Code-switching: Difference between revisions

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In [[linguistics]], '''code-switching''' or '''language alternation''' occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more [[language]]s, or [[language varieties]], in the context of a single conversation or situation{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}. These alternations are generally intended to influence the relationship between the speakers, for example, suggesting that they may share identities based on similar linguistic histories.
 
Code-switching is different from [[plurilingualism]] in that plurilingualism refers to the ability of an individual to use multiple languages,<ref name="Council of Europe">{{Cite web |title=Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR) |url=https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/home |access-date=2022-11-16 |website=Council of Europe |language=en-GB}}</ref> while code-switching is the act of using multiple languages together. [[Multilingualism|Multilinguals]] (speakers of more than one language) sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the [[syntax]] and [[phonology]] of each variety.
 
Code-switching may happen between [[Sentence (linguistics)|sentences]], [[sentence fragments]], [[word]]s, or [[Morpheme|individual morphemes]] (in [[synthetic language]]s). However, some linguists consider the [[Loanword|borrowing]] of words or morphemes from another language to be different from other types of code-switching.<ref name="Poplack-2018">{{Cite book |last=Poplack |first=Shana |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/986237047 |title=Borrowing: Loanwords in the Speech Community and in the Grammar |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2018 |isbn=978-0-19-025637-1 |___location=New York, NY |oclc=986237047}}</ref><ref name="Darrin-2017">{{Cite web |last=Darrin |date=2017-10-05 |title=Code -Switching & Lexical Borrowing |url=https://educationalresearchtechniques.com/2017/10/06/code-switching-lexical-borrowing/ |access-date=2022-11-30 |website=Educational Research Techniques |language=en-US}}</ref>
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*{{Cite journal |doi=10.1044/0161-1461(2005/025) |last1=Kohnert |first1=K. |author2=Yim, D. |author3=Nett, K. |author4=Duran, P. F. |author5=Duran, L. |year=2005 |title=Intervention with linguistically diverse preschool children: A focus on developing home language(s) |journal=Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools |volume=36 |pages=251–63 |issue=3|pmid=16175888 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last1=Brice |first1=A. |last2=Brice |first2=R. |date= 2009 |title=Language development: Monolingual and bilingual acquisition |___location=Old Tappan, NJ |publisher=Merrill/Prentice Hall}}</ref>
 
In popular usage and in sociolinguistic study, the term code-switching is frequently used to refer to switching among [[dialect]]s, [[style-shifting|styles]] or [[Register (sociolinguistics)|registers]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Demby |first1=Gene |date=3 April 2013 |title=How Code-Switching Explains The World |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/08/176064688/how-code-switching-explains-the-world |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200212152602/https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/08/176064688/how-code-switching-explains-the-world |archive-date=12 February 2020 |access-date=20 September 2016}}</ref> This form of switching is practiced, for example, by speakers of [[African American Vernacular English]] as they move from less formal to more formal settings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=DeBose |first=Charles |title=Codeswitching |publisher=Multilingual Matters |year=1992 |isbn=978-1-85359-167-9 |editor-last=Eastman |editor-first=Carol |___location=Clevedon |pages=157–167 |chapter=Codeswitching: Black English and Standard English in the African-American linguistic repertoire|journal=Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development |volume=13 |issue=1–2 |doi=10.1080/01434632.1992.9994489}}</ref> Such shifts, when performed by public figures such as politicians, are sometimes criticized as signaling [[Authenticity (philosophy)|inauthenticity]] or insincerity.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kanngieser |first=Anja |year=2012 |title=A sonic geography of voice: Towards an affective politics |journal=Progress in Human Geography |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=336–353 |doi=10.1177/0309132511423969 |s2cid=143836366}}</ref>
 
The term "code-switching" is also used outside the field of linguistics. Informally, ''code-switching'' is sometimes used to refer to relatively stable informal [[Code-mixing#As fused lect|mixtures of two languages]], such as [[Spanglish]], [[Taglish]], or [[Hinglish]].<ref name="Zentella" /> Some scholars of literature use the term to describe literary styles that include elements from more than one language, as in novels by Chinese-American, Anglo-Indian, or Latino writers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Torres |first=Lourdes |title=In the Contact Zone: Code-Switching Strategies by Latino/a Writers |journal=MELUS |volume=32 |year=2007 |pages=75–96 |issue=1 |doi=10.1093/melus/32.1.75}}</ref>
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1) '''''Llegamos a los Estados Unidos en los 60s.''''' We came to New York in the 60s.
 
