In the 1940s and 1950s, many scholars considered code-switching to be a sub-standard use of
language.[7] Since the 1980s, however, most scholars have come to regard it as a normal,
natural product of bilingual and multilingual language use.[8][9]
The term "code-switching" is also used outside the field of linguistics. Some scholars of
literature use the term to describe literary styles which include elements from more than one
language, as in novels by Chinese-American, Anglo-Indian, or Latino writers.[10] In popular
usage, code-switching is sometimes used to refer to relatively stable informal mixtures of two
languages, such as Spanglish, Franponais or Portuol.[11] Both in popular usage and in
sociolinguistic study, the name code-switching is sometimes used to refer to switching among
dialects, styles or registers, as practiced by speakers of African American Vernacular English
as they move from less formal to more formal settings.[12]
Social motivations
Code-switching relates to, and sometimes indexes social-group membership in bilingual and
multilingual communities. Some sociolinguists describe the relationships between code-
switching behaviours and class, ethnicity, and other social positions.[13] In addition, scholars in
interactional linguistics and conversation analysis have studied code-switching as a means of
structuring speech in interaction.[14][15][16] Some discourse analysts, including conversation
analyst Peter Auer, suggest that code-switching does not simply reflect social situations, but
that it is a means to create social situations.[17]
Markedness model
The Markedness Model, developed by Carol Myers-Scotton, is one of the more complete
theories of code-switching motivations. It posits that language users are rational, and choose
to speak a language that clearly marks their rights and obligations, relative to other speakers,
in the conversation and its setting.[18] When there is no clear, unmarked language choice,
speakers practice code-switching to explore possible language choices. Many sociolinguists,
however, object to the Markedness Models postulation that language-choice is entirely
rational.[19][20]
Sequential analysis
Scholars of conversation analysis such as Peter Auer and Li Wei argue that the social
motivation behind code-switching lies in the way code-switching is structured and managed
in conversational interaction; in other words, the question of why code-switching occurs
cannot be answered without first addressing the question of how it occurs. Using conversation
analysis (CA), these scholars focus their attention on the sequential implications of code-
switching. That is, whatever language a speaker chooses to use for a conversational turn, or
part of a turn, impacts the subsequent choices of language by the speaker as well as the hearer.
Rather than focusing on the social values inherent in the languages the speaker chooses
("brought-along meaning"), the analysis concentrates on the meaning that the act of code-
switching itself creates ("brought-about meaning").[14][19]
Diglossia
In a diglossic situation, some topics and situations are better suited to the use of one language
over another. Joshua Fishman proposes a domain-specific code-switching model[21] (later
refined by Blom and Gumperz)[22] wherein bilingual speakers choose which code to speak
depending on where they are and what they are discussing. For example, a child who is a
bilingual Spanish-English speaker might speak Spanish at home and English in class, but
Spanish at recess.[23]
Types of switching
Scholars use different names for various types of code-switching.
Intersentential switching occurs outside the sentence or the clause level (i.e. at
sentence or clause boundaries).[24] It is sometimes called "extrasentential" switching.
[25]
In Assyrian-English switching one could say, "Ani wideili. What happened?"
("Those, I did them. What happened?").[26]
Tag-switching is the switching of either a tag phrase or a word, or both, from one
language to another, (common in intra-sentential switches).[24] In Spanish-English
switching one could say, "l es de Mxico y as los criaron a ellos, you know." ("He's
from Mexico, and they raise them like that, you know.")[28]
Grammatical theories
In studying the syntactic and morphological patterns of language alternation, linguists have
postulated specific grammatical rules and specific syntactic boundaries for where code-
switching might occur.
