6th Assignment

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).