"'''We arrived in the United States in the 60s'''. We came to New York in the 60s.<nowiki>''</nowiki>
 
2) Code-switching among bilinguals '''''ha sido la fuente de numerosas investigaciones.'''''
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1) '''''El estudiante leyó el libro en el''''' reference room.
 
'''"The student read the book in the''' reference room.<nowiki>''</nowiki>
 
2) I met up with m''y '''compadres''''' at the '''''fiesta''.'''
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Many consider code-switching harmful to the classroom, especially for particular populations of students whose first language may not be the language of the country they reside. Code-switching is considered by some as a racist pedagogy that upholds the structure of domination of the English language. This is because code-switching encourages a monolingual classroom which prevents students from thinking or speaking in ways that come easiest to them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams-Farrier |first=Bonnie J |title=Talkin' bout good & bad' pedagogies: Code-switching vs. comparative rhetorical approaches |date=2017 |publisher=College Composition and Communication 69.2 |pages=230–259 |language=English}}</ref>
 
Instead many prefer the alternative of code-meshing, where all languages and dialects are valued equally. This pedagogy celebrates and encourages students to use their primary language to diversify and improve their school work without limiting them to a singular language. It exposes students to more cultures in an unfiltered way.<ref>{{Cite journal |lastname="Young |first=Vershawn Ashanti |date=-2009 |title="Nah, We Straight": An Argument Against Code Switching |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20866886 |journal=JAC |volume=29 |issue=1/2 |pages=49–76 |jstor=20866886 |issn=2162-5190}}</ref>
 
Some teachers consider code-switching useful in the classroom because it helps students who do not speak standard English as their first language feel more welcomed in the class and also learn the material more easily. It also helps with learning a new language since it allows students to guess what words in another language mean outside of the context that is given in their native language. One of the challenges with code-switching is that teachers have to consider that if they code-switch or otherwise use more than one language in their classroom, they have to ensure that the students truly understand what the content is in the different language. To do so, teachers often lessen the amount of material that they cover, teaching their students only the basics and allowing them to learn the rest by themselves.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Nurhamidah |url=http://usnsj.com/index.php/JEE |title=Code-Switching in EFL Classroom: Is It Good or Bad |last2=Fauziati |first2=Endang |last3=Supriyadi |first3=Salmet |publisher=Journal of English Education |year=2018 |pages=81 |language=English |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812082847/http://usnsj.com/index.php/JEE |archive-date=12 August 2022}}</ref>
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Code-switching can pressure students to conform to one language over another.<ref name="Goldstein-2005" /> For some students it can lead to a feeling of disconnection to their own culture, and that those students are betraying their culture by learning English over their mother tongue. Being a non-native speaker in a foreign country can lead to total isolation due to the inability to communicate. There is this sense of feeling lost and many feel the need to hide their cultural identity.<ref name="Weinreich" /> Many educators have argued that in a classroom, all cultures should be celebrated and students should feel like they are fully accepted and valued for who they are.<ref name="Goldstein-2005" />
 
Code-switching is very common in classrooms of multiple languages for many different purposes. <ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nguyen |first1=Nhan Trong |last2=Grainger |first2=Peter |last3=Carey |first3=Michael |date=2016-07-01 |title=Code-switching in English language education: Voices from Vietnam |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&issn=17992591&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA461970608&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=Theory and Practice in Language Studies |language=English |volume=6 |issue=7 |pages=1333–1341|doi=10.17507/tpls.0607.01|s2cid=53352987}}</ref>
 
