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This paper is an in-depth analysis of the process of language alternation involving three languages, Erushu, Yoruba and English, in Erushu, Akoko. Language alternation or code- switching/mixing is one of the sociolinguistic approaches to language change in a bilingual community. Structurally, code-mixing takes any of the following forms: Erushu/Yoruba, Erushu/English, Erushu/Yoruba/English, in the community under study. In addition, the social functions of code-mixing in Erushu evident in the data include the following: a referential function, the directive function, and the expressive function. Our findings have revealed that the processes of change are typically much more complex and variable than we had earlier been inclined to assume. The phenomenon of language alternation can have profound consequences for the development of these languages and even for their very existence. It therefore requires a conscious intervention in language use by the community of users. Indeed, this empirical research has once again established that code-mixing is a characteristic of language use in bilingual communities when all the participants in a speech situation share a bilingual background.
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