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Linguistic change and social meaning: Codeswitching in the media
Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between code choice, bilingual identity and language change. Code choice and codeswitches in a bilingual Spanish-English publication are examined with two questions in mind. The first asks the extent to which stylistic and social variables, including identity, govern code choice. The second looks at the relationship of code choice to language change. Based on the pattern of code choice found in a popular women's magazine, I conclude that codemixed discourse is one of three varieties of code available to the bilingual, and where this variety is used intentionally, it is meant to emphasize the speaker's bilingual identity. I also consider structural aspects of codemixed discourse and determine that although the L1-L2 structure of this discourse is distinct from the monolingual L1 and L2 structures, it nevertheless follows from universal principles of grammar and does not require the positing of a third grammar. I further argue that the use of mixed-code discourse, especially in written media, as a pragmatically and structurally distinct variety available to bilingual speakers, falls within the Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog (1968) and Labov (1972 a,b) conceptions of language change. Thus, I suggest that in some contexts, codeswitching, is itself an instantiation of language change.
... Shortly after the contact of languages, borrowing into the immigrant languages (Haugen, 1955(Haugen, , 1970 happens; structural changes (and borrowings) happen if the minority language survives for several generations. In borrowing from other languages, the speakers adapt (mostly) lexical material to the morphological and syntactic (and usually, phonological) patterns of the recipient language (Mahootian, 1993;Poplack, 1993;Muysken, 2011, among many others); these materials "conform to its structure", and they are "disembodied from their original grammar" (Mahootian, 1993: 50). These unambiguously borrowed items have plenty of host-language features, not the least of which is the fact that they are freely used by monolingual speakers, since for the established borrowing, one does not need to know the language involved (Muysken, 2011). ...
... Code switching is commonly defined as the juxtaposition of sentences or sentence fragments from the two languages in discourse in which each fragment is internally consistent with the morphological and syntactic (and, optionally, phonological) rules of the language of its provenance (Bentahila and Davies, 1991;Mahootian, 1993;Poplack, 1993). Evidently, only bilinguals are in a position to code switch. ...
... It was shown that, after a very long time of contact (about 1300 years), only a few tokens of plural forms (12 broken and 6 tokens of a:t in mono-and bilingual contexts) were found to be morphologically similar to the Arabic system. 8 Borrowing as a very salient outcome of contact, therefore, did not affect the overall structure of Persian, but it typically enriched the language (Mahootian, 2005) by expanding its lexical capacities. On the other hand, our literature review on code switching in structurally compatible and incompatible languages showed that the outcome of language contact between structurally equivalent languages was more dominantly switching between the two languages. ...
Thousands of the world's languages are said to be rapidly vanishing (Abrams and Strogatz, 2003), and the issue of language death has emerged as one of the most significant phenomena for linguistic study. Research on language loss and death has, however, focused mostly on European-related languages and historical cases have not attracted due attention (Mufwene, 2001, 2004). Moreover, of the many factors argued to be of importance in causing language death, to the best of our knowledge, little reference has been made to language-internal factors. This study explores the historical outcomes of contact between Arabic–Persian and Arabic–Egyptian languages to shed more light on language maintenance or death under contact situations. Providing evidence from languages in contact and analyzing data form Persian–Arabic bilinguals, we explore why Egyptian Coptic died but Persian survived after the invasion of Arabs, and bring up a tentative hypothesis that the surface structural compatibility of the two languages in contact may lead to drastic changes and the possible death of the less dominant and less prestigious language. Structural equivalence/congruence or lack thereof is also suggested as a constraint on the competition-selection process of Mufwene's (2002) feature pool hypothesis.
... However, Montes-Alcalá (2005), studying 122 personal email messages written by 10 bilingual individuals, argues that bilingual writing is, in fact, a mirror image of bilingual speech, including motivations such as direct and indirect quotations, emphasising, clarifying and elaborating, making parenthetical comments, idiomatic expressions, lexical need and stylistic changes. Mahootian (2005) analysed a subset of 56 out of a total of 435 tokens of codeswitching in two 1999 issues of Latina, a US women's lifestyle magazine. She International Journal of Multilingualism 5 found that 77% of the switches were 'of the emotive, ethnically bonding type', 15% were functional categories or non-emotive lexical items and 8% were idiomatic. ...
... She also notes that, as in the West, greeting cards are especially attractive to women, who are increasingly literate and have their own incomes. She concludes that although multiple styles compete almost everywhere in modern written Chinese, (Mahootian, 2005), thus granting linguistic authority to the card makers (Jaffe, 1999)? Conversely, to what degree is the language of codeswitched greeting cards considered 'not used by real people' (Papson, 1986), an artificial language (Einbeck, 2004), Mock Spanish (Hill, 1998) or Gringoism (Schwartz, 2008)? ...
... Despite some of the cards receiving relatively high ratings on both linguistic and cultural measures, almost every one of them was criticised by some participants Á members of the audience targeted as consumers of bilingual greeting cards. In the analytical framework of Mahootian (2005), the majority of participants did not see these codeswitched cards as an enactment of bilingual identity. Quite on the contrary, ...
Past scholarly work has examined commercial greeting cards as an important cultural practice. The growing presence in the USA of bilingual greeting cards offers a site for understanding public uses of contact varieties of language. This paper analyses the reactions of 30 college educated US-raised bilingual Latinos to 17 intrasententially codeswitched Spanish–English greeting cards. Despite a few exceptions, there were correlations between the felicitousness of the codeswitches and their acceptability ratings. Hill's concept of ‘mock Spanish’ helps explain participants’ reactions to the infelicitously codeswitched (IC) cards, although these cards are produced for (and presumably by) bilinguals rather than Anglos. The IC cards can be understood as a distortion of authentic bilingual practices in a failed attempt to reflect and/or shape Latino linguistic practices.
... Intergroup research, guided by social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), posits that language is used to categorize individuals into social in-groups and out-groups (Giles & Watson, 2013;Rakić et al., 2011) as well as a personal form of self-categorization (Bourhis & Giles, 1977;Marlow & Giles, 2008). This is also true in literary contexts, where authors intentionally use words from their culture as a form of social classification (Mahootian, 2005;Müller, 2015;Weston & Gardner-Chloros, 2015). Thus, in intercultural contexts, code-mixing occurs for practical and identity-based reasons. ...
... Narrative persuasion research has consistently demonstrated that narrative engagement facilitates attitude change (Braddock & Dillard, 2016). Importantly for the present study, the narrative context is an ecologically appropriate setting to examine the relationships between language and a negative out-group bias because cross-cultural exposure is common through narratives (Schiappa et al., 2006;Stamps & Sahlman, 2021), as is the presence of culturally specific indicators, such as code-mixing (Mahootian, 2005;Müller, 2015;Weston & Gardner-Chloros, 2015). Therefore, as individuals may be exposed to outgroups and code-mixing through narratives, it is a goal of this work to connect narrative engagement processes to language and outgroup attitudes. ...
This experiment (N = 1,241) investigates the impact of code-mixing, defined as the use of more than one language, on processing fluency, narrative engagement, and cross-cultural attitudes. Using a sample of native English speakers located in the United States, we found that narratives that include code-mixing, a common feature of intercultural communication, felt more difficult to process and, in turn, led to more negative out-group bias and less narrative engagement. These findings integrate and extend intercultural communication and narrative theory and consider the challenges and opportunities that accompany diverse representations of characters in storytelling. Rather than highlight these challenges, however, we consider theoretically based strategies to improve audiences’ reception to cross cultural content and, in doing so, hope to inform communication practices that lead to a greater regard for others.
... The vast majority of the lexical items were nouns, as shown in Table 1. As previously noted, other research has shown that younger generations tend to switch smaller linguistic elements of the language of their family's country of origin into the majority language (Bentahila and Davies 1992;Muysken 1997), and these types of switches are frequent in U.S. bilingual media (Mahootian 2005). This pattern holds true in the present data. ...
... This recruitment of familial and kinship terms in Spanish instead of using the corresponding terms in English suggests differences in the sociopragmatic meaning of the English and Spanish words. Therefore, upon closer examination, the words that are selected for lexical switches in these memes are not only highly specific and difficult to translate into English, but also reflect cultural practices that are closely connected to identity and are often meant to evoke meaning beyond the semantic meaning of the word (Kosoff 2014;Mahootian 2005). ...