David Sankoff and Shana Poplack's model of code-switching is the most thorough in
accounting for alternational code-switching.[28] In this model, code-switching is subject to two
constraints. The free-morpheme constraint stipulates that code-switching cannot occur
between a lexical stem and bound morphemes. Essentially, this constraint distinguishes code-
switching from borrowing. Generally, borrowing occurs in the lexicon, while code-switching
occurs at either the syntax level or the utterance-construction level.[1][2][3] The equivalence
constraint predicts that switches occur only at points where the surface structures of the
languages coincide, or between sentence elements that are normally ordered in the same way
by each individual grammar.[28] For example, the sentence: "I like you porque eres simptico"
("I like you because you are nice") is allowed because it obeys the syntactic rules of both
Spanish and English.[29] Cases like the noun phrases the casa white and the blanca house are
ruled out because the combinations are ungrammatical in at least one of the languages
involved. Spanish noun phrases are made up of determiners, then nouns, then adjectives,
while the adjectives come before the nouns in English noun phrases. The casa white is ruled
out by the equivalence constraint because it does not obey the syntactic rules of English, and
the blanca house is ruled out because it does not follow the syntactic rules of Spanish.[28]
Critics cite weaknesses of Sankoff and Poplack's model. The free-morpheme and equivalence
constraints are insufficiently restrictive, meaning there are numerous exceptions that occur.
For example, the free morpheme constraint does not account for why switching is impossible
between certain free morphemes. The sentence: "The students had visto la pelcula italiana"
("The students had seen the Italian movie") does not occur in Spanish-English code-
switching, yet the free-morpheme constraint would seem to posit that it can.[30] The
equivalence constraint would also rule out switches that occur commonly in languages, as
when Hindi postpositional phrases are switched with English prepositional phrases like in the
sentence: "John gave a book ek larakii ko" ("John gave a book to a girl"). The phrase ek
larakii ko is literally translated as a girl to, making it ungrammatical in English, and yet this is
a sentence that occurs in English-Hindi code-switching despite the requirements of the
equivalence constraint.[28] The Sankoff and Poplack model only identifies points at which
switching is blocked, as opposed to explaining which constituents can be switched and why.
[28]
This section may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve
this section to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details.
The talk page may contain suggestions. (November 2013)
The Matrix Language Hypothesis states that those grammatical procedures in the central
structure in the language production system which account for the surface structure of the
Matrix Language + Embedded Language constituent (linguistics) are only Matrix Language
based procedures. Further, the hypothesis is intended to imply that frame-building precedes
content morpheme insertion. A Matrix Language can be seen as the first language of the
speaker or the language in which the morphemes or words are more frequently used in
speech, so the dominant language is the Matrix Language and the other is the Embedded
Language. Also, a Matrix Language island is a constituent composed entirely of Matrix
Language morphemes.[31]
The Matrix Language also blocks an Embedded Language content morpheme in these
constituents if it is not congruent with a Matrix Language content morpheme
counterpart in terms of the theta role assignment.
Examples
1. life ko face kiijiye with himmat and faith in apane aap. (Code-switching) "Face life
with courage and faith in self." (Translation) (Hindi/English)
2. hata wengine nasikia washawekwa cell. (Code-switching) "Even others I heard were
put [in] cells." (Translation) (Swahili/English)
We see that example 1 is consistent with the Blocking Hypothesis and the system content
morpheme criteria, so the prediction is that the Hindi equivalents are also content morphemes.
Sometimes non-congruence between counterparts in the Matrix Language and Embedded
Language can be circumvented-by accessing bare forms. "Cell" is a bare form and so the
thematic role of "cell" is assigned by the verb -wek- 'put in/on'; this means that the verb is a
content morpheme.
The Embedded Language Island Trigger Hypothesis states that when an Embedded Language
morpheme appears which is not permitted under either the Matrix Language Hypothesis or
Blocking Hypothesis, it triggers the inhibition of all Matrix Language accessing procedures
and completes the current constituent as an Embedded Language island. Embedded Language
islands consist only of Embedded Language morphemes and are well-formed by Embedded
Language grammar, but they are inserted in the Matrix Language frame. Therefore,
Embedded Language islands are under the constraint of Matrix Language grammar.
The practice of moving back and forth between two languages or between two dialects or
registers of the same language. Also called code-mixing.
Code switching (CS) occurs far more often in conversation than in writing.
