hamers and Blance (2000) refer to code-switching as a communication strategy that takes the shape of alternating between two languages inside a one language interaction, which bilingual speakers effectively employ to interact. In this study, the term code-switching is used to refer to the alternating between the two languages (Arabic and English) that occur in the speech of preschool bilingual Saudi children.
Different perspectives of code switching have been studied in relation to language acquisition, such as language interference, language development, and educational code switching. For example, some scholars such as (Offiong & Okon, 2013;Cook, 1991;Skiba, 1997) associate code-switching with language interference because code-switching is typically a process of transferring elements from one language to another at various levels. On the other hand, Arias and Lakshmanan (2005) looked at bilingual children's code-switching from the language development point of view. For example, in a study done by Nakamura (2005) stated that "the balance and quantity of the two languages changed; Japanese increased while English decreased. Consequently, the amount of code-switching also decreased" (p. 1688).
Moreover, several studies, such as those by Backus (2010), Bentahila and Davies (1983), Poplack (1981), and Redouane (2005), studied the code-switching phenomenon from two perspectives, structural and sociolinguistic. Studying code-switching through the structural approach is usually concerned with the grammatical aspects; according to Poplack (1981), grammatical and syntactic approaches classify different types of code-switching according to grammatical criteria, such as inter-sentential intra-sentential switching and tag switching. On the other hand, code-switching has been investigated using the sociolinguistic approach, which looks at code switching as a discourse phenomenon and is concerned to understand how meaning is created in code-switching and the function of code-switching in context (MacSwan, 2000;Alrowais, 2012;Milroy & Wei, 1995;Yamamoto, 2001). In addition, some studies have been concerned with bilingual children, investigating how code-switching may occur in its early stages and how children differentiate between codes (Meisel, 1994;Lindholm & Padilla, 1978).

Code-Switshing Between Arabic and English
According to Al-Hourani and Afizah's (2013) study, "the Arabic-English code-switching phenomenon is widely observed among Arab speakers" (p. 40). Since this phenomenon is widespread among bilingual and multilingual Arab speakers, sociolinguists are curious to understand more about it and the details of its occurrence. There are several reasons for code-switching, such as coherence, social topics, and fondness (Sharaf Eldin, 2014). Alsalami (2021) hypothesized that bilinguals with high-level proficiency switched between Arabic and English more because they found English vocabulary more expressive and helped them deliver their ideas more effectively. Alhourani (2018) argues that there are different communicative functions of Arabic-English code switching among bilinguals, such as showing off, changing topics, or expressing feelings. Although many studies on Arabic-English code switching have been conducted, most of them have not focused on a particular age group of bilingual speakers. Therefore, this paper will investigate the social motivations and the types of Arabic-English code-switching among bilingual Saudi children in their early ages.

Research Aims and Questions
This study aims to determine the occurrence and frequency of code switching among bilingual preschool Saudi children by answering the three questions below. 1) How frequently does code-switching occur among Saudi bilingual children?
2) What are the types of code-switching used by Saudi children?
3) What are the social motivations for using code-switching by bilingual Saudi children?

Research Hypotheses
1) This is study will measure the overall frequency of code-switching within the study sample.
2) Based on several theories which differentiated the types of code-switching according to their occurrence in a sentence, it was hypothesized that two types of code-switching would occur in the speech of this sample, i.e., inter-sentential and intra-sentential.
3) Depending on the results of this research on using code-switching between Arabic and English in the child's speech. It will be discovered some social motivations for the occurrence of code-switching.

Gap of the Study
Most of the studies have not focused on one particular group or specific age of Saudi bilingual speakers. Therefore, it could be argued that there is a lack of studies that have been carried out on code switching among preschool bilingual Saudi children. So this research hopes to fill this gap.

Methodology
This study used both qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques based on the proposed research questions.

Participants
The participants for this study will be four bilingual Saudi children (girls only) between the age of 4 to 6, and they are enrolled in an international school.
The table below indicates the participants' language backgrounds taken from the parental questionnaires.

Research Context
This research was conducted at an international school in Buraidah. It educates children aged four to ten, but this study will only focus on preschool children. The aim of this school is to teach all subjects in English so the children can have enough knowledge to communicate in the English language.

Data Collection and Instruments
Two research instruments will be used for the study: a parental questionnaire and recordings of Arabic and English storytelling sessions.

Parental Questionnaire
The questionnaire (see Appendix A) consisted of four sections was given to the participants' parents. The questionnaire was adapted from Alasmari's (2016) questionnaire and modified to suit the study's purposes and context. The questionnaire aims to collect the most important information about the language background of the study sample and the parents' perspectives about the reasons for the occurrence of code-switch switching in the children's speech. All information provided in this questionnaire, as well as information provided by the participants' parents, was kept confidential and used solely for the purposes of this study.

Storytelling Activity
In this activity, a sequence of five pictures-each addressing a different story-were given to the participants. Then, each participant was instructed to tell a story about what she saw in the picture. In each session, all five pictures were used. This exercise took four sessions. In the first two sessions, participants were asked to tell a story in Arabic, and the other two sessions followed the same instructions, but the participants were asked to tell the story in English instead of Arabic. This activity aims to discover the types of code-switching that could occur, and the recording of these sessions will examine the accordance of code-switching among the participants.

Data Analysis
The analysis of the data includes both qualitative and quantitative methods to devise a valid set of results. The analysis steps were carried out as detailed below.
The first step involved analyzing the parental questionnaire and linguistic profile for each participant. These data allowed the researcher to develop a more complete picture of the language background and preferences of the participants.
In the second step, the data audio recordings were transcribed and coded. Each utterance was analyzed in order ijel.ccsenet.
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Results
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As shown in this graph, the occurrence of inter-sentential code-switching in the participants' utterance was more than intra-sentential code-switching; this could be attributed to the fact that inter-sentential code-switching is not as complex as intra-sentential because it requires a fair degree of fluency in the two languages, whereas intra-sentential requires the same fluency and proficiency in both languages (Poplack, 1981).

