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ABSTRACTS
Introduction: Bilingual Conversation ten
years after
Peter Auer - Universität
Hamburg
Abstract not available.
Please refer to the volume presentation. |
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The why and how questions in
the analysis
of conversational code-switching
Li Wei - University
of Newcastle upon Tyne
One perennial issue in the study of code-switching is how to address the relationship
between individual speakers interactional behaviour and the social contexts within
which the interaction occurs. Two competing approaches, the broadly ethnographic approach
and the conversation analytic approach, seem to offer very different solutions, often at
the expense of each other. This article deals with the issue as it emerges in the
methodological debate between conversation analysts and others, including the
ethnomethodologically oriented ethnographers, over how to analyse and interpret the
meaning of code-switching. Using conversational data collected from a Cantonese/English
bilingual community, it is argued that ones initial move should be to pay close
attention to how questions of bilingual interaction, addressing the
interactional details as either the local production or the local enactment of contexts,
but accepting in the meantime the utility of raising the why questions once
how questions have been dealt with.
1. Introduction. 2. Key claims of the CA approach to conversational code-switching.
3. Cantonese/English conversational code-switching: applying the CA approach. 4. Back to
Why: integrating CA with Ethnography of Communication. |
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The conversational dimension in code-switching
between Italian and dialect in Sicily
Giovanna Alfonzetti - Università
di Catania
Abstract not available at this point.
Please refer to the volume presentation for information. |
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Bilingual conversation strategies in Gibraltar
Melissa Moyer - Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona
The present chapter analyzes bilingual conversational activities in Gibraltar in
relation to work carried out by Auer (1995)
on the sequential organization of conversational code-switching, as well as by Muysken (1995a, 1995b) on proposals for a typology of sentential
code-switching structures. Special attention is dedicated to the forms and meanings of
English/Spanish code-switching in situated verbal interactions. The data considered were
collected by Moyer from various social situations in Gibraltar between 1987 and 1992.
Gibraltar is an ideal language laboratory for undertaking research on conversational
code-switching. In this small British territory English and Spanish are used on a daily
basis in almost every verbal interaction. The population has a balanced linguistic
competence. The high level of proficiency in two languages explains the variety and
richness of communicative strategies available to bilingual members of this community.
Bilingual conversations from Gibraltar are analyzed and explained in relation to
language choices at three levels of conversation organization. These choices are
strategies available for communicating meaning available to speakers with a high level of
proficiency in both English and Spanish. The first choice involves the selection of a main
or dominant language for the entire conversation. The main language serves to frame the
code-switching choices made at the other two levels of conversation organization. At an
intermediate level participants can momentarily switch their language for a limited number
of turns. Language negotiation between participants takes place at this level. Meanings
related to inter-turn language choices are recuperated by a sequential analysis along the
lines proposed by Auer (1995). There are several intra-sentential switch types within a
turn that a speaker fluent in English and Spanish can choose. Such structural switches
function as contextualization cues for the creation of the situated meaning. These
proposals are applied to several bilingual conversation extracts in an effort to show how
contextualization cues combine with additional textual resources such as topic, alignment
of speakers, and humor to represent the ambivalent and multifaceted identity of
Gibraltarians.
The first section of the chapter offers background information about the community of
Gibraltar together with some basic insights on the norms, values and attitudes of language
use. Section two on conversational competence illustrates bilingual conversational
competence in a simulated bilingual conversation where specific linguistic strategies are
used in the creation of situated meaning. The next part, discusses a proposal for
analyzing bilingual conversations in terms of languages choices which are made at three
distinct levels (as outlined above) of a conversational event. Part four on bilingual
conversation strategies presents three extracts which are discussed in relation to the
three level model of language choice proposed. The last paragraph summarizes the main
ideas about bilingual conversation set out in the present chapter.
References
Auer, P., 1995, The pragmatics of
code-switching: A sequential approach. In: L. Milroy & P. Muysken (eds.), One
speaker, two languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 115-136.
Muysken, P., 1995a, Code-switching and
grammatical theory. In L. Milroy & P. Muysken (eds.), One speaker, two languages.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 177-198.