This project investigates English–Spanish codeswitching in internet memes posted to the Facebook page, We are mitú (mitú), and analyzes how lexical insertions and quotatives contribute to the enregisterment of linguistic patterns and the construction of collective identity among U.S. Latinx millennials in virtual social spaces. Data include instances of lexical insertion (n = 280) and quotative mixed codes (n = 114) drawn from a collected corpus of 765 image–text memes. The most frequent lexical insertions included food items (e.g., elote and pozole), kinship terms (e.g., abuelita and tía), and culturally specific artifacts or practices (e.g., quinceañera and lotería), which reflect biculturalism and rely on a shared set of references for the construction of a group identity. Additionally, the quotatives in the data construct Spanish-speaking characterological figures that enregister a particular brand of U.S. Latinx millennial identity that includes being bilingual, having Spanish-speaking parents, and having strong ties to Latinx culture. Overall, this work highlights not only internet memes as a vehicle for enregisterment, but also, and more importantly, how the language resources employed within them work to enregister linguistic and cultural norms of U.S. Latinx millennials, and thereby, play a role in identity construction in virtual social spaces.
... Ajnabiyeh, she can hear him thinking" (Alyan, 2017, p. 296). The writer in example (17) felt the need to reiterate the word 'foreigner' in the Arabic language. The following example represents how the author employed code-switching to emphasize an idea by repeating the same term twice using both languages, namely, English and Arabic. ...
... Instead, it is a well-organized phenomenon that authors make use of to convey certain social values and stress some aspects of cultural, religious, and ethnic identity. In Accordance with that, Mahootian (2005) claims that the conscious use of code-switching is a way to evoke a sense of cultural identity, unity and camaraderie. She maintained, language alternation may also be served as a clear and unmistakable declaration of the bilingual identity and a means for speakers to emphasize their ethnicity, their ties to their heritage and to those who share those beliefs. ...
This research intends to shed light on the functions of literary code-switching in diasporic Arab texts with a focus on De Niro’s game (2006) by Rawi Hage and Salt Houses (2017) by Hala Alyan. The aim was to provide an insightful analysis of the functions of literary code-switching. Accordingly, a combination of Callahan's (2004) and Montes-Alcalá's (2012) models was adopted for the sake of the analysis. The combination of both models resulted in a total of ten categories of functions of literary code-switching. The findings of this paper revealed that literary code-switching in Arab diasporic fiction achieved all the ten proposed functions with varying degrees of frequency. Further, the results of this research demonstrated that literary code-switching is not a random or unsystematic practice. Rather, it is seen as a valid literary device exploited by diasporic writers to achieve certain literary functions and stylistic effects.
... As such, analysis of media texts offers insights into cultural dimensions and contemporary matters. Moreover, media texts contain language that has been carefully considered and undergone the scrutiny of editing and approval (Mahootian, 2005). Media texts are enduring records that document deliberative acts of language production. ...
... 'All languages borrow words or phrases from others with which they come in contact' and 'codeswitching may often be the first step in this process' where words then become more widely used and accepted into the recipient language (The Linguistics Encyclopedia, 2002, p. 69). CS involving foreign terms is acknowledged as not only enacting language change in lexicon (Gardner-Chloros, 2009;Mahootian, 2005) but also as having the potential to generate structural or syntactical change (Backus, 2005). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed behavioural norms and how people conceptualise everyday life. It has led to prolific use of specific terminology that is new or was previously outside the lexical boundaries of common use. Terms like ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’ and ‘new normal' were previously jargon limited to specialist fields. The COVID-19 pandemic which spread globally in 2020 has led to great social change and an associated lexical influence. To study this phenomenon, we examine the lexical effects of COVID-19 on the Indonesian language, through analysis of two well-known Indonesian national newspapers – Kompas and Suara Pembaruan, for the month of May 2020. This was at a time of growing awareness of COVID-19 in Indonesia, that included a partial lockdown in Jakarta. As such, there was a great deal of attention to COVID-19 in the mass media. To study this, we apply quantitative content analysis to the sample data to identify the range and frequency of words borrowed from English. We examine this use of code-switching to also undertake qualitative analysis, exploring the various socio-linguistic dimensions of those borrowed terms. Some usage was found to address lexical gaps in Indonesian language, where other usage appeared more for stylistic, emphatic purposes, drawing on the semiotic power of English in the Indonesian context. Code-switching reiteration was particularly prominent in the sample data. We argue that through code-switching reiteration, the print media can introduce new foreign vocabulary to Indonesian readers, which subsequently generates opportunities for language change. COVID-19 has expedited this process, meaning that there has been an increased likelihood of Indonesian language change during 2020.
... Another study, on the benefits of code switching in print media, was carried out by Mahootian (2005). The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of code switching in the Spanish-English bilingual magazine entitled Latina. ...
... Generally speaking though the studies indicated above do not provide an insight into how code switching affects the comprehension of technical terms, the studies point towards the fact that in some instances code switching promotes learning a second language (Li 2000), enabling speakers of African languages to better express themselves (Mati 2004), and can provide an effective tool for expressing one's emotions or identity (Mahootian 2005;Rontu 2007). ...
... Put another way, just as with linguistic knowledge of one language, code-switching is also a reflection of a speaker's linguistic competence, or I-language. Given that code-switched sentences are constructed with the same computational system as monolingual sentences, I also assume that there is no third grammar specific to CS, following Woolford (1983), Di Sciullo et al. (1986), Belazi et al. (1994), 14 Mahootian andSantorini (1996), MacSwan (1999), González-Vilbazo (2005) and González-Vilbazo and López (2011López ( , 2012. In other words, there are no specific rules or operations whose sole purpose is to govern code-switching. ...
... There is still an important choice to be made concerning the modality used for presenting the stimuli, i.e. whether the stimuli should be presented in written or aural form. CS is primarily a spoken phenomenon used in informal settings (Grosjean, 1982;Montes-Alcalá, 2001;Mahootian, 2005), while acceptability judgment tasks are generally administered in a laboratory setting in written form. While the experimental task must necessarily be formal in its nature, given the priority placed on administering a controlled experiment, presenting the stimuli in aural form would have the advantage of more closely approximating the CS that participants are most familiar with. ...
This dissertation draws on the systematic nature of restrictions on code-switching (CS) to provide evidence concerning the morphosyntactic properties of wh-questions in Spanish and English, particularly with respect to inversion. CS allows one to independently control the language of individual words, and their associated syntactic properties, and observe the effect that those properties have on a given sentence's acceptability. In this way, CS becomes a tool of linguistic analysis.
Data comes from Spanish-English CS. Both Spanish and English exhibit a phenomenon known as subject-version, in which the subject is sometimes required to appear after the verb or auxiliary, but the structural requirements vary by language and include various factors. This raises two important questions that are the focus of this dissertation: (i) what head or phrase ultimately determines the word order (i.e. the grammatical subject positions) in a given wh-question? and (ii) what are the restrictions on code-switching between the complementizer head, the tense head, and the wh-phrase?
To answer these questions, a controlled experiment was conducted in which participants provided written acceptability judgments for both CS and equivalent monolingual sentences. In response to the first question, the results of this dissertation provide evidence that the complementizer is ultimately responsible for determining the properties of inversion for a given wh-question. Regarding the second question, the results also provides evidence for restrictions on code-switching between C and T and C and the wh-phrase. In particular, it provides evidence that a code-switch between an English simple wh-phrase and a Spanish C is ungrammatical in embedded questions with a Spanish T.
Additionally, this dissertation serves as one example of an experimental approach to investigating code-switching, particularly with respect to syntactic structure. There are a variety of different concerns that need to be addressed in conducting such research, and this dissertation offers one perspective.
In conclusion, the combination of controlled experimental methods and the unique analytical potential of CS to tease apart otherwise opaque syntactic relationships makes for a valuable tool for addressing a wide range of questions in theoretical linguistics.
