Gardner-Chloros: Code-Switching (2)

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Gardner-Chloros

Code-Switching

Chapter 2: Code-switching and language contact

1. Introduction

- CS occurs in contact situations of many types

- occurs among immigrant communities, regional minorities and native multilingual groups

- Gumperz/Hernandez: contact between minority language groups and majority language groups in situations of rapid social change

- others: feature of stable bilingualism in communities where most people speak both languages

- sociolinguists have treated CS mostly as spoken genre (long history)

- CS is also found in written texts (script-switching)

2. Code-switching as a symptom of different/opposite tendencies

- code-switching arises in a variety of different contexts

2.1. Covergence vs. preserving distinctiveness

- each variety does not preserve its character

- no one-to-one correlation between CS and language change/shift

- Thomason: CS is not a major mechanism in contact-induced change; one of the principal mechanisms of borrowing

- varied and heterogenous sources for language change

- language change often takes place when the language of the majority is adopted by the minority

- but: the language of the elite (minority) is often adopted by subordinate groups

- Backus: description of the complexity of the relationship between CS and structural change

- hypothesis: structural change is directly brought about by code-switching

- methodological and conceptual problems, e.g. How can CS be distinguished from calques in code-switchers' idiolects?

2.2. Studies which show code-switching to be bound up with shift or change

- intergenerational comparison. there is often a correlation between the speakers' age and the type of CS they use

- CS is an important component of change

2.3. Counter-examples

- CS takes place in a context where there is shift in progress rather than constituting the shift

(occurs in the context of language shift, but it does not accelerate the shift)

- it is the more balanced bilinguals who switch most

2.4. A sign of doom or of vitality?

- CS can arise in situations of widely varying stability

- can be a feature of stable bilingualism and it can become implicated in language shift

- the shifted and the shifted-to varieties are necessarily in contact

- change can be fast or slow (several generations or within one generation), can affect all aspects of language

- can occur with heavy linguistic symptoms (morphological loss) or without

- languages may die without their morphology having altered at all

- Auer (1999): CS as the first point in a chronological progression along a continuum

next stage: language mixing (use of the overall switching mode carries significance); "unmarked choice" (Myers-Scotton, 1993)

third stage: fused lects (stabilized mixed varieties)

definition of code-switching: the juxtaposition of two languages perceived and interpreted as locally meaningful by participants

definition of language-mixing: the combination of varieties gives rise to global meanings (no conversational purpose)

definition of fused lects: fully conventionalized mixed variety

this process is unidirectional (opposite direction is "prohibited"), social circumstances cannot be put into reverse

may never be completed (bilingual communities may stabilize)

- decreolization: if two varieties are between CS and code mixing they could split or become more similar to one variety

- different kinds of CS can co-exist in the community at the same time

- circumstances where contact-induced change does not proceed smoothly through all stages

(code-switched variety assumes distinct functions of its own; formation of creoles)

- stabilization of CS varieties arises when these varieties assume an identity function

- often characteristic of young second-generation immigrant communities (pride in mixed identity; intra-community variety)

- Sebba (1993): types of CS can occur with symbolic or discourse-related functions (creole: we-code function, CS: insider activity), ex: Zadie Smith' White Teeth

- increasing number of singer and bands who use code-switching (e.g. Ricky Martin, Manu Chao)

- ludic: prescriptive rules of a language are deliberately and playfully broken

- CS can occur in situations of decline and as a mechanism of vitality

- more comparative research is needed!

