Identity Construction through Code-switching: An Analysis of Novel How It Happened by Shazaf Fatima Haider

Abstract

This paper investigates the various societal values and designs for which code-switching, hybridization, and echo words are employed by the characters of Shazaf Fatima Haider’s novel How it Happened. A methodological framework for this investigation has been adapted from Coulmas (2005), Myers-Scotton (1993; 1996; 2006), Albakray and Hancock (2008), and Thornborrow (2004). The results reveal that code-switching is a purposive and preconceived literary device employed by the bilingual author to show the construction and depiction of various cultural, social, and religious identities and acculturation. The study concludes that code-switching in the selected text portrays the communal customs of contingent social order along with demonstrating the author’s ingenious and artistic caliber.