Codeswitching in print advertisements in Hong Kong and Sweden

Abstract: The present study focuses on the codeswitching phenomenon in Hong Kong and Swedish print newspaper advertisements. With a contrastive analysis of code-switched advertisements from Hong Kong and Sweden, this paper will also describe the patterns and structures of Cantonese-English and Swedish-English codeswitchings, what are mixed and the reasons why people code-switch. The results show that intra-sentential is the most dominant type of codeswitching and noun phrase is the most codeswitched constituent. Also, codeswitching English in newspapers advertisements has its values as well as limitations. Linguistic and socio-psychological motivation and modernity appear to be strong factors in determining the use of codeswitching.