... Modality -spoken versus written language -might also be a reason for this finding. We acknowledge that CS may be more prevalent in spoken than in written language; however, we note that a product of globalization is likely an increase in written CS, especially within mediatized spaces (e.g., Androutsopoulos, 2013;Barasa, 2016;Mahootian, 2005). While there is evidence suggesting that the modality (aural vs. written) of administering an AJT does not significantly impact participants' ratings (Koronkiewicz and Ebert, 2018), future research should explore this distinction more systematically given the context of reggaetón. ...
This study presents an Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT) conducted with Latinx1 Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States. We take a social approach to the AJT by contextualizing code-switching (CS) within the context of reggaetón music by adding experimental labels to sentences and examine how the results vary according to enjoyment and frequency of listening to reggaetón music. Results from mixed-effects regression models show effects of sentence grammaticality and frequency of listening to reggaetón. Results do not show effects of the reggaetón label on the CS sentences, however we find higher ratings for ungrammatical sentences and lower ratings for grammatical sentences than previously shown in the AJT literature. This study highlights the importance of the social context of code-switching when investigating acceptability judgments.
... Las posibles opciones lingüísticas en una situación de bilingüismo social son básicamente tres: código en L1 monolingüe, código en L2 monolingüe y código mixto entre L1 y L2 (Backus & Eversteijn, 2004;Mahootian, 2005). En un código mixto es frecuente encontrar una gama de posibilidades de uso y combinación de la L1 y la L2 como el cambio de código (code switching) y mezcla de código (code mixing), es decir, la presencia de elementos lingüísticos de la L1 y de la L2 en el habla. ...
Esta investigación examina la transmisión intergeneracional del zapoteco en Santa María Xadani, Oaxaca, con el objetivo de evaluar su continuidad o interrupción en las nuevas generaciones. Se analizan las condiciones familiares y comunitarias que influyen en el uso del zapoteco y la motivación de los padres para transmitirlo. Utilizando un enfoque mixto, la fase cuantitativa incluye una encuesta a 185 niños y adolescentes, mientras que la fase cualitativa se basa en entrevistas a madres hablantes nativas. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los jóvenes conservan el zapoteco como lengua materna y lo usan cotidianamente, respaldados por la alta competencia lingüística de los padres. Sin embargo, existen presiones que afectan las prácticas lingüísticas en el hogar. Se concluye que la transmisión del zapoteco continúa de manera sólida gracias a las prácticas familiares y el valor simbólico de la lengua.
... More recently, many scholars have become interested in how U.S. Hispanics use CS in writing. To analyze written CS, scholars have used structural or sociolinguistic frameworks to examine songs (Ohlson 2007(Ohlson , 2008(Ohlson , 2009Cepeda 2000), blogs (Montes-Alcalá 2007), e-mails and letters (Montes-Alcalá 2001, Negron Goldberg 2009), diaries (Montes-Alcalá 2001), magazines (Mahootian 2005, Betti 2008), drama (Jonnson 2005), advertisements (Luna andPeracchio 2005, Maier Bishop 2006), Instagram (Derrick 2015a) and greeting cards (Potowski 2011). While some scholars have criticized the use of theories proposed for conversational CS to analyze written CS because they find scripted speech to be too distinct from oral discourse (Lipski 1982, Montes-Alcalá 2007, others have pointed out that Spanish-English oral and written CS typically follow similar patterns (Keller 1984, Martin 2005. ...
... Si las condiciones permiten una negociación del código, se amplían las opciones lingüísticas para los hablantes, que en muchos casos de bilingüismo social es posible identificar al menos tres opciones lingüísticas: código en l 1 monolingüe, código en l 2 monolingüe o un código mixto entre l 1 y l 2 (Backus y Eversteijn 2002;Mahootian 2005). 5 El establecimiento de un determinado código como la elección de lingüística preferente depende esencialmente de tres factores: el grado de competencia comunicativa que los hablantes tengan en las lenguas, sus intereses y las relaciones de poder que exista entre ellos. ...
El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar el grado de desplazamiento lingüístico que presenta el zapoteco en la ciudad de Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, México. Este trabajo se enmarca en la teoría de ecología de presiones, la cual indica que, en una situación de contacto lingüístico, existen relaciones asimétricas de poder que generan presiones negativas hacia los hablantes de la lengua autóctona, llevándolos a actuar en contra de la vitalidad de su propia lengua. En este estudio se realiza un análisis descriptivo del bilingüismo social de la comunidad de Juchitán con el propósito de identificar las habilidades lingüísticas de los hablantes en zapoteco y en español, así como los cambios que ambas lenguas han tenido intergeneracionalmente. La recolección de datos se realizó por medio de un cuestionario aplicado a una muestra de la población de 382 personas de un total de 74 825 habitantes. Durante este procedimiento, a los encuestados se les solicitó que evaluaran su nivel de competencia comunicativa tanto en zapoteco como en español. Los resultados muestran que el zapoteco presenta una reducción considerable de su transmisión intergeneracional, lo que se observa en el hecho de que la mayoría de los niños son hablantes monolingües del español y solo un número reducido de ellos puede entender el zapoteco. En contraste, el español se ha consolidado en todos los grupos generacionales, aún entre los adultos mayores. Debido a esto, se concluye que el zapoteco presenta un estado avanzado de desplazamiento lingüístico en la comunidad de Juchitán.
... All stimuli were presented in their written form, rather than aurally. While cs is considered to be an oral phenomenon by many ( [9,40,41], among others), there is evidence that modality is not a determining factor in grammaticality judgment tasks for code-switched stimuli [39,42]. Additionally, the written 295 presentation avoided a potential pitfall of aural presentation, the fact that it is very easy to mistake the English complementiser (/Daet/) with the Dutch one (/dAt/). ...
This paper aims to show that the mainstream Generative analysis for verb second (V2) languages – a functional head, C⁰, is responsible for V2 word order – does not hold up to scrutiny when confronted with bilingual data. Dutch-English code-switched data were used to investigate V2 word order in the main clause – but also svo/sov word order in the subordinate clause, an issue that has relevance to the question at hand – using an acceptability judgment task to test how native bilinguals judge code-switched sentences in a verb second context and subordinate clauses. Novel results with regards to V2 word order are presented in combination with a corroboration of established patterns for subordinate clause word order. The results indicate that the language of the finite verb determines word order in both main and subordinate clauses.
... A switch in language could also reflect a change in other dimensions such as the status relations between people or the formality of their interaction. According to Mahootian (2005), code-switching and code-mixing between the two languages took place because the speaker chose to allow himself to code-switch. It gives users the option of including or excluding information from the receivers by switching from one language to another (Ismail, 2015). ...
... Many scholars have analyzed conversational CS (Pfaff 1979;Rodríguez-González and Parafita-Couto 2012) and there has been a wealth of literature published on Spanish-English CS in written discourses in the U.S. Latino context. Scholars have typically used structural or sociolinguistic frameworks to analyze written CS and have examined songs (Cepeda 2000;Ohlson 2007, Ohlson 2008, Ohlson 2009), blogs (Montes-Alcala 2007), e-mails and letters (Montes-Alcala 2001; Negrón Goldbarg 2009), diaries (Montes-Alcala 2000), magazines (Betti 2008;Mahootian 2005), advertisements (Luna and Peracchio 2005;Maier Bishop 2006), Instagram (Derrick 2015) and greeting cards (Potowski 2011). 2 While some may consider theories proposed for conversational CS to be unsuitable to analyze written CS (Lipski 1982), or criticize scripted speech for being distinct from oral discourse (Montes-Alcalá 2007), they typically follow similar patterns to conversational CS (Keller 1984;Martin 2005). ...