Muysken, P., 1995b, Ottersum
revisited: Style-shifting and code-switching, Paper presented to the Dutch
Sociolinguistics Conference, mimeo. |
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From switching code to
codeswitching:
Toward a reconceptualization of communicative codes
Celso Alvarez-Cáccamo - Universidade
da Corunha
Code-switching research finds itself at a crossroads: On the one hand, ample research
has shown that the alternate use of recognizably distinct speech varieties in discourse
may have accountable meanings and effects. In this line, speech varieties have been
associated with codes, and thus variety alternation is tantamount to
code-switching.
On the other hand, some research has shown the impossibility or inappropriateness of
assigning specific meanings to some types of variety alternation, which has thus
implicitly started to question whether meaningless code-switching can be called
code-switching at all (Alvarez-Cáccamo 1990;
Stroud 1992; Swigart 1992). That is, if codes do not contrast, can we maintain that
they are indeed distinct code s? Given the different natures of unmarked and
marked code-switching, are we witnessing two distinct phenomena? Or is
something missing in the way code-switching is currently conceptualized?
This work is an attempt to shed light on the issue, by tracing back the origin and
development of the notion of code-switching from its earliest formulations as connected to
information theory (Fano 1950; Jakobson,
Fant & Halle 1952; Jakobson 1961), bilingual contact studies (e.g. Haugen 19 50a, 1950b; Weinreich 1953;
Vogt 1954; Diebold 1961; Gumperz 1962),
and structural phonology (Fries & Pike 1949),
to current conversational and anthropological work on code-switching (Auer 1984; Heller 1988; Eastman 1992).
Briefly, contrary to Jakobsons pioneering formulations on the communicative
mechanism of switching code, the increasing merging of the notion s of communicative
code and linguistic variety has been paralleled by the increasing
lexicalization of the term codeswitching: in a sense, codeswitching now
subsumes and globalizes a number of possibly unrelated phenomena while excluding others
which are clear candidates for being considered switches in communicative codes.
The arguments in this chapter are based both on theoretically-oriented works and on the
discussion of selected cases from previous research, including data from my own work. The
connecting thread in this work is the need to return to a communicative view of codes as
systems of transduction between two sets of signals: on the one end, communicative intentions,
and on the other end, linguistic-discursive forms amenable to interpretation. In
this vein, it is suggested that the maintenance of the distinction between linguistic
variety (in its broadest sense) and communicative code is crucial for
explaining conversational conduct. Consequently, a parallel distinction between variety-alternation
and code-switching is proposed. While linguistic varieties are held together by
structural co-occurrence constraints, codes are held together by situational coherence
constraints. Apparently meaningless switches between varieties may therefore
be simply explained as the outcome of communicative coherence constraints. Conversely, it
is possible that code-switching be effected in monolingual discourse through the
deployment of (lexical or non-lexical) re-contextualizing conversational tokens which
signal shifts in activity type, alignments, footing, or frames.
At the broader sociological level, this approach points to the need to reassess the
validity of outsiders accounts of the articulation between
code-switching and social identity. Formulations about unmarked
code-switching (Scotton 1988) as an
index of an ambiguous or dual group identification may be a
contradiction of terms. In this sense, it becomes necessar y to recapture Gumperzs (1964) communicative view of supposedly
code-switched discourse as a socio-functional, culturally determined style.
References
Alvarez Cáccamo, Celso. 1990. Rethinking
conversational code-switching: Codes, speech varieties, and contextualization. In: Proceedings
of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Feb ruary 16-19, 1990.
Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 3-16.
Auer, Peter. 1984. Bilingual
conversation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Diebold, A. Richard. 1961. Incipient
bilingualism. Language 37, 97-112.
Eastman, Carol M., ed. 1992. Codeswitching.
Clevedon/Philadelphia/Adelaide: Multilingual Matters.
Fano, R. M. 1950. The information theory
point of view in speech communication. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
22.6, 691-696.
Fries, Charles C., and Kenneth L. Pike. 1949.
Coexisting phonemic systems. Language 25.1, 29-50.
Gumperz, John J. 1962. Types of
linguistic communities. Anthropological Linguistics 4.1, 28-40.
Gumperz, John J. 1964. Hindi-Punjabi
code-switching in Delhi. In: H. Lunt, ed. Proceedings of the Ninth International
Congress of Linguistics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962. The Hague: Mouton, 1115-1124.
Haugen, Einar. 1950a. The analysis of
linguistic borrowing. Language 26.2., 210-231.
