Code-Mixing As a Sociolinguistic Device in Hausa Contemporary Literature

Abstract

Nigeria is a part of sub-Saharan Africa, which has a diverse linguistic system, with many different languages spoken by over 170 million people (Powlak, 1998; Newman, 2000). Hausa language is one of the three major languages. Hausa contemporary literature is popular Hausa literary form of writing that provides reading materials for pleasure and entertainment to the youth. The country has many literary writers in the southern and northern parts. This study looks into the role of code-mixing in some selected Hausa novels from Hausa contemporary literature writers. The study also reviewed some research works that looked into the influence of code-mixing in literary writing. This paper employs a qualitative method for analysing of the selected code-mixing appearing in the three novels. The findings revealed that code-mixing is one of the linguistic devices used for communicative purposes among the characters in the Hausa literary texts.