This paper analyzes Junot Díaz’s most recent works The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007. The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao . New York: Riverhead) and This is How You Lose Her (2012. This is how you lose her . New York: Riverhead) by using Muysken’s (2000. Bilingual speech. A typology of code-mixing . Cambridge: CUP) typology of code-switching to illustrate the types of language mixing devices present in these two texts. I point out that Díaz’s innovative use of radical bilingualism is not due to the quantity of sentences including Spanish, rather to the quality of mixing and switching in his works. Further, I elaborate on Casielles-Suárez, Eugenia. (2013. Radical code-switching in the Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90. 475–487) study using Torres’ (2007. In the contact zone: Code-switching strategies by Latino/a writers. MELUS 32(1). 75–96) categorization of code-switching strategies utilized by U.S. Hispanic authors. I find that instead of Díaz’s texts gratifying the bilingual reader (Torres. 2007. In the contact zone: Code-switching strategies by Latino/a writers. MELUS 32(1). 75–96) or creating radical hybridism (Casielles-Suárez. 2013. Radical code-switching in the Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90. 475–487), that these two works illustrate radical bilingualism. In contrast to the majority of U.S. Spanish-English bilingual texts, which incorporate Spanish by using simple insertions, translations, bold font and italics, Díaz creates radically bilingual works by using a variety of Spanish and English varieties, the indirect influence of Spanish in monolingual English sentences, intra-word insertions, a diversity of insertion types and hybrid noun-phrases.
... The sociolinguistic perspective on the study of code switching and language choice on the internet focuses mainly on the understanding of functional pragmatic aspects of language use through a qualitative analysis (Mahootian 2005, Georgakopoulou 2013, McClure 2001, Sebba 2003, Androutsopoulos 2004, Leppänen 2007. While a mere qualitative approach would give a rough impression of the status of linguistic varieties due to a limited (view of) database, this case study deploys a quantitative method to illuminate the general pattern of code switching and the relative positions of codes in a context of multimodal/ multilingual interaction. ...
... Code-switching also functions as an evocative tool in which one language is understood as a better way to express particular emotions than another (Mahootian, 2005(Mahootian, , 2012. And yet, because the English phrase might not be understood by his mother, it protects him from the charge of transgressing socio-cultural boundaries (i.e. that emotions should be kept reservedly), particularly in his identification as Javanese. ...
Abstract
In the post-New Order era, the use of English in Indonesia is noticeably increasing, particularly in
otherwise Indonesian popular print texts, a domain where language selection is evident and publicly
accessible. The appearance of English in Indonesian popular texts is linguistically known as codeswitching,
called bahasa gado-gado in the Indonesian context. Although noticeably increasing, English
is still unfairly treated by many Indonesians and by the government as a foreign language that carries
the “West” ideology. In other words, English not only functions as a linguistic resource but also as a
language of Otherness that may carry some Western ideologies for many Indonesians. In fact, the
juxtaposition of English and Indonesian in otherwise Indonesian speech acts still receives social
censure or is seen as an interference to Indonesian-ness. Using an interpretive textual analysis, I show
that code-switching with special reference to English effectively functions to express the overt love
expressions and to project one’s socio-cultural hybridity and lingustic proficiency.
Keywords
Bahasa gado-gado, code-switching, discourse analysis, English, Indonesia, Indonesian novel, popular
print, textual analysis
... Code-switching also functions as an evocative tool in which one language is understood as a better way to express particular emotions than another (Mahootian, 2005(Mahootian, , 2012. And yet, because the English phrase might not be understood by his mother, it protects him from the charge of transgressing socio-cultural boundaries (i.e. that emotions should be kept reservedly), particularly in his identification as Javanese. ...
In the post-New Order era, the use of English in Indonesia is noticeably increasing, particularly in otherwise Indonesian popular print texts, a domain where language selection is evident and publicly accessible. The appearance of English in Indonesian popular texts is linguistically known as code-switching, called bahasa gado-gado in the Indonesian context. Although noticeably increasing, English is still unfairly treated by many Indonesians and by the government as a foreign language that carries the “West” ideology. In other words, English not only functions as a linguistic resource but also as a language of Otherness that may carry some Western ideologies for many Indonesians. In fact, the juxtaposition of English and Indonesian in otherwise Indonesian speech acts still receives social censure or is seen as an interference to Indonesian-ness. Using an interpretive textual analysis, I show that code-switching with special reference to English effectively functions to express the overt love expressions and to project one’s socio-cultural hybridity and lingustic proficiency.
... It is possible to find CS in written form, both on an individual level, such as in letters or journals (Montes-Alcalá, 2001), and on a larger scale, such as in different forms of print media (Callahan 2004;Mahootian, 2005). However, CS has been regularly referred to as an oral mode of communication, one that presents itself in "the flow of natural conversation, " since at least Timm (1975: p. 473). ...
Various methodological concerns are specific to code-switching research; however, the modality of experimental stimuli has yet to be thoroughly inves- tigated. This study explicitly tests if the mode of presentation does in fact affect participants’ judgments in Spanish-English code-switching using two different syntactic phenomena: (i) pronouns and lexical DPs, and (ii) wh-movement. The results are parallel, but not identical for the two modalities. We found no differ- ence on a global level, indicating that written code-switched stimuli do not pro- duce depressed ratings. We found a few individual differences when looking at specific structures within the two phenomena. In those cases, the aural condition enhanced the ratings of more acceptable sentences. Crucially, these differences did not affect the interpretation of the results.
... Moreover, the analysis of LM/CS often has recourse to written sources. Mahootian (2005) studies CS in a lifestyles magazine, and Graedler (1999) compares CS in magazines to CS in letters. Hinrichs (2006) and Negrón Goldbarg (2009) examine CS in emails. ...
As more written language data become available, the interest in written language mixing / codeswitching (LM/CS) is increasing (Sebba, Mahootian & Jonsson 2012; Sebba 2013). LM/CS in non-naturalistic (e.g., literary) texts raises issues related to gauging (1) the authenticity and representativity of a textual corpus, and deciding (2) whether categories/mechanisms of spoken LM/CS apply to written LM/CS.1 We focus on Guarani-Spanish LM/CS (Jopara) as represented in the Paraguayan novel Ramona Quebranto (RQ). We apply the framework of Muysken (1997; 2000; 2013), developed as a taxonomy of spoken LM/CS. Our contribution extends its applicability to written LM/CS. We show that Jopara has a mix of insertional and backflagging strategies, with infrequent alternations.
... Computer mediated communication (CMC) has drawn quite some attention from (contact) linguists over the past decade (Mahootian, 2005, and see e.g. De Decker, 2015 for Dutch). ...
The construction Beste boek ooit (‘Best book ever!’) comes in different forms in Dutch. Variation is not only attested in the absence or presence of determiners and postmodifiers, but also in code choice: English, Dutch and hybrid (Beste boek ever!) variants occur. This article investigates differentiation between instances with ooit and instances with ever. To ensure sufficient signal, we adopt a bird's eye perspective, analyzing over 100,000 observations from a Twitter corpus from the Low Countries (period 2011–2016). Our results reveal that (1) the two constructional variants increase in frequency in the time period under study, (2) this increase is more pronounced for the ooit-variant; (3) the ever-variant undergoes specialization towards a pragmatically marked form. Overall, our account complements anglicism research (Andersen 2014) in four ways. First, we foreground constructional borrowing instead of single-word borrowing. Second, in working with Twitter data, we break with the tradition of print media corpora. Third, we explore NLP based methods for large datasets sampled from big data collections in a field of research that has mainly relied on manual coding of small-scale datasets. Finally, we illustrate how matter and pattern replication can go hand in hand in contact-induced change.
... Going back to the comparison with contemporary code-switching in hip-hop, the Texas Tornados appear a great deal more willing to accommodate, by presenting a range of linguistic abilities among the singers. We argue that code-switching in the Texas Tornados is not necessarily a marker of cultural identity, camaraderie or unity (Mahootian, 2005), nor a tool to signal shared ethnic experience, heritage, and distinctiveness (Stølen, 1992, p. 227), and that their use of Spanish and English (in separate songs and in large chunks of language through inter-sentential code-switching) represents a society where the two languages and cultures co-exist, but where linguistic hierarchies are maintained and boundaries are not blurred. In other words, their use of Spanish and English, as well as their use of code-switching, emphasizes linguistic and ethnic boundaries (Woolard, 1988), and does not create an ethnolinguistic connection witnessed in other bilingual/bicultural performers (cf. ...
