FACTORS MOTIVATING CODE-MIXING AMONG PALESTINIAN BILINGUAL POST GRADUATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

This study aimed at identifying the main factors that motivate Code-mixing among the M.A. students and graduates who chose Applied Linguistics as their major at An-Najah National University. It also aimed at finding out the differences between the participants responses with respect to the selected variables including age, gender, workplace, student status and years of experience. The selected sample consisted of 32 M.A. regular students and another 22 students who already graduated from the same program. They are either employed for different institutions or have no work at least within the period of distributing the questionnaire. The researchers used an 18-item questionnaire as a tool of the study. The responses elicited from participants were manipulated through using the SPSS package to deduce frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, degrees and significant values. Findings of the study showed that the most frequent motivational factors that stand behind code-mixing were mainly related to speech emphasis, raised topics conformation, addressees understanding of the speech. As for the variables of the study, no statistically significant differences in the means of the participants responses attributed to gender or students status were found. Nevertheless, statistically significant differences attributed to age of the graduate students were found in favor of those above 45 years old.