Haugen, Einar. 1950b. Problems of
bilingualism. Lingua 2.3., 271-290.
Heller, Monica, ed. 1988. Codeswitching:
Anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Jakobson, Roman. 1961. Linguistics and
communication theory. In Roman Jakobson, ed. On the structure of language and its
mathematical aspects. Proceedings of the XIIth Symposium of Applied Mathematics [New York,
14- 15 April 1960]. Providence (R.I): American Mathematical Society, 245-252.
Jakobson, Roman, C. Gunnar M. Fant, and Morris Halle. 1952. Preliminaries to speech analysis: The distinctive
features and their correlates. Cambridge (Mass.): The M.I.T. Press.
Scotton, Carol Myers. 1988. Code
switching as indexical of social negotiations. In Heller 1988, 151-186.
Stroud, Christopher. 1992. The problem of
intention and meaning in code-switching. Text 12, 127-155.
Swigart, Leigh. 1992. Two codes or one?
The insiders view and the description of codeswitching in Dakar. In Eastman 1992,
83-102.
Vogt, Hans. 1954. Language contacts. Word
10.2-3, 365-374.
Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Language in
Contact. The Hague: Mouton. |
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Code-switching and the notion of code in
linguistics:
Proposals for a model of a double-focussing speaker
Rita Franceschini
- Universität Basel
The longstanding and multiplex discussion on how to draw a line between code-switching,
code-mixing, borrowing, transfer, etc. indicates that the problem is a heuristic one,
which links up to linguistic theory. Usually, the notion of a code or a
language is presupposed in the literature on code-switching. However, seen
from the perspective of the language user (and the intuitions of the members of a speech
community), this presupposition may be questioned, as e.g. data from the African context
suggest (cf. Meeuwis & Blommaert, in this volume). A conversation analytic approach is
able to shift the perspective in fundamental ways: it is able to show that speakers
separate linguistic systems in ways which do not agree with the categories of dominantly
monolingual linguistics.
In this chapter, I argue that the way in which bilinguals converse (typically by
code-switching) is not a third - exceptional - way (between the monolingual
ways in the two languages), but the central one. The notion of a code will be
grounded in the speakers multilingual practice. Seen as a simple continuum, the
consistently monolingual ways of speaking would be the extremes, while code-switching (as
well as other phenomena of language contact) might be located in the central area (which,
in itself, would have to be conceptualized as multi-dimensional).
The view on code-switching I present has emerged from (and will be developed on the
basis of) observations and data analyses in German-speaking Switzerland (where Italian,
Italian dialect, Swiss German dialect and French are in contact). It has numerous points
of convergence with work by R. Le Page and A. Tabouret-Keller on Creole languages and on
Alsatian language contact.
The article uses two data sets. First, I focus on some prototypical instances of
intra-sentential code-switching (Preziosa Di Quinzio 1992, Canegrati 1995)
in order to demonstrate that a clear separation of languages is difficult. In
the second part, I discuss phenomena of unexpected code-switching into Italian by Germans
in conversation (inter-sentential switching); they are similar to those discussed by
Rampton in the British context (in this volume). On the basis of these data, I address the
question of how code-switching can be learned and can spread across ethnic boundaries,
with a variable identity value. (This includes the question of how written forms of
code-switching develop out of wide-spread oral switching.) Finally, code-switching as a
sedimentation of multilingual practice may be found in word formation, which opens up a
possibility to capture the diachronic dimension of switching.
I do not introduce new terminology for old phenomena in this paper. Instead, I discuss
the margins of code-switching from the perspective of a highly multilingual
situation. In addition, some links to theoretical linguistics and the investigation of
language contact are made.
References
Canegrati, G. 1996. Code-switching a
Toronto e a Monza: teorie e corpora a confronto. Unpublished thesis, University of
Bergamo.
Preziosa Di Quinzio, I. 1992. Teoreticamente
la firma fa indietro. Frammistione di italiano e schwyzertüsch nella conversazione
di figli di emigrati. Unpublished M. Phil. thesis, University of Zürich. |
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A monolectal view of code-switching:
Layered code-switching among Zaireans in Belgium
Michael Meeuwis & Jan Blommaert - IprA Research Center, Antwerp
1. Introduction. This chapter focuses on the conversational alternation of two
codes which are in themselves products of code-switching (CS). The material we use
consists of transcribed conversations among Zaireans residing in Belgium.
