Borrowings or code mixes: The presence of lone English nouns in mixed discourse

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyze the presence of English nouns in the discourse of Sinhala-English bilingual speakers in Sri Lanka. In the present analysis, lone English nouns are categorized into code mixes or borrowings depending on the nature of integration into the borrower language. The analysis of single word and multi-word compound nouns in the Sinhala-English corpus is based on the empirical claims and observations made by Muysken (2000).The study will make use of English lexical items most commonly used by Sinhala-English bilinguals. The analysis to distinguish lexical items into borrowings and code mixes is based on Muysken?s (2000) Code mixing typology. Poplack?s (1998) theory of nonce borrowing is also used to distinguish mixes from borrowings. The theory presented by Muysken (2000) is applied to the lone lexical items present most prominently in the discourse of Sinhala- English bilinguals in Sri Lanka to identify code mixes and borrowings. As Code Mixing is an integral part of the contextualization process of English in Sri Lanka, the reasons for acculturation and nativization are also analyzed. The analysis will shed light on the much argued topic whether code mixes are borrowings or not.