Chapter 5: LANGUAGE CHOICE

AND CODE-SWITCHING

GROUP
1. Le Kim Tien

2. Le Thi Bon

3. Tran Kim Tram

5.1 INTRODUCTION
 Language variation, language use in bi- and
multilingual communities → how bi-/multilingual
speakers choose which language to use on any
occassion & how they code-switch.
 Relating to what has been termed the indexicality
of language/language varieties
＋Index
＋Point to a speaker's origin/ of aspects of their social
identity
＋Be certain social values related to the speakers
who use them and the contexts in which they are
habitually used
5.1 INTRODUCTION
 Provides evidence from several studies of the
meanings that may be attributed to different
language varieties.

 Discuss patterns of language use, focusing mainly

on bilingual communities but also drawing parallels
with variable language use in monolingual settings.

 Look first at ‘language choice’ at a rather general

level.
5.1 INTRODUCTION
 Examine language use in specific contexts, looking at
how, during the course of an interaction, speakers
may adopt different language varieties / code-switch
between varieties as a communicative strategy.

 Compare code-switching research with research on

‘stylistic’ variation in monolingual contexts .

 Review interpretations of speakers’ variable language

use that try to combine insights from research carried
out in different contexts.
5.2 Evaluation & accomodation:
Language variation as meaningful
 A technique termed matched guise:

＋ The same speaker would be audio-recorded

reading a passage in two or more different
language varieties.

＋ The recordings were presented to listeners as

coming from different speakers, and listeners
were asked to evaluate each speaker along
several dimensions.
5.2 Evaluation & accomodation:
Language variation as meaningful
Example: One of the original matched-guise
studies was carried out in Canada by Wallace
Lambert and his associates.
→ both French Canadian and English Canadian
listeners rated the English guises more
favourably than the French guises in several
respects – in terms of both physical attributes
(e.g. good looks) and mental/emotional traits
(e.g. intelligence, dependability).
5.2 Evaluation & accomodation:
Language variation as meaningful
 ==>> The matched-guise technique used in these
studies was intended to hold constant factors other than
the speaker’s language variety that might affect how
they were perceived (individual differences between
speakers such as their voice quality, pitch of voice or
rate of speaking might affect listeners’ perceptions).
 In addition to their studies of speech evaluation, Howard
Giles and his associates have investigated such
variation in the speech of individual speakers.
 Giles was particularly interested in how speakers
changed the way they spoke according to the person
they were talking to → speech accommodation theory.
5.3. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN
BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
Who becomes bilingual in Africa? The simple answer is,
almost everyone who is mobile, either in a socio-economic
or a geographical sense. While there are monolinguals in
Africa, the typical person speaks at least one language in
addition to his/her first language, and persons living in
urban areas often speak two or three additional languages.
(Myers-Scotton 1993: 33)
• Many studies of language use in bilingual communities

have been concerned with the habitual language

choices made by speakers.
5.3. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN
BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
* Joshua Fishman argued that, in cases of stable
bilingualism, ‘“Proper” usage dictates that only
one of the theoretically coavailable languages or
varietieswillbe chosen by particular classes of
interlocutorson particular kinds of occasionsto
discuss particular kinds of topics’ (Fishman 1972a:
437; Fishman’s italics).
5.3. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES

- Carol Myers-Scotton (1993) reviews evidence from Africa –

some of her own surveys carried out in the 1970s in Nigeria
and Kenya. Myers-Scotton notes that, in Africa, the most
common pattern of bilingualism is to use the speaker’s own
mother tongue plus an indigenous lingua franca, or an alien
official language (such as English or French)
- Evidence from urban communities in Africa suggests that
patterns of language choice vary according to speakers’
social backgrounds and the types of interaction in which they
engage.
5.3. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN
BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
In bilingual communities,it is possible to identify certain broad
regularities or patterns of language use.
Clerk: Ee . . . sema.
‘OK . . . what do you want?’ (literally: ‘speak’)
Customer: Nipe fomu ya kuchukua pesa.
‘Give me the form for withdrawing money.’
Clerk: Nipe kitabu kwanza.
‘Give me [your] passbook fi rst.’
(Customer gives him the passbook.)
Customer: Hebu, chukua fomy yangu.
‘Say, how about taking my form.’
Clerk: Bwana, huwezi kutoa pesa leo kwa sababu hujamaliza siku saba.
‘Mister, you can’t take out money today because you haven’t yet
fi nished seven days [since the last withdrawal].’
Customer: (switching to Luo)Konya an marach.
‘Help, I’m in trouble.’
Clerk: (also speaking Luo now)Anyalo kony, kik inuo kendo.
‘I can help you, but don’t repeat it.’
 5.3. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN
BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
Thus, Insofar as a language becomes associated with certain groups
of speakers and contexts of use, it will acquire important social
meanings. Speakers may use the language to convey information
about their own identity and about the relationship that obtains
between themselves and others.
- Language choice can also be an uncertain matter. There is
something of a tension, for instance, in the position of English in
Kenya. English is an official language, along with Swahili. It is
associated with high social status, but its use is also resented by those
who see it as a threat to local languages and cultures.
- Relationships between languages in bilingual communities may be
relatively stable, but they may also change. A variety of social changes
(migration, invasion and conquest, industrialisation) have been
associated with a process termed language shift, in which the
functions carried out by one language are taken over by another
5.4. CODE-SWITCHING IN BIDIALECTAL
AND BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
 Code-switching: the act of changing between two or
more languages when you are speaking.
5.4. CODE-SWITCHING IN BIDIALECTAL
AND BILINGUAL COMMUNITIES
 Code-switching: The act of changing between two or
more languages when you are speaking.
 For example
5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