Whereas most existing approaches to CS emphasize the presence of two languages in one
stretch of speech, and thus identify codes with languages, we will use a
monolectal approach, which is more in tune with speakers metalinguistic
perceptions. In this approach, the CS variety is in itself seen as one single code, and
within this code, semantic and pragmatic effects are based on code-internal variation
(e.g. stylistic variation).
In section 2, a brief sketch of Zairean multilingualism is presented, involving an
ethnographic assessment of the structure of speakers repertoires in terms of the
accessibility and availability of codes. Section 3 elaborates the monolectal view of CS.
In the fourth section, the discussion of the repertoire is recapitulated in terms of a
monolectal perspective, and applied to instances of layered CS among Zaireans. It is shown
that two monolectal CS variants are combined in one speech event so as to make up a
hierarchical pattern of CS within CS.
2. Zairean multilingualism: a brief sociology of language. In addition to its
official language, French, and its 220 or so vernacular languages, Zaire has four
languages of wider distribution: Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili, and Tshiluba. These so-called
national languages each occupy a specific area of distribution and primarily
function as languages of interethnic contact, although their number of native speakers is
increasing. In spite of the geographical distribution, a number of social and political
factors has caused that more than one of these languages are nowadays heard alongside each
other in the same area. The enhanced accessibility of codes entailed by these processes of
language spread has opened up the possibilities of CS. This is particularly salient in
diaspora situations such as that of Zairean emigres in Belgium.
3. A monolectal view and its implications. Given the sociolinguistic background
of Zairean émigrés, in particular with regard to their knowledge and use of French
alongside Zairean languages, CS with French appears to be a naturalized speech commodity.
Therefore, distinctions made from the linguists point of view (in the case of CS,
the distinction of two or more languages) dont appear to have the same
relevance from the members vantage point. We present evidence for the claim that
common-sense associations between languages and sociolinguistic indexical values do not
hold. The data rather point in the direction of a speakers metalinguistic perception
of CS speech as one language, putting greater relevance on intralectal variation such as
style, accent, dialect, etc. In particular, the quality of CS material seems
to be of overriding importance in assessing speakers intended effects in
conversation.
4. Layered code-switching. In the context of an enhanced accessibility of codes,
monolectal CS variants can themselves become the objects of conversational switching.
Interactional material involving CS between a Lingala/French monolectal CS variety and a
Swahili/French monolectal CS variety is analyzed as to their societal anchoring and
functions. It is shown that, from an ethnographic viewpoint, Lingala/French is the
preferred code for multilingual situations involving speakers of more than one Zairean
national language. Swahili/French CS only appears in situations where all speakers know
Swahili. This hierarchy is a diaspora phenomenon, and relates to processes of identity
construction among Zairean émigrés.
5. Conclusions. A brief summary of the fields is presented, and theoretical
implications, especially regarding the status of a monolectal approach vis-à-vis a
language-based approach, are discussed. |
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Discourse connectives in bilingual conversation:
The case of an emerging Italian-French mixed-code
Cecilia
Ösch-Serra - Université de Neuchâtel
The study I am presenting analyses an interactive pattern which appears very frequently
in the speech of Italian migrants in French speaking Switzerland. The speakers construct
an original argumentative system on the basis of two monolingual systems, which is not
identical to either of them.
In such a system there are three adversative connectives rather than two in monolingual
Italian: ma (but), però (but, however, yet) or one
in monolingual French, mais (but). The system uses the adversative
connectives in order to organize argumentative patterns with their own ru les for
application. The patterns are variable, ranging from the most simple: the connection with
a single mais or a single ma, to the most complex: the connection with the
three connectives ma + mais + però. Moreover, each pattern
pre-supposes the existence of the others and is in a relation o f intensity with them. A
tendency is therefore revealed which sees the specialisation of the single ma as a
speech marker and that of the single mais as an argumentative connective.
