Code Switching or Code Mixing
Code Switching (Gumperz’s, 1972)
• is the process of alternating between two or more languages (or
dialects or varieties of language), in a single conversation, while
keeping up the linguistic features of that language or variety of
language.
• Multilingual speakers often move back and forth between two
languages or verities of languages while conversing with each other to
facilitate their conversation.
1- Situational code-switching (Participants, solidarity and status)
It occurs when there is some obvious change in social situations, such as:
The arrival of a new person
A code-switch may be related to a particular participant or addressee.
It indicates a change in the social situation and account of the presence of a new
participant.
E.
• g.(8, p.34), Mere is Maori and although the rest of the meeting will be conducted
in English, Sarah switches to Maori to greet her. The Maori greeting is an
expression of solidarity.
• In a Polish family living in Lancashire in the 1950s, the family used Polish in the
home. When the local English-speaking priest called, however, everyone
switched to English.
Signal of group membership and shared ethnicity with an addressee
• Even speakers who are not very proficient in a second language may use very
short and brief phrases and words for this purpose
• This kind of switching is sometimes called emblematic switching or tag
switching. The switch is simply an interjection or a linguistic tag in the other
language.
• Social reasons – serves as an ethnic identity marker and solidarity marker
• E.g. The exchange in (c, P.35), for instance, occurred between two Mexican
Americans in the USA. By using the Spanish tag, M signaled to A that she
recognized the relevance of their shared ethnic background to their future
relationship.
• The tag served as a solidarity marker between two minority ethnic group
members whose previous conversation has been entirely in English.
Switches can also distance a speaker from those they are talking to
Young people often switch to signal their sophistication and identification with
modernity.
E.g.
• In one conversation, two young women and a young man are discussing local
music. While the women use Pamaka, their community language, the young man
deliberately switches to Sranan Tongo and avoids Pamaka.
• His language switch distances him from the other participants, while also
signaling his alignment with the urban western world.
A switch may also indicate a change in the other dimensions such as the status
relations between people or the formality of their interaction.
• More formal relationships, (involve status differences too),
E.g. as doctor–patient or administrator–client involve the H variety or code.
• Friendly relationships (involving minimal social distance)
E.g. as neighbor or friend involve an L code.
2- Referential code-switching (Topic)
Topic
• People may switch code within a speech event to discuss a particular topic.
• Bilinguals often find it easier to discuss particular topics in one code rather than another.
E.g. Chinese students from Guangzhou in an English-speaking country tend to use Cantonese
with each other, except to discuss their studies and technical topics when they switch to English.
This is partly because they have learned the vocabulary of economics or linguistics or physics in
English, so they do not always know the words for ‘capital formation’ or ‘morpheme’ or ‘electron’
in Cantonese. They often switch to English for considerable stretches of speech.
Quotation:
• Another example of a referentially oriented code-switch is when a speaker switches code to
quote a person.
• The switch involves just the words that the speaker is claiming the quoted person said.
• So the switch acts like a set of quotation marks to emphasize the precise message content.
• The speaker wishes to be accurate – the exact words are important.
3- Affective code-switching, used to:
• express affective rather than referential meaning.
• achieve a range of interesting rhetorical effects.
• amusement and dramatic effect
• make rude remarks or jokes
• humorous anecdotes
• A language switch in the opposite direction, from the L to the H variety, is often used to
express disapproval.
• a person may code-switch from the H to the L variety because they are angry.
E.g. German symbolizes authority, and so by using German the grandfather emphasizes his anger
and disapproval of the children’s behavior.
In a Chinese immigrant family in the north-east of England, Chinese is the usual language of the
home. When a mother switched to English to ask her son why he had not finished his homework,
he recognized he was being indirectly told that he had better finish his homework before starting
to play on the computer.
Metaphorical switching or (code-mixing)
Code-mixing is the other phenomenon closely related to code-switching. It usually occurs when
conversant use both languages together, switch between two language to the extent that they
change from one tongue to the other in the course
of a single utterance. Code mixing takes place without a
change of topic and can involve various levels of language
such as phonology, morphology, grammatical structures or
lexical items.
This type of switching has sometimes been called
metaphorical switching. The term also reflects the fact
that this kind of switching involves rhetorical skill.
Skillful code-switching operates like metaphor to enrich
the communication.
Lexical borrowing
• These ‘switches’ are triggered by lack of vocabulary. People may also borrow
words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for
which there is no obvious word available in the language they are using.
• Borrowing of this kind generally involves single words – mainly nouns – and it
is motivated by lexical need. It is very different from switching where speakers
have a genuine choice about which words or phrases they will use in which
language.
• Borrowings often differ from code-switches in form too. Borrowed words are
usually adapted to the speaker’s first language. They are pronounced and used
grammatically as if they were part of the speaker’s first language.
E.g. blouse (باليز/)بلوزة، cigarette (سجائر/ )سجارة،machine (مكائن/)مكينة
Attitudes to code-switching
• The attitudes and the reactions to code-switching styles of the majority
monolingual groups such as in places like North America and Britain are
negative in many communities.
• In places such as East Africa, where multilingualism is the norm, attitudes to
proficient code-switching are much more positive.
• Why? The ability to manipulate two or more codes proficiently. It seems
possible that an increase in ethnic self-consciousness and confidence may alter
attitudes among minority group members in other communities over time.