This study analyzes Spanish-English code-switching in the music of the Texas Tornados, a bilingual-bicultural San Antonio band. Their entire repertoire was transcribed and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to ascertain the form and functions of code-switching. We found that 39% of songs included language mixing, with English being the most frequent matrix language and Spanish lexical insertions and inter-sentential switches prevailing. Lexical insertions are used to exoticize songs and for humorous effect, while inter-sentential code-switching presents similar ideas in sequence demonstrating high poetic virtuosity. Such artistic use of language represents the subaltern status of Spanish, reflecting the sociolinguistic reality of Texas.
... Therefore, the views people have towards a code, their attitudes, are usually based on the way they identify and value speakers of that code and their social attributes. Linguists are interested in studying the attitudes towards LA in order to understand the reasons underlying speakers" language choices and their communicative strategies (among others are Mahootian, 2005;Muysken, 1995;Zentella, 1990;Romaine, 1989;Gumperz, 1982;Poplack, 1980, andLabov, 1972). ...
This study investigates the use of Language Alternation (LA) between Arabic and English by the employees of King Abdul Aziz Specialist Hospital (KASH) from a socio-cultural perspective in order to explore the motivation behind LA practices in this multilingual medical workplace. There were 75 participants including doctors, nurses, and administrative employees. Most of the participants are Saudis, however some of them are nationals of other Arab countries and others are nonArab, in both cases having different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
Data for this qualitative study were collected through observations, recording of naturally occurring interactions, and individual semi-structured interviews. The duration of the recorded material is nearly 35 hours.
Using a combination of Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982), Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987 and Scollon, et al., 2012), and Accommodation Theory (Giles & Powesland, 1975; Giles, 1973; Giles et al., 1987 and Giles, et al., 1991) as a theoretical framework, the findings from the data were grouped in themes and analysed in order to find out the reasons for and functions of LA.
The results of the analysis indicate that the use of LA among the employees of KASH was generated by two major types of factors: institutional factors, due to which participants appeared to switch from one language to another because of conditions and/or constraints arising from the institutional setting, and cultural factors, which appeared to result in participants alternating between Arabic and English due to certain cultural beliefs and norms delineating cultural differences and overcoming cultural issues arising from the use of a foreign language. The major findings of this study include that LA is used to resolve communication difficulties, to facilitate effective communication using particular technical concepts and expressions, to negotiate power, hierarchy and personal relationships, to avoid using certain Arabic terms that are regarded as sensitive by some listeners, and to preserve the meaning of certain terms and expressions by using them in one particular language rather than the other, especially those regarded as formulaic chunks with specific cultural significance. The study concludes with research implications, implications for medical authorities and educators, and recommendations for future research.
... For analyses of the use of Spanish and English in songs seeCepeda (2000) andOhlson (2007;.Mahootian (2005) analyzes magazines and Montes-Alcalá(2007)blogs.19 The absence of the third-person singular present tense marker -s in the verb speak is a well-known feature of Chicano English. For more information on Chicano English seePenfield and Ornstein-Galicia (1985) and SantaAna (1993), among others. ...
The language practices of Latinos in the US continue to attract attention from politicians, educators, journalists, linguists and the general Hispanic and non-Hispanic public. While monolingual speakers of English in the US expect Hispanics to shift to English like other minority language speakers have done in the past, monolingual speakers of Spanish expect them to speak "pure" Spanish. Even Spanish-English bilingual speakers criticize Latinos for mixing Spanish and English or speaking Spanglish. This term has been rejected by some linguists who claim that it is technically flawed and only applies to casual oral registers. In this paper I consider the linguistic nature, sociolinguistic functions and attitudes towards Spanglish, I show that Latinos are using this hybrid, heteroglossic variety beyond casual oral registers, and I suggest a broader perspective which not only considers the linguistic features of Spanglish but also the political, social and cultural issues involved.
... However, these exceptional analyses (e.g. Allatson 3 As mentioned by Mahootian (2005), with the advent of the Internet and, more recently, the social media, there is an increasing attention for language alternation in digital texts (such as blogs, chats, forums and emails). and Browitt (2008); Torres (2007)) do conclude that Killer Crónicas gives an excellent idea of the linguistic reality of the Spanish-English bilingual community in the USA, and, at the same time is illustrative of creative language mixing in literature. ...
This paper contributes to the general discussion on the value of written data for the study of phenomena typical of orality, and wants to provide a better understanding of the social and linguistic functions of code-switching in Chicano narratives. It looks into the use of bilingual pragmatic marker pairs in Susana Chávez-Silverman’s essays Killer Crónicas. Two case studies are dedicated to pragmatic expressions that focus on the direct interaction between the speaker-writer and hearer-reader, namely the epistemic markers you know/sabes and the metadiscursive parentheticals te lo juro/I swear. It is shown that, besides supporting well-thought literary effects, the use of pragmatic markers in this volume mirrors surprisingly well their use in monolingual and bilingual spoken discourse. As a consequence, due to its high degree of orality, the text of Chávez-Silverman can be considered as a complementary source for the study of code-switching in spoken language. Este trabajo contribuye a la discusión general sobre el valor de datos escritos para el análisis de fenómenos típicos de la oralidad, y provee un mejor entendimiento de las funciones sociales y lingüísticas del cambio de código en narrativos chicanos. Estudia el uso de marcadores pragmáticos bilingües en los ensayos Killer Crónicas de Susana Chávez-Silverman. Los dos estudios de caso se dedican a expresiones pragmáticas que focalizan en la interacción directa entre el hablante-escritor y el interlocutor-lector, a saber los marcadores you know/sabes y los parentéticos metadiscursivos te lo juro/I swear. Se argumenta que, más que soportar determinados efectos literarios, el uso de los marcadores pragmáticos refleja bien su uso en el discurso hablado monolingüe y bilingüe. Como consecuencia, por su grado de oralidad elevado, el texto de Chávez-Silverman se puede considerar como fuente complementaria para el estudio del cambio de código en el lenguaje hablado.
... There is no threat coming from the semiotic practices of transnational space, architecture or others in Chinese advertising with English mixing, but the fact that they have come to be interpreted as an assimilation of foreign elements by Chinese culture, and not the other way round, strongly suggests that China continues to maintain its self-identity regardless of Western influence. When turning the local medium of advertising with English mixing into their institutional voice, advertisers in China legitimize community norms and, meanwhile, exploit the public celebration of a multifaceted, non-unitary Chinese people as a strategy of local audience retention (Mahootian 2005). For example, one of the ways to assess Chinese people through the intertextual allusion to notions of royalty by the particular use of English actually recalls Chinese meanings of success in association with status and privilege. ...
Situated at the nexus of linguistics, media and identity, this article addresses the impact of English on Chinese people’s daily lives by exploring within the framework of positioning how the community of Chinese people in mainland China is imagined and defined through the use of English in Chinese advertising. Based on a corpus of Chinese–English bilingual advertisements, it mainly discusses the mobilisation of English as a stylistic resource in producing a variety of positioning cues that are at work in this discursive process. Five positioning cues are identified in the analysis of lexical items and discursive features of the English language that was utilized in a representative sample of advertisements: proper names of Western places, emotion words, discourses of success, and discourses of Western masculinity and femininity. They are found to have been used in three interrelated processes of locating, refashioning, and assessing Chinese people. The findings are applied as a ground for discussion of the cultural politics of English in China and the question of whether Chinese people’s sense of cultural identity is being threatened.
... For a detailed discussion of discourse markers and CS, see Lipski (2005) and Torres (2002). 14. Mahootian (2005: 369) refers to this type of switches as emotionally/culturally evocative/ bonding, arguing that sometimes 'emotions are better expressed in Spanish, because words sound more powerful in Spanish.' 15. An 'areíto' or 'areyto' is an indigenous ceremony or song form from Hispaniola island and Puerto Rico, adapted into modern musical forms in both the Dominican Republic and, less commonly so, Cuba (Wikipedia). ...
While mixing languages in natural speech production has often been inaccurately ascribed to illiteracy or lack of linguistic competence, doing so in writing is a long-standing practice in bilingual literature. This practice may fulfill stylistic or aesthetic purposes, be a source of credibility and/or communicate biculturalism, humor, criticism, and ethnicity, among other functions. Here, I analyze a selection of contemporary Spanish–English bilingual literature (poetry, drama, and fiction) written by Mexican American, Nuyorican, and Cuban American authors focusing on the types, and significance, of code-switching (CS) in their works. The aim of the study is to determine to what extent the socio-pragmatic functions that have been attested in natural bilingual discourse are present in literary CS, whether it is mimetic rather than rhetorical, and what differences exist both across literary genres and among the three US Latino groups. I also emphasize the cultural aspect of CS, a crucial element that has often been overlooked in the search for grammatical constraints.
