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  • Essay / Code-switching: an essential skill for bilinguals

    Language is the primary way to communicate, learn, and express one's identity. People who are natively proficient in two or more languages ​​or who are simply bilingual establish their identity through code-switching. Code-switching refers to the use of more than language or variety in a conversation. Code-switching is an essential skill for bilinguals. People with mixed cultural identities must master code-switching to show loyalty to more than one cultural or social group. The need to learn code-switching can arise in various situations where people need to become bilingual. There are several reasons to become bilingual. One of them lives in a bilingual community. In her article “From outside in”, Barbara Mellix recounts her childhood in two distinct groups with two different dialects. A group apart from their family and their neighborhood is that of blacks. The other group she speaks “standard English” to is white people. The second reason is colonialism. Chinua Achebe, the well-known African writer, experiences a mixed culture with native Africa and the British colonist....