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- Functions of code-switching in multilingual student communityPublication . Prelovskaia, Irina; Conceição, Manuel CélioThe aim of the present study is to identify the functions of code-switching in multilingual communication occurring between international exchange university students. Particularly, this study will consider the use of code-switching between English, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian in so-called “temporary language community” of international students within formal and informal settings. In order to achieve this goal, we carried out the investigation which consisted of two stages: applying questionnaire and recording interviews and group discussions. Firstly, we designed and applied an online questionnaire aimed at getting the basic biographical information of participants, overall attitude of exchange students to code-switching, their personal experience and linguistic background. The total of 62 persons answered the questionnaire (completely and partially). Afterwards, we analyzed the results of questionnaire with the help of the Qualtrics online software. As the questionnaire data showed, students more often switch to other languages consciously, to achieve a certain stylistic or pragmatic effect. At the same time, being very tired, anxious or stressed, the students do not realize that they include in their speech units of another language, thus doing it unconsciously. Secondly, we tape-recorded interviews and group discussions with some exchange students who participated in the questionnaire. The instances of code-switching observed in interviews and discussions were analyzed within the Myers-Scotton's Markedness model (1993), thus examples of marked, unmarked and sequential unmarked code-switching were identified. Besides, such specific functions of code-switching were identified: clarification, social/expressing solidarity, topic-related switching, expressing humor/irony, quotation were identified mainly as marked code-switching explained by conscious choice, while lack of lexical item, saving speech and effort and expressing emotions were identified as unmarked thus unconscious code-choice followed by a speaker in a conversation. It was also identified that exchange students mostly code-switch to save time and speech efforts and for topic-related switching. In addition to that, English and Portuguese turned out to be the most frequently used languages for switching in a daily communication of international university students.