... Code switching is also an identity marker. It consciously evokes a sense of cultural identity and unity; hence it is used as a direct and undeniable assertion of bilingual identity (Mahootian 2005). Code switching can be used to emphasize a point which the speaker feels could not be adequately asserted in one language or variety. ...
This study analyzes the use of code switching as a communication strategy in the film Yellow Card. The film Yellow Card deals with HIV and AIDS concerns and inevitable discusses issues pertaining to sex and sexuality, which are unspeakable in the public domain. This research reveals that code-switching is employed for the purposes of linguistic avoidance, whenever there is need to avoid a direct reference to the words and phrases considered taboo. It also occurs for intra-group identity where it functions as a communication technique for aligning or alienating interlocutors depending on the situations. Code switching is also employed to express concepts that can only be identified through a specific language and to create humour in different speech situations. Also revealed is the fact that code-switching is intra-language, occurring within the same language (formal and informal English), and inter-language, occurring between two languages (Shona and English). Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) was used as both a theoretical guide and a methodological thrust. CDA views language as socially constituted and socially constituting. Data was gathered using in-depth textual analysis of the language content of the film Yellow Card and was presented in a descriptive manner. Data interpretation was carried out according to context of use. This study concludes that code-switching is a complex phenomenon that expresses a great deal more about the intentions and needs of the speaker or the writer. It is a crucial communication tool which is significant in sociolinguistics.
... Codeswitching research is now a legitimate area of linguistics investigation (Myers-Scotton 1993b: 45-47); however, most of the findings have been based on spoken, naturally-occurring conversations. Even though the amount of scholarship on language contact in the written mode has increased considerably during the past few years (e.g., Pahta 2004, Pahta and Nurmi 2007, 2009, Schendl and Wright 2011, Wenzel 1994, Wright 1992, most of this research so far has focused on highly planned literary texts (e.g., Callahan 2004, Halmari and Adams 2002, Putter 2011, Schendl 1997, Somerset 2003, Timm 1978, Wenzel 1994, to mention a few; see also Mahootian 2002Mahootian , 2005 on codeswitching in written media, Leppänen 2008 on mixing of Finnish and English in web writing, and Sebba, Mahootian, and Jonsson 2012). ...
Bilingual codeswitching (the interplay of two or more languages in the bilingual speaker’s speech repertoire) can reveal interesting underlying issues of ethnic identity. 467 electronic-mail messages written by three Finnish-English bilingual siblings have been analyzed to detect any variation in codeswitching patterns. The results indicate that, despite the same family background, there is measurable variation not only in the quantity of codeswitching in the e-mails and the relative amounts of English vs. Finnish, but also variation in the manner in which English elements are incorporated into the matrix Finnish text. The oldest research participant resorts to orthographic integration of English words to reflect both Finnish orthographic and phonotactic rules. This ‘orthographic Finnish accent’ is interpreted as an indication of this speaker’s strong Finnish identity and perhaps an implicit reminder to the others that a shift to English in family-internal correspondence is not desirable or ‘authentic.’
... Following Mahootian (2005), I have opted for using the term codeswitching to refer to the "alternation between languages found in mixed-code discourse". This includes extrasentential, intersentential and intrasentential codeswitching. ...
Language is a powerful tool. Linguistic creativity provides the means to new ways of knowing, thinking, and being, and allows a new set of dialogues to emerge. This paper illuminates how Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a Chicano performance artist, writer, activist and educator uses language to do just this. In this paper, I will specifically focus on Gómez-Peña's use of monolingual English and Spanish, as well as his application of code-mixed dialogue and illustrate how his linguistic innovation reflects his position on Border Culture.
... It is known that CS can be influenced by prosody, pauses and the like (1996), it is unclear what prosody they may be putting on written stimuli. Moreover, though CS is sometimes found in writing, it is primarily a spoken phenomenon (Grosjean 1982, Mahootian 2005and Montes-Alcalá 2001). All of this hints at possible confounds, and while at first sight it may seem that a clear solution is to use aural (recorded) stimuli rather than written, there are pros and cons to both modalities. ...
This article addresses methodological concerns in research on grammatical aspects of code-switching. Data from code-switching have the potential for a unique contribution to linguistics by giving us access to combinations of linguistic features that may be difficult (or impossible) to observe in monolingual data. Nonetheless, the use of code-switching data for linguistic inquiry is not without issues. In this paper, we focus on three methodological questions specific to code-switching research: (i) project design, (ii) experimental procedure and (iii) participant selection. Drawing on experimental data from both published works and in-progress projects, we highlight potential solutions to each methodological challenge, concluding that several solutions are often required to mitigate the impact of confounding variables. In line with previous work (e.g. Grosjean 1998, Gullberg, Indefrey & Muysken 2009), we suggest that researchers clearly report on their methodology. Our overall goal is to contribute to a dialogue on best practices in code-switching research.
Recognising the global prestige of English and its prominence in Indonesia, this study examines the linguistic landscape of roadside signage alongside main thoroughfares in the Indonesian city of Balikpapan, a provincial city of East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. We find that some signs are entirely in Indonesian, some are entirely in English and some combine both languages, while there is an absence of ‘local’ languages in signage. Applying Bakhtin’s theories of heteroglossia in language production, and contextualised by Indonesia’s most recent language laws, we examine the indexical dimensions of language use in signage where Indonesian is a centripetal force towards nationalistic positioning and English represents a centrifugal force, potentially undermining the national language and associated identity positions. Complexity is evident in the deliberate mixing of English with Indonesian languages (code switching) in top-down official signage and in bottom-up non-official signage. We suggest that the ‘invasive’ use of English that conflicts with Indonesian laws reflects a contestation of identity positioning between a centripetal idealised national identity and a centrifugal foreign influence. Of greatest interest is the intersection of these seemingly competing forces through deliberate blended language use (code switching). This suggests complex, hybridised identity positioning that combines nationalistic sentiment with an outward gaze that aspires towards more globalised identity positions.
Kebanyakan orang mungkin telah familiar dengan sebutan Bahasa Inggris sebagai Bahasa internasional, Bahasa Inggris sebagai Bahasa global atau bahkan Lingua Franca masyarakat dunia. Kita boleh saja percaya akan pernyataan itu ataupun menyanggahnya. Buku ini berusaha memberikan paparan fakta berupa sejarah dan analisa ilmiah tentang bagaimana sebuah bahasa kuno yang awalnya muncul di daratan Jerman utara, berekspansi ke kepulauan Britania dan kemudian secara cepat menyebar luas di seluruh dunia serta menjadi bahasa yang penggunaannya sangat dominan di berbagai bidang sampai sekarang. Buku ini juga secara khusus memaparkan sebuah kajian literatur tentang dominasi dan pengaruh Bahasa Inggris terhadap kebijakan bahasa, kondisi sosiokultural masyarakat dan ekosistem bahasa di Indonesia. Walaupun status Bahasa Inggris adalah asing di Indonesia, pada kenyataannya Bahasa Inggris justru menjadi bagian atau komponen dari berkembangnya identitas Bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa nasional serta bahasa lokal lainnya di Indonesia.
The commercial Sinhala-medium FM radio practice of code-mixing between Sinhala and English is criticised by some of the mainstream Sinhala-speaking groups of Sri Lanka as unrestrained and thus causing the degeneration of the native language of Sinhala. Regardless of this disapproval, this new style of code-mixing has now spread into the FM media audiences, particularly its youth groups, among whom it is a daily linguistic reality. A previous study explored the nature of this new mode of code-mixing set off against conventional code-mixing of Sinhala-English bilinguals of the country. The present paper makes an attempt to consolidate the findings of the study through a combination of theories, one which explores the Extra Linguistic Power ascribed to some languages or language varieties while marginalising others, and the other on Language as Resistance. Quantitative tools were employed to compare the linguistic features of FM code-mixing and conventional bilingual code-mixing. A qualitative description is provided of the way these differences are perceived by the relevant groups. Thus, the study presumes to communicate important information about the motives and driving forces behind language standards, media agendas, audiences and the dynamics of language policies and practices in Sri Lanka.
