The Impact of Bangla-English Code-Switching in Advertisement Posters

Abstract

This study examines Bangla-English code-switching depicted on the advertisement posters in Bangladesh because of their widespread use where the role of language choice and language use carries a major significance in both socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts. A significant number of studies can be found on both code-switching and its impact on advertisement posters but the sociolinguistic impact of code-switching between Bangla and English in the advertisement posters of Bangladesh is yet to be explored. This prompted the researchers to explore the attitude of the stakeholders towards such application in order to define the impact of code-switching from the socio-cultural perspective. The study also investigates the influence of English embedded code-switching, where Bangla is a matrix language, in the relationship between language and economy. A total of 29 participants from all the stakeholders, i.e., the sellers, consumers, and producers, were chosen through judgment sampling to participate in this study. This study applies qualitative structure and introduces carefully designed open ended semi-structured questionnaires for interviewing all the stakeholders. After analyzing the data thematically on the basis of multiple perspectives, it was found that code-switching impacts the language, society, and economy of Bangladesh. Interestingly, a significant portion of the participants connected it with English language learning in both inside and outside of classroom contexts.