3. Code-switching in language interaction

- short research history

- traditional view: change followed universal, language-internal principles (e.g. simplification)

- CS has not always been considered an aspect in language change

- CS is viewed as the most likely source of borrowing

- the exact role of contact for language change is still a matter of discussion

3.1. Code-switching, interference and borrowing

- single-word code-switches (loans) are the commonest form of CS

possible explanation: accessible to bilinguals with any degree of competence

- any aspect of a language, also structural ones, can be borrowed

- common nouns are the most frequently borrowed items

possible explanations: reflects size of grammatical category; nouns are freer of grammatical restrictions than other word classes (language internal factor)

- there is no reliable way to distinguish synchronically between loans and code-switches

- loans must start life as code-switches and then generalize themselves

- loans may go through different processes of integration ending up looking quite different in the receiving language

- Sankoff (2001): CS is the "royal road" to borrowing; but: essential distinction between the two (borrowing as preferred categorical phenomenon)

3.1.1. Grammatical category

- all grammatical categories are potentially transferable

- hypothesis: the more CS there is overall, the smaller proportion single-word switching represents

3.1.2. Morphophonemic integration with the surrounding language

- borrowed/code-switched verbs often take the morphology of the borrowing variety

3.1.3. Native synonym displacement

- common conversational function of CS is to repeat what one just said in the other language

- breaks up monotony of repeating the sentence in the same language

- soften or reinforce statements

- other language might contain the more accurate term

- word becoming a loan depends on linguistic and sociocultural factors

- in a given corpus loans and code-switches may be clearly distinguishable

3.2. Code-switching and pidginization/ creolization

- contributes to the convergence and divergence of different varieties

- Gumperz (1964): close relationship between CS and creolization (often co-occur, derive from similar social factors, may lead to similar outcomes)

- recent trend: emphasize difference between creolization and CS

- presence or absence of CS seems to be largely a function of the prestige of the pidgin

- CS involves shifting at particular linguistic levels rather than a whole transition from one variety to another

- CS is sometimes more symbolic than real

- bilingual compound verbs show the fine line between creolization and CS

show features of creolization: grammatical convergence; analytic approach to vocabulary

- pidgins and creoles: arise as lingua frances in situations involving contact between several languages (no common language!)

- mixed languages: widespread bilingualism, serve as marker of ethnic group identity

3.3. Code-switching and mixed languages

- limited and marginal group of languages spoken in very specific contexts

- outcome of particular cases of bilingualism

- appear to represent a kind of fossilization of CS

- grammar of one language and lexis of another

- some mixed languages show much more specific and regular patterns than CS

- most languages are mixed to some extent

- motivation: linguistic expression of a dual identity

4. Structural vs. social influences

- many aspects of language change are due to contact

- often due to processes such as inter-dialect accommodation, imperfect learning and koineizaton

- Thomason/Kaufmann: social factors determine fundamental aspects of language change

outcomes of contact: 1) borrowing: adoption of lexical elements

2) structural borrowing: requires intensive bilingualism

3) interference through shift: sounds, syntax and morphology (absence of full bilingualism)

- asymmetric quality of contact (social context)

- contact-induced change can result in simplification of the contact-receiving language, but the reverse can also be the case

- minority language is likely to be significantly influenced by the majority one

resulting CS reflects imbalance in power/status

- Johanson (2002): "code copying" (neither a clear switch nor a fusion)

some linguistic features are more "attractive" than others (social factors determine attractiveness)

- interplay of social/socio-lingustic and structural factors (further systematic comparison necessary)

- CS is an unstandardized form of speech

- idiolectal factors intervene: internal variation and/or inconsistency

- likely shift from a low-vitality language to a high-vitality language (contact-induces shift)

- imperfect learning of the target language results in alteration to that language of a mainly structural nature

the outcome is often a hybrid construction

- sociolinguistic factors can be seen to override the structural closeness/distance between languages

2.5. Conclusion

- CS is one of the possible outcomes of contact between two (or more) varieties

- often co-exists and overlaps with other outcomes

- can adopt a huge range of linguistic guises

- has often been overlooked

- is not neat and tidy (CS can have a rule-breaking behavior, language change, convergence)

- Toribio: semantics-pragmatics interface is crucial for convergence

bilinguals select the sparest grammar that serves both languages

- sociolinguistic factors are the key to understanding individual cases of CS

- often different types of CS within the same community

- social: CS may be seen as the product of a power struggle between two varieties

- individual: reflects varying bilingual competences; discourse-structuring device

- CS is not a passive victim of linguistic forces