Conversational analysis of these occurrences reveals, however, that various factors --
such as the discursive function, the importance of the argument they introduce or the base
language used at this point in speech -- may play an important role in their respective
choice. Despite their difference, the isolated or joint use of connectives reveal common
conversational functions. The organization of this argumentative structure, its frequency
and its regularity provide additional arguments supporting the emergence of a mixed-code,
which has no equivalent in the source languages. |
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On the transition from code-switching to a mixed
code
Yael Maschler - The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
This paper is concerned with two types of language alternation phenomena in bilingual
conversation and with transitions and interactions between them. On the one hand, we find
the case of code-switching -- using two languages for ad hoc, interpretive purposes, as a
typically bilingual contextualization cue (Gumperz 1982). On the other hand, we find the case of a mixed code--
using two languages such that a third, new code emerges, in which elements from the two
languages are incorporated into a structurally definable pattern. First, I offer a
diachronic perspective on language alternation phenomena by examining the emergence of a
new, mixed code from ad hoc cases of code-switching. I then examine the interaction of
this mixed code with ad hoc motivations for code-switching. An underlying theme throughout
the study concerns criteria for deciding when a particular case of language alternation
constitutes a code-switch and when it can be said to constitute part of a new-mixed code.
References
Gumperz, John J. 1982. Discourse
Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
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We, they and identity: Sequential vs.
identity-related
explanation in code-switching
Mark Sebba - Lancaster
University & Tony Wootton - University
of York
This paper examines the role of code-switching in establishing and maintaining
speakers identities in conversation, re-examining and re-interpreting Gumperzs
distinction between we code and they code. Applying Conversat ion
Analysis techniques to a corpus of conversational data collected from adolescents
bilingual in London Jamaican (Creole) and London English, the authors find
evidence for both sequential and identity-related code-switching. However, they ar gue
that it is necessary to go beyond fixed associations of we and
they with particular codes to see that these associations are themselves
negotiated and constructed in the interaction, drawing on cultural resources located both
i nside and outside it. The notions of we and they are part of more local,
and changeable, social identities which are made salient from time to time within a
conversation. |
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Language crossing and the redefinition of reality
Ben Rampton - Thames
Valley University London
Drawing on ethnographic research on multilingual adolescent friendship groups in the UK
(Rampton 1995), this chapter begins by
describing language crossing. Even though they dont have any automatic
right to them, youngsters often make spontaneous use of ethnic outgroup languages, and
they manage to do so by crossing in liminoid moments and events, when
assumptions about the world of daily life known in common with others and with
others taken for granted are interrupted (Turner 1982; G arfinkel 1984).
In fact, crossing constitutes a complex symbolic dialogue about inherited ethnicities, and
although it never finally abandones them, it continually denaturalises absolutist ideas
about ethnicity being fixed at birth and in the early years of socialisation (cf. Gilroy 1987).
With this characterisation in place, the chapter then considers crossings
implications for code-switching research more generally. It suggests that
(a) by focussing overwhelmingly on bilingual in-groups, research has tended to neglect
the emergence of new plural ethnicities, built in an acceptance of old ones (Hall 1988);
(b) to gain any purchase on the exploration and/or renegotiation of reality - here, a
reality of race stratification and division - full recognition needs to be given to
Gumperz notion of metaphorical code-switching, though this needs some further
clarification, perhaps most profitably by being drawn into close association with
Bakhtins notion of double-voicing (1984:181-204);
(c) for the same reason, it would also be helpful if code-switching research relaxed
its commitment to discovering coherence and systematicity in code-switching, and attended
more closely to incongruity and contradiction. In the process, a clearer view would emerge
of the (not infrequent) local occasions when code alternation no longer functions
adequately as a contextualisation cue and instead becomes part of the main
action, an object of explicit political dispute (cf. Goffman 1974:Ch7; Hewitt 1986:169,
181).
Conversation analysis has made a huge contribution to the study of code-switching. It
is inclined, however, more to a celebration than critique of common sense (Thomson 1984:115-118), and so there are limits to its
value in the analysis of interethnic processes in multilingual settings. In such settings,
c oncentration on ordinary conversation can also be unduly restrictive, since it is often
in the stylised performances studied in ethnography that participants engage in
contestation and change (Bauman & Briggs 1990).
The last part of the chapter explores crossings role as a concept mediating
between code-switching and second language learning and teaching. Crossing invites a
certain amount of rethinking of the basic vocabulary of second language acquisition rese
arch, and its identity as a ritualised speech activity suggests a number of problems in
communicative language teaching methodology.
