The article investigates the phenomenon of code-switching among bilingual speakers – Polish students studying English Philology who switch to English by inserting English words, phrases and even whole sentences while speaking their mother tongue Polish. The study is based on the questionnaire and aims at determining the various reasons and functions of code-switching (CS), the attitudes and the factors which either facilitate or impede its occurrence. The study demonstrates that code-switching constitutes an indispensable part in the respondents’ daily interactions although their attitudes, functions and factors which determine the incidence of code-switching are miscellaneous and vary considerably.

On January 14, 2011, Zayn al-‘Ābidīn Bin ‘Alī resigned, left Tunisia and took refuge in Saudi Arabia following the revolts born in Sīdi Būzīd after the suicide of Bū-‘Azīzī. The Arab Spring in Tunisia was not a popular uprising perpetrated by the lower class and the unemployed young people: the committees of the lawyers and the magistrates who joined the protests, proved the active participation of the middle class. However, the Revolution did not alleviate the popular unrest, and it did not reduce the social imbalances. The diastratic varieties, already existing before the Revolution, are the linguistic reflection of the social situation. After 2011 the main actors of the protests, proceeding from the lowest and youngest class, came back to the Ḥū ma, the ghetto, in which anger and frustration flourish. The description of the life in the Ḥūma, has become the main topic of many songs written by the new generation of Tunisian artists who sing in the slang of the lower class. Despite they proceed from the upper class, they have become the spokesmen of the malaise that hovers in the poor neighborhoods. Guerrero (2012) analysed linguistically Rāyǝs lǝ-Blād, a song by the Tunisian rapper El Général, appeared on internet on February 8th, 2011, few days before the escape of Bǝn ԑAlī. Rāyǝs lǝ-Blād is an example of the artistic denunciation of the political oppression and the social degradation. The songs of artists such as Kafon, Hamzaoui Med Amin and Balti, which appeared after the Revolution instead, are not acts of protest, they just represent the ordinary life of the ūlād ǝl-Ḥūma in the ghetto. What linguistic dynamics are put in place by these singers? After a historical-etymological reconstruction related to the word Ḥūma, it will be shown how this group of artists practiced, on the one hand, the divergence with respect to the prestigious variety of the capital, on the other, the convergence towards the language of the tunisian poorest class.

The article presents the results of a sociolinguistic study of surzhyk in the speech of residents of the North‑Eastern region of Ukraine. The focus is on the main trends of communicative possibilities of surzhyk and its functional features in the situation of a multi‑code. It was found that the conscious use of surzhyk speech is a characteristic primarily of young speakers, who are able to realise its irregularity and use for a certain purpose, although in a limited range of situations. In situations of family communication, they use surzhyk as their ‘home language’. Such behaviour can also be a sign of a certain communicative ‘game’ when the speaker uses any language ‘image’ adapted to the specific needs of language communication. A diachronic analysis of the functional capabilities of surzhyk made it possible to reveal, on the one hand, its gradual ‘ageing’ as a functional first language, and on the other hand, its ‘getting younger’ as a conventional stylistic marker. Besides, its increased frequency in extra‑family communication has been recorded, which may indicate a gradual transition of the Russian‑speaking residents of Sumy to Ukrainian‑speaking forms of behaviour.