Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate written mixed-language discourse. Literature provides convincing evidence that in the field of language contact and bilingualism studies written data have always been considered inferior to spoken data. The lack of interest in studying written language to gain wider knowledge of intentional language alternation in written discourse stimulated the present research, which aims to follow the new approach suggested by Sebba, who suggests that visual and spatial elements of particular written language samples should also be included in the study of written mixed-language texts, since they can provide important contextualization cues. The resources for the research to study intentional code-switching/code mixing include one issue of the Bulletin of the Hungarian Community in New Zealand entitled Magyar Szó (Hungarian Word), and two issues from the newspaper Magyar Élet (Hungarian Life) published in Australia by the Hungarian community. I came to the conclusion that purposeful language mixing on behalf of the contributors to the newspaper can be considered deliberate in the sense that their intention must be rational, expedient, and the language choice must have relevance in order for the content of the texts to be successfully communicated.
Keywords: bilingualism, written discourse, language alternation
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