Frequency and Direction of Code Switching among High-School Students in Urmia: A Comparative Study

Code switching, as an outcome of linguistic contact, can be seen in most of the multilingual societies. The present field study was conducted in Urmia, a multilingual city of Iran. The purpose of the study was to compare the frequency and direction of code switching among female elementary and high-school students representing high, middle, and low social classes. Applying a non-participant observation method, the required data was extracted from the casual conversations of the students through voice recording. The extracted data was then, exposed to statistical analysis using SPSS software. According to the findings, there was a statistically significant relationship between the direction of code switching and social class of the participants, i.e. the dominant code switching direction among high-class was Fasri-Turkish, while students in the low and middle classes mostly switched in the reverse direction. Furthermore, the results showed no significant relationship between sex and frequency of code switching. Also, no significant relationship was observed between sex and direction of code switching neither.