Code-Mixing Patterns of Commercial Advertising in Sri Lanka: With Special Reference to Food and Beverage Advertising

Most advertising is intended to be persuasive to boost the promotion of an idea, product, or service. One marketing strategy employed to influence bilingual consumers is using code-mixed messages. This research aimed to find how code-mixing is employed in Sri Lankan television commercial advertising on food and beverages. The study analyzed code-mixed television commercials on food and beverages to examine morphological processes and code-mixing patterns in their jingles. This research aimed to investigate morphological processes and scrutinize code-mixing patterns utilized in commercial advertising in Sri Lanka. The results revealed that the code-mixed language of television commercials, about morphological processes and code-mixing patterns, identified nominalization, hybridization, alternation, and coinage as highly productive morphological processes employed by advertisers in Sri Lanka. Nativization was found to be less productive. The author confirms that there is no conflict of interest in the study. Creative writers believe Sinhala's English syntactic styles make the marketing message more effective. This is a morphological strategy to attract upper-middle or dominant Sri Lankan English-Sinhala bilinguals.