References
Bakhtin, M. 1984. Problems in
Dostoevskys Poetics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bauman, R., & C. Briggs. 1990.
Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual
Review of Anthropology 19, 59-88.
Garfinkel, H. 1984. Studies in
Ethnomethodology. Oxford: Polity Press.
Gilroy, P. 1987. There Aint no
Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson.
Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hall, S. 1988. New ethnicities. ICA
Documents 7, 27-31.
Hewitt, R. 1986. White Talk, Black
Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rampton, B. 1995. Crossing: Language
and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London: Longman.
Thompson, J. 1984. Studies in the
Theory of Ideology. Oxford: Polity Press.
Turner, V. 1982. Liminal to liminoid in
play, flow and ritual. In: From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play.
New York: PAJ, 20-60. |
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Childrens acquisition of code-switching for
power-wielding
Normann Jørgensen - University
of Copenhagen
This chapter discusses bilingual childrens acquisition of code-switching as one
of several means of administering power relations in face-to-face communication. Firstly I
describe how bilingual children at an early stage can relate to differences in personal
power, and behave linguistically according to these differences. The means to exercise
power, and a brief outline of how the children develop power relations is my next step.
Code-switching will be in focus in this context. Finally I compare excerpts from group
conversations between the same children, but five years apart.
The material used in my paper comes from a longitudinal study of Turkish
childrens bilingual development in the Danish public school system. The descriptive
basis of the linguistic data is an ethnographic outline of the population concerned, and
the situations in which the linguistic material is collected. The language use of the
bilingual children is understood in light of the power relations represented in their
immediate surroundings when they are at their school, and in society at large.
Nevertheless, our understanding of the childrens acquisition of turn-by-turn
power wielding is also a question of small-scale analyses of their linguistic
contributions to the conversations they are engaged in. The problems of interpreting the
individual childrens development in the light of macro-power relations is one of the
problems discussed in the chapter.
For instance, it can be shown that between grade 1 and grade 4, the percentage of
Danish-matrix utterances used by the bilingual (Turkish/Danish) children in bilingual
groups grows from almost zero to about one fourth. Some of the Danish-matrix utterances
are clear indications of power oriented language choice which can be explained in terms of
macro power relations in Danish society. But other utterances, and more of them the older
the students become, seem to be just the opposite. In this chapter I speculate whether
this may point to a development of a neither-nor or a both-and
linguistic identity of the bilingual students, i.e. their we code is neither
Danish nor Turkish, but both Danish und Turkish are their languages. The real
we code may then be the pointedly bilingual languages use which employs code
switching as one of its defining characteristics. |
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Perspectives on cultural variability of discourse
and some implications for code-switching
Christopher Stroud
- Stockholms Universitet
This chapter explores the culturally specific social uses of conversational
code-switching between Tok Pisin and the local vernacular, Taiap, found in a Papua New
Guinean speech community. It does so by situating the study of conversational
code-switching within an orientation to language that emphasizes the dialogic and situated
co-construction of meaning and a concern for cultural variability.
The data for the study is taken from a set of case studies of a single community, the
East Sepik village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea. More specifically, the vivid and volatile
genre of the kros is taken as a focus for this analysis. Although superficially a
disruptive speech event in that its purpose is to publicly proclaim anger, conflict and
critique, distribute blame and elicit sympathy, it is in point of fact a highly
significant semiotic event in Gapuners striving to establish new consensuses through
the realignment and recontextualization of social relationships.
The analysis of code-switching is contextualized in an ethnographic account of the ways
in which Gapun villagers conceive of social action, agency and knowledge, and discussed
against the background of the implications these conceptions carry for villagers
indigenous notions of personhood and intentionality, as well as for their ways of
construing meanings in events, including linguistic events. Specifically, the chapter
focusses on Gapuners indigenous sociocultural ideologies of social action and how
they are articulated in language use.
In the context of the kros, strategic use of code-switched utterances occurs
with rhetorical questions, irony, repetition and other double-voiced
utterances (Bakhtin), that is, words that orientate towards the words of another
voice without necessarily subjugating them to the ideologically
controlling monologic voice. Code-switching is viewed in this context as one type of
the double-voiced word, thereby permitting ambiguity about whose voice is
being heard.
By way of conclusion, the analysis provided here speaks to the need for
ethnographically sensitive approaches to conversational code-switching. |
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