CODE SWITCHING
Definition
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”. Richard Nordquist stated that
code-switching is the practice of moving back and forth between two languages
or between two dialects or registers of the same language. In linguistics,
code-switching is the concurrent use of
more than one language, or language variety in conversation.
Multilingual-people who speak more than one language-sometimes use elements of
multiple languages in conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the
use of more than one linguistics variety in manner consistent with syntax and
phonology of each variety. In other simple words code-switching of speakers of
more than two languages can be defined as method of mixing their language during communication. This
phenomenon occurs when bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language
with a phrase or word from another language.
Types
The followings are some types of code-switching:
1.
Inter-sentential
switching occurs outside
the sentence or the clause level (i.e. at sentence or clause boundaries). It is
sometimes called “extra-sentential” switching.
2.
Intra-sentential
switching occurs within
a sentence or a clause.
3.
Tag-switching is the
switching of either a tag phrase or a word, or both, from language-B to
language-A, (common intra-sentential
switches).
4.
Intra-word
switching occurs within
a word, itself, such as at a morpheme boundary.
Functions
Code-switching has been viewed as a strategy to
compensate for diminished language proficiency. The premise behind this theory
is that bilingual’s code-switch because they do not know either language
completely. So the function of code-switching is to make the recipient or hearer understand the idea of what the
speaker is speaking. This argument is also known as semi-lingualism, which
underscores the notion that bilinguals “almost” speak both languages correctly.
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. In popular usage code-switching is sometimes used to
refer to relatively stable informal mixtures of two languages such as Spanglish
or Franponais. Both in popular usage and in sociolinguistic scholarship, the
name code-switching is sometimes used to refer to switching among dialects, style
or registers, such as that practiced by speakers of African American Vernacular
English as they move from less formal to more formal settings.
For example:
I want motorcycle verde.
In this sentence, the English word “green” is replaced
with its Spanish equivalent.
You could ask papi
and mami to see if you could come down.
In this sentence, the English word “father and mother”
are replaced with their Spanish equivalent.
References
Heredia, Roberto R. Brown, Jeffrey
M.____. Code Switching. Texas A
& M International University. Downloaded at http://www.tamiu.edu/~rheredia/switch.htm (Tuesday, May 7, 2012).
Wikipedia. Code-switching. Downloaded at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
(Tuesday, May 7, 2012).
Nordquist,
Richard.____. Code switching.
Downloaded at http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/codeswitchingterm.htm
(Tuesday, May 7, 2012).
Coffey,
Heather.____. Code
Switching. Downloaded at http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4558 (Tuesday, May 7, 2012).
