A Descriptive Analysis of Sociocontextual Factors Influencing Code switching Behaviour among University Students

Factors such as social, cultural and institutional which determine code switching behaviour have been neglected in research. Studies on code switching have mainly documented such behaviour by looking at when and how it occurs (Wintner, Shehadi, Zeira, Osmelak & Nov, 2023). The study was conducted at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT), investigating how sociolinguistic factors such as contextual and social identity shape students’ language practices particularly code switching. The sociolinguistic theory by William Lubov (1971) informed the study and the data were collected from 213 university students which were analysed using SPSS version 23 respectively. The results reveal that contextual factors such as norms, cultural practices and formality have a stronger influences as (M = 3.46, SD = 0.62) in comparison to social identity including language preferences and peer interaction (M=2.6, SD = 0.30). These findings present important contribution of sociocontextual factors in code switching practices. However, the contextual factors seem to be more predominant in influencing code switching in ODL context. The study highlights the significance of recognising and accepting sociolinguistic factors in educational setting to enhance communicative skills and stimulate multilingualism and multicultural practices.