Advantages of Code Switching

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“As society changes, so does language, and American society has changed enormously in recent decades”(MacNeil 144). United States is one of the most diverse country in the world, American English is also changing periodically. Nowadays, American English is mainly divided into two categories, which are Standard and Nonstandard English. Debate between prescriptivists and descriptivists has begun. Prescriptivists, who support Standard English, argue that English should remain in formal, classic form. Descriptivists, who are opposites, insist that English should change along with the society. Should we only support prescriptivist position or descriptivist position? No. In fact, people would not only use Standard or Nonstandard English, which is not realistic for daily life. Moreover, United States has various dialects, cultures in different regions, people cannot use one language to stand for the whole America. Therefore, Code Switching can help solve this problem. When you communicate with different kinds of people or adapt different situations, choosing which language you need is the most effective way. Therefore, Code Switching is a good solution to adapt different situations because the social environment of the United States is changing constantly. Code Switching makes people more flexible between career development and social contact. Famous radio host Steve Harvey states, “You do have to be bilingual in this country, which means you can be very adept at slang, but you also have to be adept at getting through the job interview” (qtd. in MacNeil 148). Recently, both Standard English and Nonstandard English are important for people. In United States, people are familiar with Standard English because Standard English is the main learning language in most schools. Therefore, most people have learned Standard English, which is a common language for people to

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