History of code-switching
In 1977, Carol Myers-Scotton and William Ury identified code-switching as the use of two
or more linguistic varieties in the same conversation or interaction.1 That year, a small group
of parents at Martin Luther King Elementary School sued the Ann Arbor School District
Board claiming their children were not receiving equal educational opportunities because they
were not being taught to use the Standard English language.2 This case established the
legitimacy of African American Language (AAL) within a legal framework and mandated
the Ann Arbor School District teach children, using their home languages, how to read in the
Standard English.3 Later, in 1996, a major lawsuit in California generated the Oakland
Ebonics Resolution, which recognized AAL/African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as
the primary language of the African American students in the district and required that this
language be used to assist those students to acquire and master Standard English.
Primarily due to these mandates, sociolinguists began to engage in more thorough research on
Black English4, AAVE, and AAL and the similarities in structure and grammar to Standard
English. Subsequently, many large school districts (i.e. Los Angeles, CA) created programs
to address the needs of the students who used these dialects in order to facilitate the
acquisition of Standard English.
Amanda Godley, Julie Sweetland, and Rebecca Wheeler define dialect as a variety of a
language that is associated with a particular regional or social group and maintain that dialect
does not mean a lesser, informal, or ungrammatical way of speaking.5 The authors propose
that scientific research on language demonstrates that standard dialects are not linguistically
better by any objective measures; they are socially preferred simply because they are the
language varieties used by those who are most powerful and affluent in a society.6 Godley,
Sweetland, and Wheeler document several studies that have demonstrated how teachers
underestimate or overlook the linguistic abilities of speakers of African American Vernacular
English (AAVE), Puerto Rican English, and other vernacular dialects. Even though
researchers have documented the extent of such students linguistic repertoires and their
awareness of code-switching and style-shifting in various social contexts, they are still looked
upon negatively by many educators. Furthermore, those teachers who have a negative opinion
of students who use AAVE or other vernacular English dialects often contribute to those
students oppositional view of schooling.
Deric Greene and Felicia Walker maintain that [Code-switching] can involve the alternation
between two different languages, two tonal registers, or a dialectical shift within the same
language such as Standard English and Black English.7 Greene and Walker also argue that
code-switching is a linguistic tool and a sign of the participants awareness of alternative
communicative conventions.8 Furthermore, code-switching has been described as a strategy
at negotiating power for the speaker and reflects culture and identity and promotes
solidarity.9
In the nations public schools, standardized test scores consistently reveal that African
American students are performing at significantly lower rates than their white peers. Rebecca
Wheeler and Rachel Swords contend that these students are failing the tests not because of the
content of the tests, but because they experience great difficulties understanding the language
of the test questions.10 African American children often speak in vernacular English and do
not realize the differences between the patterns of how they speak and those of Standard
English.
Rebecca Wheeler suggests that teaching through a traditional language arts lens treats African
American and other language minority students as being in the deficit paradigm. An insight
from linguistics offers a way out of this labyrinth: Students using vernacular language are not
making errors, but instead are speaking or writing correctly following the language patterns of
their community.11
Code Switching:
Use of 2 or more varieties in one conversation. From one word to several minutes.
Words borrowed into another language and adapted to suit the sound and grammar
patterns of the native language. Languages vary in their borrowing of words. English is
regarded as a language that has borrowed heavily from other languages. Statistics show
that 75% of the English lexicon is of foreign origin.
The case in Arabic: Arabic has flooded the vocabularies of Persian and Turkish for
centuries.Yet it received little in return. Arabic words in Persian are estimated at 50%.
Some Examples of Arabic Words in English:
checkmate comes from the Arabic and Persian shah mat, meaning "the king is dead"
lute comes from Old French lut which is itself from the Arabic al-ud
The word admiral borrowed directly from Arabic amiral, meaning "commander of"
Giraffe
In general, the influence of French is evident in the domains of furniture, art, cars and
fashion; whereas in the domain of technology, English is the sole source of influence.
(villa - salon - Jeans - motor - Casual - Jacket )