The Use of Code-Switching in the Kurdish Television Advertisements

Abstract

The current study investigates the use of code-switching in Kurdish television advertisements, evaluating its occurrence, kinds, and television advertising managers’ perspectives on the matter. The rationale behind conducting this study is that globalization has a great influence on the increase of multilingualism in Kurdish society, especially within the context of mass media. The frequency, types, and reasons for using code-switching in Kurdish television advertisements had not been practically investigated before, so its functions in keeping a balance between globalization and cultural identity had not been sufficiently explored. This study draws on both qualitative and quantitative approaches in the process of data collection and data analysis. It is qualitative for administrating an interview and analyzing the phenomena of code-switching in television advertisements, and it is quantitative for determining the frequency of code-switching and their types in the employed corpus. The interview section is held with 10 television advertising managers, and 21 video transcripts of television advertisements are analyzed. As a result, the findings demonstrate that code-switching is applied to hook various viewers, expand clearness, and mirror modernity. Simultaneously, influential considerations are increased regarding the use of code-switching on Kurdish language conversation. As a result, the study found that inter-sentential switching is the most common type of code-switching among the three primary types of code-switching, television advertising managers use code-switching for several important reasons, to attract audiences, simplify messages, and show modernity. It revealed the conflict between globalization’s impact (via bilingualism and multilingualism) and cultural identity.