This is the first book-length study of identity constructions in relation to English as a contact language in advertising of non-English-speaking countries through a critical and interpretive lens. Instead of simply presuming the role of the English language may have in constructing identities within the multimodal advertisement, this book aims to explore ethnographically the ideological underpinnings of identity constructions in the context of local politics of English. It studies the varying degrees of the contribution of the English language and its possible roles in bilingual advertising, unravels the ideological dimensions of the language as well as identity and explains the sociocultural forms and meanings of identity. To this end, it develops a new critical-cognitive approach, bringing together recent advances in English as a global language, critical sociolinguistics, multilingual studies and multimodal discourse analysis. By delving into the cognitive process of identity constructions, it provides an evidence-based account of the roles of English, and it illustrates the interconnections between identities and local politics of English. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to scholars and students in bilingualism, multilingualism, discourse analysis, English as a global language, multimodality, advertising and marketing.
El Español de los Estados Unidos - by Anna Maria Escobar September 2015
Although it is generally accepted that English is becoming the lingua franca of international business, the details of this process are not well understood. This article uses the Google Books corpus to provide both a quantitative and a qualitative investigation of the ways in which specific English business terms are penetrating major European languages. Some English business terms now appear to be firmly established in other languages, and can be classified as lexical borrowings, while the use of other terms is better described as code-switching.
This study examines bilingual identity of Vietnamese ethnic minority students as reflected in their language practices, language beliefs and language management. It also focuses on factors related to ethnic-cultural factors, social factors, interaction and investment that influence their bilingual identity. Data were obtained from multiple semi-structured interviews conducted with a group of college-age students. Findings suggest that the students, in practising and managing their languages while being informed by their language beliefs, configured their identity as a process in which both preservation of ethnic identity (maintenance) and construction of mainstream identity (transformation) were active. It is argued that there can be a harmonious coexistence between maintenance and transformation in the same individual under certain social circumstances. For some students however, the transformation tendency inclined to become stronger, and that raises the question of their maintenance of L1 and ethnic identity in the long run. As ethnic-cultural factors seemed to be the most salient influence on the students’ maintenance orientation, implications for optimising the role of ethnic-cultural factors, that are critical for protection of endangered minority languages, are suggested.
This paper analyzes the tweets of the US president Donald Trump through a linguistic approach. It sheds light on the content, structure and style of his tweets as well as the discourse aspects of these tweets, such as the rhetorical devices, hedging, and the like. At the beginning, a brief definition is introduced concerning Twitter, social media and politics, previous studies. Then, a broader discussion is given to the main content of this paper as represented by Trump's tweets. Finally, a few conclusions and results are laid down. The paper has found that Trump's tweets are significant in that they not only reflected on the political discourse of the US president, but they also shed light on the linguistic importance of the political tweets. In addition, this paper is a simple step towards understanding the political aspect of twitter, an area that needs a further investigation in the future.
This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States. In thirteen chapters, it brings together the work of leading scholars representing diverse disciplinary perspectives within linguistics, including psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, theoretical linguistics, and applied linguistics, as well as various methodological approaches, such as the collection of naturalistic oral and written data, the use of reading comprehension tasks, the elicitation of acceptability judgments, and computational methods. The volume surpasses the limits of different fields in order to enable a rich characterization of the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-pragmatic factors that affect codeswitching, therefore, leading interested students, professors, and researchers to a better understanding of the regularities governing Spanish-English codeswitches, the representation and processing of codeswitches in the bilingual brain, the interaction between bilinguals’ languages and their mutual influence during linguistic expression.
In Spanglish, a Hollywood movie released in late 2004, the mixed code usually referred to as Spanglish is conspicuous by its absence. The movie’s title turns out to be a metaphor for the cultural confl icts that arise when a Mexican housekeeper moves in with an Anglo family — and an eye-catcher that exploits the increased media interest in Spanglish for promotion purposes. Current examples of the marketing of Spanish/English bilingualism in the US are not hard to find. Language mixing is no doubt part of the symbolic capital that lifestyle magazines like Latina (the ‘Magazine for Hispanic Women’) and rap stars like N.O.R.E. (‘Oye Mi Canto’) sell to their audiences. Beyond the US, music with bilingual lyrics thrived in the 1990s, ranging from Algerian rai to African hip-hop, from Bollywood soundtracks to Korean pop. While popular music audiences ‘seem more receptive to music using other languages than their counterparts of 20 years ago’ (Bentahila and Davies 2002: 190), other sorts of bilingual media messages look back to an even longer tradition, such as multilingual advertising (Piller 2003) and the use of English in the fringe media of youth subcultures, which Hess-Ltittich (1978) has termed ‘bilingualism as a style resource’. Research findings on various other sites of media discourse strengthen the impression that linguistic diversity is gaining an unprecedented visibility in the mediascapes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
This article focuses on the validity of English-Only regulations enacted by public employers in the United States. Specifically, the article centers on the legitimacy of these regulations when the employee claims a violation of the Free-speech Clause embedded in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bolstered by court decisions, the article shows that the constitutionality of adverse employment actions taken against public employees for speaking a foreign language at work will revolve around the courts' application of Garcetti v. Ceballos. That 2006 case empowered government employers to regulate employee expression that lies within the employee's official duties, even if the speech dealt with an issue of great social relevance. Moreover, even if the employee's speech were found to be unrelated to the his/her duties, it would still have to pass the four prongs of the Pickering test, which begins by requiring the employee to show that the speech dealt with a public matter. Despite these obstacles, Garcetti does not leave public employees with-out any legal recourse against an English-Only policy. First, Garcetti does not control prior restraints on employee speech, i.e., situations in which speech was restricted before it actually occurred. If the employee persuaded the court to follow this approach, the government would have to meet a greater burden of justification than it would under Garcetti. And second, given the high level of judicial protection traditionally enjoyed by political speech, courts would most likely strike down English-Only regulations that impinged on the free discussion of governmental affairs, even if the expression fell within the employee's official duties.
Code switching/code mixing is the systematic alternation of two or more languages during a conversation and is part of virtually every bilingual community. This article presents an overview of the terms and the structural and social facets of code-switching as well as its significance during bilingual language acquisition. Research into language contact and its various manifestations has been vibrant and fruitful, bringing together linguists from all subfields of linguistics. The last three decades have seen a shift in code switching research, moving from descriptive studies of the social dynamics of bilingualism and code switching to looking at the structure of mixed code discourse and its implications for theories of syntax and language acquisition.
Technology, and the Internet in particular, have rapidly transformed the means of communication in the 21st century, opening the door to a novel and fertile ground of research. What takes place when bi- or multilingual individuals sit at the keyboard has been the focus of several studies exploring computer-mediated communication (CMC). However, there appears to be a lack of research dealing specifically with Spanish-English language mixing online, a surprising fact given that Spanish is the third language of the Internet and its use has grown 800% in the last decade. The present work analyzes and compares data from three different sources of CMC (e-mail, blogs, and social networks including Facebook and Twitter) among Spanish-English bilinguals in an attempt to further explore the still relatively new field of “electronic code-switching”. The study aims to outline the reasons behind bilingual individuals’ language mixing online, hypothesizing that it will accomplish many of the socio-pragmatic functions traditionally ascribed to oral code-switching along with, perhaps, other uses idiosyncratic of CMC. Furthermore, it intends to emphasize the cultural nature of code-switching, a crucial component that has often been overlooked in the search for grammatical constraints.
The study of spoken discourse in a mixture of languages, commonly called 'conversational code-switching', has a history of several decades, and a number of well-developed theories compete to account for it. A number of researchers have studied multilingual written discourse from different perspectives, but most of these studies have focussed on interactive genres that resemble conversation. Only a few studies have offered analyses of multilingual texts with prominent visual aspects, such as advertisements, posters and web pages. This article briefly reviews research on written code-switching and then goes on to introduce examples of multilingual and multimodal texts that, although they involve combinations of languages within a text, do not correspond to what is normally regarded as code-switching. It argues that an insightful account of these phenomena requires an understanding of the kinds of multilingual literacy practices with which they are associated. Furthermore, for an insightful account of them to be given, they need to be analysed as multimodal texts, where visual and spatial aspects of the whole are crucial to interpretation. The article presents a framework for analysing multimodal, multilingual texts in terms of their visual and spatial as well as linguistic characteristics, and examples of how this can be applied to actual data.