Code-Switching to Express Feelings
Based on the parental questionnaire, all parents agree that their children could sometimes switch to express their feelings and thoughts, which is also shown in the storytelling activity. In example 4, Bana started telling a story in Arabic about a girl helping her mother with the laundry, and Seba participated in this story. In (line 5) Bana produced a sentence in English to express her personal feelings towards the picture, although Arabic was the language of the session. The switching from Arabic to English in this example was for the purpose of expressing feelings.

Code Switch to Decrease the Social Distance
Example 4 1) Seba: there was a girl, and that girl loves to cook in the kitchen, she makes a cake and (here) she mixing it with a spoon then she put it in the oven 2) Hmmm, is it chocolate or strawberry cake?
In example 5, Seba was given a picture and asked to tell a story in English about a girl cooking a cake. After the ijel.ccsenet.org International Journal of English Linguistics Vol. 12, No. 6; story, there was a conversation between Seba, Bana, and Alanoud. In this example, Seba successfully told the story in English; at the end, she wondered about the cake flavor, and she asked in English, but no one participated. As a result, she switched to Arabic, as seen in line 3, because she wanted her friends to interact with her. Seba repeated the question in Arabic because she was aware that Arabic was the language preferred by the group members. All the turns that followed the story were in Arabic. It appears that code-switching occurred in order to fill the linguistic gap with a language that the participants were more proficient in.
Changing the code in this example could be seen as a strategy to create alignment. The participant switched to encourage others to participate in the conversation and to decrease the social distance.

Code Switch for the Lack of Equivalence
It was found that code-switching could occur when the speaker has difficulty recalling a target word. In this example, English was the language of the session, and the participants were following the instruction to tell a story in English about the picture. Bana took her turn in this conversation, and then there was a pause for about two seconds. In line 9, Bana switched to Arabic to ask for the English equivalent for ‫,"يغرق"‬ which means "drown".
Bana's code-switching reflects her lack of vocabulary in English as she switched to Arabic to ask her friends about the word in English. That might be because she did not know the word or maybe forgot it. Sert (2005) states that the speaker may employ their first language when they don't know a certain word in the target language, so the child's switching could be attributable to her limited proficiency in English.
In this case, the occurrence of code-switching served the purpose of asking for the equivalent word in the other language.

Discussion
According to the quantitative analysis, code-switching accounted for 22% of the data acquired during the storytelling activity. Of the 77 utterances containing code-switching, 62 (81%) were from English to Arabic, and ijel.ccsenet.org International Journal of English Linguistics Vol. 12, No. 6; only 15 (19%) were from Arabic to English.
Based on the classification of code switching suggested by Poplack, the various types of code switching were analyzed (1980). The results indicated a preference for inter-sentential code switching over intra-sentential code switching, since inter-sentential code switching occurred more frequently than intra-sentential code switching. These results support Alasmari's (2016) conclusion that Saudi bilingual children produced inter-sentential code switching more than intra-sentential code switching. These results can be explained by Poplack's assertion that intra-sentential code switching is more complicated than other types and requires a deeper understanding of the syntactic structure of both languages. She also emphasized that inter-sentential code switching is most prevalent among bilinguals in which one language is dominant over the other. As it appeared that Arabic was the dominating language among the participants, this study supported Poplack's hypothesis. However, this result also contradicted the claims of several studies that intra-sentential code switching occurs more frequently among bilingual children than intra-sentential code switching (e.g., Bader, 1998;Takemoto, 2010).
As for the storytelling activity, Arabic was the participants' preferred language. Participants usually switched to Arabic for specific purposes, such as to decrease social distance, engage others in interaction, make alignment, or ask for equivalence. However, based on the data analysis, it was found that there are three social motivations of Arabic/English code-switching among Saudi preschool children that are used most of the time, i.e., to decrease the social distance, to ask for the equivalent word in other languages, and to express feelings and thoughts. This study concurred with the findings of prior research (e.g., Myers-Scotton, 2002;Bolonyai, 2005) claiming that bilingual children are rational and social actors who choose a specific code deliberately to attain certain social goals in an interaction.

Conclusion
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the social motivations for code-switching among four bilingual Saudi children at an early age. A mixed methods research design was used to investigate the social motivations, types, and frequency of code-switching. For the purpose of the study, two research tools were used: a parental questionnaire and recorded storytelling sessions. Based on the analysis of the data, it was found that code switching accounted for approximately 22% of all utterances. Of the 77 (22%) instances of code switching, 65 (48%) were inter-sentential, and only 12 (16%) were intra-sentential. This could be explained by the fact that intrasentential code switching is more difficult than intersentential code switching since it usually requires a deeper understanding of both languages' grammatical structures (Hammink & McLaughlin, 2000). Furthermore, it was found that there are three communicative functions of Arabic/English code-switching among Saudi preschool children, i.e., to decrease the social distance, ask for the equivalent word in another language, and express feelings and thoughts.

Limitation and Recommendation
Like previous studies, the present study has some limitations that should be considered. First, the results of this study cannot be generalized due to the small sample size of participants. Moreover, because the participants of this study were only girls, the results would be more generalizable if both sexes were included. Second, the number of images used for the storytelling activity were limited. Therefore, it is recommended for future studies to have larger numbers of participants and include both sexes in the study. Also, it is suggested to employ different activities to gather data to obtain more accurate results.