Why do people use Code-Switching, Code-Mixing, and Code-Meshing?

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Why do people use Code-Switching, Code-Mixing, and Code-Meshing?

There are many reasons that people who are exposed to more than one language or language variety use code-switching and code-mixing.   

Sometimes Ideas are Better Expressed in One Language than Another
Sometimes ideas are better expressed in one language than another for people. This can be due to having the vocabulary in one language but not the other. It can also be that the idea is culturally bound. An example that a friend who spent a lot of time in Bolivia shared was pay de manzana, which translates literally to apple pie but pay de manzana in Bolivia was very different for her than apple pie in New York, so when she was describing her Bolivian experience, she used pay de manzana.

This connection between culture and food is also illustrated in research studies. Peña and colleagues (2002) asked elementary school students to name all of the foods they could think of. They asked students the same question in different languages on different days. What was so cool about this study is that the students gave roughly the same number of items when asked in Spanish and English but they didn’t give the SAME items. In English, the top items included hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries. In Spanish some of the top items included tacos, frijoles (beans) and caldo (soup). This shows how closely tied together language and culture are. It’s not just a different set of words for saying the same thing, it’s a different mode used in different situations.

Languages and Dialects Are Used to Mark Ethnic and Group boundaries
Hall and Nilep (2015) describe the impact of code-switching on ethnic identity.

“Code-switching [is] a product of local speech community identities. Speakers are seen as shifting between ingroup and outgroup language varieties to establish conversational footings informed by the contrast of local vs. non-local relationships and settings.”

Connecting with your people
One of my favorite code-switching features is the “lah” used in Malaysian and Singaporean varieties of English (or Manglish and Singlish, as they are known). These two countries share a long history and the linguistic particle “lah” is something they have maintained despite Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965. The term “lah” can be used to express affirmation, dismissal, exasperation or exclamation in different contexts. But you can’t just stick the word “lah” any old place in a sentence. Those from Singapore and Malaysia cannot always explain what the appropriate use of “lah” is but they can always tell when you don’t use it correctly! Here’s a great article on this if you’re interested in reading more.

Marking in-group (informal) vs out-group (more formal)
The way we speak also has the power to make us feel close to people or in a more formal relationship. This has been well documented. As far back as the early 80’s Genesee (1982) and Bourhis (1983; 1984) studied people’s reactions to different types of code-switching and found that the groups in their studies (English speakers and French Canadian speakers) consistently expressed favoritism toward ingroup language choices.

And there are many other reasons people use code-switching and code-mixing.
These include quoting other people, clarifying or explaining a point a point, adding personality to a comment, emphasizing a point, reflecting your mood, and so on.

Source: https://bilinguistics.com/code-switching-and-code-mixing/