Research has shown that code-switching (CS) between languages in spoken discourse is prevalent in multilingual contexts and is used for many purposes. More recently, it has become the subject of much concern in academic contexts in negatively affecting students’ language use and learning. However, while the concern has been increasing, no rigorous studies have been done in L1 Arabic academic contexts. In this paper, the researchers explore university faculty and students’ views on CS in higher education classes in an American-style institution in Lebanon. Data were collected through unstructured interviews, non-participant observations and questionnaires. Main findings show that faculties are unaware that they code-switch contrary to what non-participant observations showed. The surveys revealed that students code-switch to learn better and that their faculty code-switch in class. Recommendations to raise awareness of this phenomenon in bi/multilingual academic contexts are made.
This thesis examines the discourse functions of Spanish/English code-switching present in Spanish language talk shows. Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon that involves the mixing of two or more languages in discourse by bilinguals. The alternation of languages is a communicative tool used by bilingual speakers to employ discourse/pragmatic strategies much in the same way as a variety of linguistic registers or styles are used by the monolingual speaker. This study provides a critical overview of the most influential studies of the structural and sociolinguistic dimensions of code-switching, and focuses on the major empirical works that have examined the discourse functions of code-switching in interaction. It then analyzes the discourse/pragmatic functions carried out by code-switching in the data obtained from the transcriptions of two talk shows in Spanish. The data reveal that code-switching carries out a wide range of discourse functions in conversation beyond that of supplying a forgotten word or filling a lexical gap. Finally, directions for future research are discussed, including examining pragmatic functions carried out by code-switching in other mediums where multilingual conversation takes place.
Code-switching in situations of language contact has been studied largely from the point of view of its social determinants. This paper will propose formal means for describing the syntax of code-switching with examples from Puerto Rican Spanish and English
Mixture of Spanish and English, whether in isolated loan words or in code-switching of clauses and sentences, while socially motivated, is subject to clear linguistic constraints. Quantitative analysis of mixing in conversations of Mexican-Americans suggests specific functional constraints to express tense/aspect/mood and subject/object relationships, as well as structural constraints which permit only surface structures which are grammatical in both languages. Resolution of structural conflict plays a key role, so that lexical cores trigger longer phrasal switches if they govern rules which create non-shared surface structures. The relative frequency of mixes without structural conflict is constrained by discourse function.
Bilingual codeswitching is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, which calls for explanations on several different linguistic levels. This volume focuses on one such level: the level of syntax. An explanation for the regularities and consistencies in the codeswitching patterns of American Finns in their spontaneous conversations is sought for in the Universal Grammar -based principle of government as realized in case-assignment and agreement relations. A bulk of the Finnish-English intrasentential data get their explanation on the structural, hierarchical level, but this level of syntax is found to be interestingly intertwined with sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and discourse levels, which all contribute to variation in codeswitching patterns. The proposed principle of government is seen as one important explanation in typologically certain kinds of language pairs such as Finnish and English; however, this principle is not treated as a monolithic constraint, but rather as the leading tendency which is occasionally overridden by other than syntactic forces.
This volume is intended as a complement--not as a contradiction--to earlier explanations of codeswitching phenomena. Its main message is this: while all linguistic levels contribute to the construction of bilingual speech, the importance of syntax cannot be ignored.
Historical Linguistics is concerned with the process of language change through time. It investigates how and why the language of individuals, a social group or a whole 'speech community' develops in respect of its pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Dr Bynon regards language as essentially a dynamic phenomenon, whose character can be at best only partly understood by a static, and necessarily idealized, synchronic approach. In Part I she establishes the theoretical framework by providing a systematic survey of the three main models of language development - the neogrammarian, structuralist, and transformational generative. Examples drawn substantially from English and German, but also from classical languages, French, Welsh and a variety of others, are used to explain and compare these approaches. In Part II she turns to sociolinguistics and shows how changes within a language over a period of time, and changes brought about by contact between languages, are both indicators and agents of more general cultural developments. Accounts of bilingualism and of pidgin and Creole languages are included as well as wider-ranging examples of different kinds of borrowing such as loan words, loan translations and extensions of meaning. The student is provided with a practical and critical guide both to what has been done and what can be done to discover and verify these linguistic relationships. Designed primarily as a textbook for linguistics and philology students, this book will also be of interest to those studying English language, classics and modern languages.
To understand the role of language in public life and the social process in general, we need first a closer understanding of how linguistic knowledge and social factors interact in discourse interpretation. This volume is a major advance towards that understanding. Professor Gumperz here synthesizes fundamental research on communication from a wide variety of disciplines - linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology and non-verbal communication - and develops an original and broadly based theory of conversational inference which shows how verbal communication can serve either between individuals of different social and ethnic backgrounds. The urgent need to overcome such barriers to effective communication is also a central concern of the book. Examples of conversational exchanges as well as of longer encounters, recorded in the urban United States, village Austria, South Asia and Britain, and analyzed to illustrate all aspects of the analytical approach, and to show how subconscious cultural presuppositions can damagingly affect interpretation of intent and judgement of interspeaker attitude. The volume will be of central interest to anyone concerned with communication, whether from a more academic viewpoint or as a professional working, for example, in the fields of interethnic or industrial relations.
This paper examines the syntax of the intra-sentential code-switching between Arabic and French which is a common feature of the speech of Moroccan bilinguals. Previous work on code-switching has suggested a variety of constraints prohibiting switching in specific structural and language environments. However, the present study concludes that Arabic-French code-switching is possible at all syntactic boundaries above the word level, though it is not generally permitted between word-internal morpheme boundaries. Moreover, contrary to claims made by others about other types of code- switching, there is for Arabic-French code-switching no constraint that the structure exhibiting a switch must conform to the surface structure patterns of both languages. Instead, it is shown that the possibilities are limited by the requirement that, in structures exhibiting switching as elsewhere, all items must be used in accordance with their own language-particular subcategorisation restrictions. Finally, it is noted that certain types of switch, though not prohibited by any syntactic constraint, occur much more rarely than certain others; this is seen to reflect contrasts between the roles the two languages typically assume in structures involving switching.
The recent syntactic literature contains three major proposals concerning the syntactic status of adnominal adjectives: 1.(1) that they are heads,2.(2) that they are phrasal adjuncts, and3.(3) that they do not form a uniform class.
Given this lack of consensus, it is not surprising that the distribution of adnominal adjectives had remained an unsolved problem in the study of intrasentential codeswitching. In this paper, we propose a solution by exploiting the formal model of intrasentential codeswitching developed in Mahootian (1993), which is based on the null hypothesis that codeswitching sequences are not subject to structural constraints beyond the general principles of phrase structure that govern monolingual sequences. We first show that a blanket treatment of adnominal adjectives as heads is untenable, and then argue that the distribution of adnominal adjectives described in the codeswitching literature provides a new source of evidence in favor of the view that there are two distinct classes of adjectives. We review a number of alternative treatments proposed in the codeswitching literature and show that our analysis is preferable.
The style dimension of language variation has not been adequately explained in sociolinguistic theory. Stylistic or intraspeaker variation derives from and mirrors interspeaker variation. Style is essentially speakers' response to their audience. In audience design, speakers accommodate primarily to their addressee. Third persons – auditors and overhearers – affect style to a lesser but regular degree. Audience design also accounts for bilingual or bidialectal code choices. Nonaudience factors like topic and setting derive their effect by association with addressee types. These style shifts are mainly responsive – caused by a situational change. Speakers can also use style as initiative, to redefine the existing situation. Initiative style is primarily referee design: divergence from the addressee and towards an absent reference group. Referee design is especially prevalent in mass communication. (Sociolinguistic variation, code-switching. bilingualism, accommodation theory, ethnography of communication, mass communication)