URDU-ENGLISH CODE-SWITCHING AS A RESOURCE FOR EMOTIONAL INTIMACY AND SURROGATE KINSHIP IN H. M. NAQVI’S HOME BOY

Abstract

This paper examines Urdu-English code-switching in H. M. Naqvi’s Home Boy (2009) as a linguistic resource for expressing emotion and constructing surrogate kinship among Pakistani diasporic characters. The paper is extracted and analytically reorganized from a qualitative thesis that applies Myers-Scotton’s Markedness Model to selected dialogues and narrative passages. The analysis focuses on unmarked and marked code choices, with particular attention to Urdu expressions such as yaar, bhai, and tum log. The findings indicate that unmarked Urdu insertions in familiar and friendship-based interactions provide emotional comfort, humor, reassurance, solidarity, and relational stability. They also transform friendship into kinship-like relationships by communicating loyalty, care, moral obligation, and brotherhood. Marked switching, by contrast, becomes salient during emotional pressure, conflict, fear, vulnerability, or relational strain. Such switching does not necessarily dissolve kinship; rather, it exposes moments in which relationships are tested and renegotiated. The paper argues that code-switching in Home Boy functions as an affective and relational practice rather than merely a stylistic feature of bilingual fiction.