Codeswitching
Contents
Definition
The term codeswitching (or code-switching) refers to the alternation between two or more languages, dialects, or language registers in the course of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. Typically one of the two languages is dominant; the major language is often called the matrix language, while the minor language is the embedded language.
- (Code-switching) "occurs when a bilingual introduces a completely unassimilated word from another language into his speech." (Haugen 1956:40)
- "Codeswitching ... is the selection by bilinguals or multilinguals of forms from an embedded variety (or varieties) in utterances of a matrix variety during the same conversation" (Myers-Scotton 1993:3).
Subtypes
Examples
- German-Spanish
- Aber du #sabes que eres, o sea, tú sabes que# du bist gut, zum Beispiel besser in Mathe als in Deutsch. #Eso sabe.
- Aber du weißt, dass du bist, also, du weißt, dass du bist gut, zum Beispiel besser in Mathe als in Deutsch. Das weiß er.
- English-German
- Nein er kam doch erst um neun, #you know?
- Nein er kam doch erst um neun, weißt du?
The first example (from Edel 2007) shows, in its first sentence, a case of intrasentential codeswitching, where the switch occurs between words or phrases (it may also occur within the same word). Both sentences together provide an example of intersentential codeswitching, where the switch occurs between sentence boundaries. The second example illustrated a third (and rarely noted) form of codeswitching, the so called 'tag switches', where a tag phrase from the second language is embedded into the matrix language.
Comments
Codeswitching may be highly marked, depending on the interlocutors' specific social determinants such as age.
The phenomenon is to be differentiated from borrowing. In general, the easiest way to find out whether a word or phrase is a borrowing in a given language is to determine whether the word is used by monolinguals of that language or not: Code switches are used exclusively by bilingual speakers.
The terms codeswitching and 'code mixing' are oftentimes used synonymously, though 'code mixing' is often used for intrasentential codeswitching only.
Matrix Language and Embedded Language
In code switching situations one distinguishes between two types of languages the matrix language and the embedded language. The matrix language is the language that is dominantly used during a conversation and the one whose grammar is - in most cases - applied to the overall sentence structure. The embedded language is the one from which switches may originate from. Some code switching models supply with functions that allow identifying the matrix language, though it seems that any formula to test which language is the matrix language lack final validity. Models like the one of Muysken (2000) even consider the differentiation into matrix and embedded language unnecessary.
All forms of borrowings complicate the evaluation, since the source of a borrow is likely to have been a code switch some time ago. The constraint for a borrowing is that it has to be used by monolinguals of a given language and that it has, at least slightly, been adapted to the phonetics of the language. However, since some linguists argue that this process happens gradually some forms of borrowings cannot be easily distinguished. The only valid test literature provides is frequency, borrowings occur much more frequent than code switches.
History of code switching
Strictly speaking code switching is a phenomenon known since the early twentieth century, when the first recognizable observations concerning bilingual research were recorded (Ronjat 1913, and later Leopold 1939-49). Code switching – for decades of the nineteeth century - did not enter any recognizable attention beside the mere awareness of the phenomenon. For the entire first half of the twentieth century and large parts of the second half, code switching was considered something that occurred randomly without a logical pattern behind it, despite a lack of knowledge in one language of a bilingual speaker.
The perspective upon code switching began to change in the nineteen seventies when Blom and Grumperz (1986) published an article in which they presented a survey of their studies of a specific northern Norway village. Blom and Grumperz discovered that members of the village spoke two dialects of Norwegian, and used them according to specific situations. In the years following more scholars conducted research regarding the systematic character of code switching. From the late seventies until today there still is a lively debate going on, producing various models predicting code switching. Among the models designed, there is not a single one that could claim universal validity, though all achieve validity in some specific field.
Types of code switching and reasons for code switching
It was, finally, assumed that there must be reason for the phenomenon of code-switching. One of the first and most canonical categorisations stems from Appel and Muysken (1987); they distinguish between five categories that present reasons for speakers to switch in code:
- Referential function
- Directive function
- Expressive function
- Phatic function
- Metalinguistic function
Speakers will use the referential function in order to compensate for lacks in knowledge in the matrix language of the conversation. This may be either due to the lack of the right words in the matrix language or due to the intention to avoid a lack of fluency in speech flow. The directive function explains a situation in which a speaker either wants to associate or dissociate with ones interlocutors. The phatic function signals a change in tone of the current speech situation. The metalinguistic function occurs when speakers comment on a specific feature of a language by using the other language. Although the model covers some functions it cannot really answer the question why speakers use code switching. In their study about Ranamål and Bokmål, the two variants spoken in the mentioned example in northern Norway, Blom and Gumperz argue that there are mainly two functions of code switching: Situational and metaphorical code switching.
The question for the reasons why speakers switch codes was focussed by Psychologists like Howard Giles (Giles 1973) who designed on an audience centred approach. Giles states that speakers code switch in order to either
a.) Associate with the interlocutor
or
b.) Dissociate from the interlocutor.
The underlying assumption is that an audience will evaluate a speaker more beneficial who tries to put effort into showing his ties to an audience, while they will dislike those who clearly show their disparity with the audience. Finally there are approaches that do not focus on audiences but analyse code switching as something done out of pragmatic reasons.
Structural models of code switching
There are four mayor fields focussing on the structure of code switching.
- descriptive accounts (Timm, 1975; Pfaff, 1979)
- accounts involving surface constraints and a third grammar for code switching (Poplack, 1980; Sankoff and Poplack, 1981)
- principle-based accounts involving special mechanisms (Belazi et al., 1994; Bentahila and Davies, 1983; Di Sciullo et al., 1986; Joshi, 1985; woolford, 1983)
- principle-based accounts without code switching sepecific mechanisms and constraints (Mahootian, 1993, 1996a, 1996b; Myers-Scotton, 1993)
Descriptive accounts were the answer to linguists proposing that code switching does only occur randomly and without any prediction. Timm and Pfaff were able to proof specific rules for code switches such as the constraint disallowing switches that would violate the surface word order of either matrix language or embedded language. The three grammar approach states that bilingual speaker must not only inherit one grammar for each language but a third, code switching grammar, as well. There are a range of principle-based approaches as for example Di Scullio et al.'s 'government constraint' stating that elements in a government relation have to be in the same language and none of them may be code switched. Finally there are principle-based accounts with no special mechanisms, that rely on general principles of sentence structure rather than on specific code-switching rule, as for example 'the head-compliment principle model'.
As mentioned earlier every model has faced criticism, some models , for example, are not able to predict code switches in dissimilar languages others may serve this function very well but have deficiencies on other parts. The only model that is not affected by criticism on a larger scale is that of Muysken (2000) as it tries to incorporate all previous models into one coherent model, thereby focusing more on sociolinguistic aspect than on structural grammar.
Origin
Apparently the term was first used by Einar Haugen (e.g. Haugen 1956).
References
- Haugen, Einar. 1956. Bilingualism in the Americas: A bibliography and research guide. Montgomery: University of Alabama Press.
- Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1993. Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Other languages
German Sprachwechsel, Codewechsel, Codeswitching (de)
