The Dual Role of Code-Switching in Alejandro Morales's Reto en el paraíso.

This article examines the role of code-switching—the alternating use of Spanish and English—in Alejandro Morales's bilingual novel *Reto en el paraíso* (Challenge in Paradise), highlighting its function as both a narrative technique and a reflection of natural bilingual discourse. Morales, a significant Chicano author, employs code-switching to develop character identity within a bilingual and bicultural context, using language shifts to mark changes in narrative perspective and to authentically reproduce dialogue. The novel features code-switching at multiple linguistic levels, serving social and communicative functions such as lexical specificity, emphasis, clarification, and quotation, thereby enhancing the realism and cultural authenticity of the text. This study situates Morales’s work within the broader tradition of US Latino literature, where code-switching is a vital expressive tool that captures the complex linguistic and cultural realities of bilingual communities.