Code-switching: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:12, 24 June 2025

Revision as of 06:47, 9 July 2025

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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. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199795390.013.22 http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199795390.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199795390-e-22 (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 ('''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 ===

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Code-switching between English and [[Tagalog language|Tagalog]] (Filipino), as well as English and other native languages, is very widespread in the [[Philippines]]. Known generally as [[Taglish]], it has become the de facto [[lingua franca]] among the urbanized and/or educated [[middle class]]. It is largely considered the "normal acceptable conversation style of speaking and writing" in informal settings. It is so widespread that a non-native speaker can be identified easily because they predominantly use pure Tagalog, whereas a native speaker would switch freely with English.<ref name="Bautista2004"/><ref name="Goulet">{{cite journal |last1=Goulet |first1=Rosalina Morales |title=English, Spanish, and Tagalog; a study of grammatical, lexical, and cultural interference |journal=Philippine Journal of Linguistics |date=1971 |issue=Special Monograph Issue № 1}}</ref><ref name="lesada">{{cite thesis |last=Lesada |first=Joseph D. |date=2017 |title=Taglish in Metro Manila: An Analysis of Tagalog-English Code-Switching |type=BA |publisher= University of Michigan |url= https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/139623/jlesada.pdf|access-date=31 October 2021|hdl=2027.42/139623}}</ref>

Roger Thompson’sThompson's research it suggests that the interactions between Tagalog and English depend on what is taking place. In the classroom teachers prefer students to use English. When in media the Philippines tends to prefer using Tagalog over English but in smaller social interactions people use their local dialect over both.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Evaluating bilingual education in the Philippines (1974-1985) {{!}} WorldCat.org |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/20854895 |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=search.worldcat.org |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Roger |title=Filipino English and Taglish Language Switching from Multiple Perspectives |date=2003 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |isbn=9789027296078 |publication-date=October 16, 2003 |language=English}}</ref>

According to the linguist Maria Lourdes S. Bautista, there are two contrasting types of code-switching in the Philippines: deficiency-driven and proficiency-driven. Deficiency-driven code-switching is when a person is not competent in one language and thus has to switch back to the language they are more familiar with. This is common among younger children, as in the example below given by Bautista:<ref name="Bautista2004"/><ref name="lesada"/>

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===French and Tamil===

This example of switching from [[French language|French]] to [[Tamil language|Tamil]] comes from [[Ethnography|ethnographer]] Sonia Das's work with immigrants from [[Jaffna]], [[Sri Lanka]], to [[Quebec]].<ref name="Das">{{Cite journal |last=Das |first=Sonia |title=Rewriting the past and reimagining the future: The social life of a Tamil heritage language industry |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=774–789 |year=2011 |doi=10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01336.x}}</ref><!-- Non-standard French as given in the original; please do not correct it to standard French. --> Selvamani, who moved from Sri Lanka to Quebec as a child and now identifies as [[Québécois (word)|Québécois]], speaks to Das in French. When Selvamani's sister, Mala, laughs, Selvamani switches to Tamil to ask Mala why she is laughing. After this aside, Selvamani continues to speak in French. Selvamani also uses the word ''tsé'' ("you know", contraction of ''tu sais'') and the expression ''je me {{sic|ferai|hide=yes}} pas poigner'' ("I will not be caught"), which are not standard French but are typical of the working-class Montreal dialect [[Joual]].<ref name="Das" />

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