Prototypes of Code-switching in the Speech of Romanian/Arabic Bilinguals in Jordan

This study offers a new look at some linguistic constraints aiming at illustrating the sociolinguistic circumstances of the native Romanian community living in Jordan (ca. 1500 mixed families), the process of code-switching, code-mixing, and borrowing between spoken Romanian and Arabic . It is based on a conversational analytical approach among four Romanian-Arabic bilingual females currently living in Irbid, a city in Northern Jordan. They have a friendly relationship despite the differences in their socio-economic background. The current paper is rather unique in that it is the first study , as far as we know, on shifting between Arabic and Romanian. It is an attempt to elicit information on bilingual communicative norms, language choice patterns, syntactic and semantic prerogatives. It also attempts to trigger effect and attitudes towards the languages in contact. It is also taken into consideration the inexorably field between sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects