Khaled Abu-Abbas, Muhammad Badarneh and Wael Zuraiq,
Department of English for Applied Studies, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
Department of English, Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
Abstract
The present study investigates the phenomenon of code switching in the speech of native speakers of Arabic living in the United States. Data is analyzed within the framework of the Matrix-Language Frame Model (MLFM). The speech of two groups with distinct educational levels was recorded in informal situations. The purpose of this study is threefold: (i) considering the syntactic categories of the switches for typological comparison; (ii) the motivations behind code switching are then investigated in light of (i); and (iii) explaining the morphological composite of these switches with reference to the MLFM.