== Code-switching in remote settings ==
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=== African-American English and Standard English ===
Children growing up in African American communities, who natively speak [[African-American Vernacular English]] (AAVE), acquire a kind of bilingualism (or bidialectism) when entering mainstream American classrooms. Teachers and academic expectations they encounter require them to use [[standard English|standard]], [[Prestige (sociolinguistics)|higher-prestige]] linguistic features for school assignments and classroom participation, often effectively leading these students to develop an ability to code-switch rapidly between [[Nonstandard dialect|nonstandard]] AAVE and standard English features. This can pose a processing obstacle for some students who have to navigate subtle grammatical differences between the two varieties of English when interpreting prompts and instructions (see, e.g., Terry, et al., 2010 on past tense copula ''was/were'').<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Terry |first1=J.M. |last2=Hendrick |first2=R. |last3=Evangelou |first3=E. |last4=Smith |first4=R.L. |title=Variable dialect switching among African American children: Inferences about working memory |journal=Lingua |date=October 2010 |volume=120 |issue=10 |pages=2463–2475 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2010.04.013|s2cid=14121386 |url=http://opus.bath.ac.uk/20595/1/Dialect_Switching.pdf }}</ref><ref>Mills, Monique T. & Julie A. Washington. 2015. Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context. In Jennifer Bloomquist, [[Lisa Green (linguist)|Lisa J. Green]] & [[Sonja Lanehart|Sonja L. Lanehart]] (eds.), ''The Oxford Handbook of African American Language''. Oxford University Press. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199795390.013.22</nowiki> <nowiki>http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199795390.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199795390-e-22</nowiki> (10 June 2020).</ref><ref>Washington, Julie A, Nicole Patton Terry, Mark S Seidenberg & others. 2013. Language variation and literacy learning: The case of African American English. ''Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders''. Guilford Press New York, NY 204–221.</ref> Age is a significant factor in determining how many AAVE forms vs. more standard forms are produced by a given student with a significant downshift in classroom AAVE production occurring around the transition from preschool to kindergarten and first grade. Craig and Washington (2004) found a reduction in five out of six [[Morphology (linguistics)|morpho]]-[[Syntax|syntactic]] characteristics studied across the transition from [[pre-kindergarten]] to [[kindergarten]] including [[Zero copula|null copula]], [[Zero article in English|zero articles]], zero past tense, zero plurals, and zero prepositions.<ref>Craig, Holly K. & Julie A. Washington. 2004. Grade-Related Changes in the Production of African American English. ''Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research''. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 47(2). 450–463. {{doi|10.1044/1092-4388(2004/036)}}.</ref> The [[bidialectism]] developed by these children offers similar advantages to other kinds of bilingualism including increased [[Executive functions|executive function]] and advances in [[critical thinking]].<ref>Lee-James, Ryan & Julie A. Washington. 2018. Language Skills of Bidialectal and Bilingual Children. ''Topics in Language Disorders'' 38(1). 5–26. {{doi|10.1097/TLD.0000000000000142}}.</ref><ref>Fricke, Melinda & Gerrit Jan Kootstra. 2016. Primed codeswitching in spontaneous bilingual dialogue. ''Journal of Memory and Language'' 91. 181–201. {{doi|10.1016/j.jml.2016.04.003}}.</ref> As an example of this code-switching in action, see the following transcript of [[Rachel Jeantel]]'s testimony in the [[trial of George Zimmerman]] for the murder of [[Trayvon Martin]] below. This transcript was analyzed in Rickford and King (2016); the bolded elements represent places where initially a null copula (indicated by the [[Zero (linguistics)|symbol ∅]]) was used which was switched to an overt copula (''<nowiki/>'s'') when asked for clarification by the court reporter:<ref>{{cite journal | author1-first = John R. | author1-last = Rickford | author2-first = Sharese | author2-last = King | year = 2016 | title = Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the courtroom and beyond | journal = [[Language (journal)|Language]] | volume = 92 | issue = 4 | pages = 948–988 | doi = 10.1353/lan.2016.0078 | s2cid = 152062713 | url = https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Rickford_92_4.pdf | access-date = 8 May 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220409033657/https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Rickford_92_4.pdf | archive-date = 9 April 2022 | url-status = live }}</ref><blockquote>{{dialogue |Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda|Okay. And after he used, pardon my language, he said, 'Oh, shit', what happened then? |Rachel Jeantel|The '''nigga ∅''' behind me.
|Court reporter|I'm sorry, what? |Jeantel|[Slowly, deliberately] The '''nigga's''' behind—the '''nigga ∅''' behind me.}}</blockquote>The structure of African American English differs significantly from standard English, particularly in the use of the Invariant "be." An illustration of this distinction is evident in its application for habitual or repeated actions. In instances involving actions in the present with subjects other than "I," the use of a form of "be" is omitted. For actions in the past tense, "was" or "were" is employed, while present tense questions utilize a conjugated form of "be." Questions pertaining to habitual actions employ the combination of "do" and "be." Notably, the Invariant "be" also serves to indicate future actions, wherein it may be optionally combined with an auxiliary. Unlike the verb "to be," the Invariant "be" lacks variant forms such as "is," "are," or "am".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Young |first1=Vershawn Ashanti Young |title=Other People's English |last2=Barrett |first2=Rusty |last3=Young-Rivera |first3=Y'Shanda |last4=Lovejoy |first4=Kim Brian |publisher=Teachers College Press |___location=New York and London |pages=15, 16, 17 |language=English}}</ref> Getting to know the African American English is very important because many African American students use this English in class and then often get told to use the standard English forms. The invariant be is also considered a code switching because you technically switch in between two languages. Even though these languages are almost the same there are still some grammatical differences that makes the African American English its own language.
 
=== Cantonese and English ===