 Code-switching is communicatively used to convey

certain social meanings
 People switch between languages, and such switches
often convey a particular meaning associated with the
habitual use of the two languages in the community.
 For example: A mother has called to collect her daughter,
looked after by the child’s grandparents during the day.
The girl has been misbehaving and when her mother
calls she is tired. The grandfather sympathises with her
as she whines and cries.
5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

 Switch to German => marks the end of the interaction

between herself and the grandfather – it ends the argument.
 The grandfather says nothing for several rounds of talk, and
nothing more at all about slapping.
5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

 ‘Unmarked’ language choices: the language used is one

that would be expected in that context.

 ‘Marked’ choices: the language used would not normally

be expected.

 Marked choices may function as attempts to redefine

aspects of the context, or the relationship between
speakers.
5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

Four Code-switching patterns:

a. Code-switching as a series of unmarked choices
between different languages

b. Code-switching itself as an unmarked choice

c. Code-switching as a marked choice

d. Code-switching as an exploratory choice.

 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

a. Code-switching as a series of unmarked choices

between different languages
 aspects of the context: a change in topic or in the
person addressed make a different language variety
more appropriate
For example: At a conference, two delegates speak
Vietnamese with each other, then an American joins the
conversation. The two Vietnamese change to English to
talk to him.
Nam: Xin chào! Lâu lắm mới gặp anh. Anh khỏe không?
Quân: Vâng, tôi khỏe. Dạo này nhìn anh phong độ quá!
Nam: Oh! Hi David! Long time no see! How are you doing?
 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

b. Code-switching itself as an unmarked choice

 no meaning need be attached to any particular switch:
it is the use of both languages together that is
meaningful, drawing on the associations of both
languages and indexing dual identities
For example: Two overseas Vietnamese are talking with
each other
Nam: Thanks anh Quan. Anh nice quá!
Quân: You’re welcome. Mong là anh cảm thấy happy.
 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

c. Code-switching as a marked choice

 Code-switching is marked when it does not conform to
expected patterns.
 Marked switching may be used to increase social
distance, express authority
For example: Teacher and student at Dana Bilingual
International School (DBIS) are talking together.
Teacher: Be quiet, Minh! I have reminded you several
times. Trật tự nào Minh. Cô nhắc con nãy giờ rồi.
Minh: Dạ vâng. (continue talking …)
Teacher: Minh, stand up! You will be punished because you
are naughty. Con hư quá, cô sẽ phạt con đấy nhé.
 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

d. Code-switching may have an exploratory function

when the unmarked choice is uncertain
 for instance, when little is known about an interlocutor’s
social identity, or when there is a ‘clash of norms’
For example: Minh meets her friend, who migrated to the
US when she was young.
 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

Minh: Hi Dung! How are you?

Dung: Good! Cậu thì sao?
Minh: Mình vẫn vậy. Thank you. Dạo này cậu làm đang làm gì?
Dung: Mình đang học Master. Học xong chắc có thể xin được 1
việc khá là ok.
(Loud music – Turn to the waiter)
Minh: Chú ơi, vặn nhỏ volume cho tụi con với!
Waiter: Cái chi?
Dung: Còn cậu sao rồi?
Minh: Ừ, thời buổi ni difficult quá. Mình cũng muốn nhảy job,
change một chút cho interesting chứ.
 5.4.1 Code-switching and identity

 Bilingual code-switching is meaningful: it fulfils certain

functions in an inter-action.
 A speaker’s choice of language has to do with maintaining, or
negotiating
 Particular switches may be meaningful but also, the act of
code-switching itself may be meaningful
 Code-switching may be an unmarked, or expected choice, or a
marked, or unexpected choice; in this latter case, it may
function as an attempt to initiate a change to relationships.
 Code-switching is useful in cases of uncertainty about
relationships: it allows speakers to feel their way and
negotiate identities in relation to others.
 5.4.2 Code-switching and conversation
management

 Code-switching functions as an aspect of conversation

management

 Close attention to conversational structure and sequential

development can lead to a deeper understanding of this piece
of interaction

 Code-switching provides evidence of highly complex

relationships between language and social identity
5.5. CODE- SWITCHING &
STYLE- SHIFTING
 Code-switching: the act of changing between two or
more languages when you are speaking.
 Style-shifting: the use of more than one style of speech

during the course of a single conversation or written

text.
For example: When the husband came home with a bunch
of roses, the wife spoke softly and gently with him.
However, she recognized that he had broken her favourite
vase and got angry. The wife raised her voice and spoke
angrily.
 Change from this style to another style in the same

situation.
5.5. CODE- SWITCHING vs.
STYLE- SHIFTING
 Code-switching & Style-shifting:

 Use the same cues for a shift in language (situation,

audience, social affiliation, purpose, and identity)
5.5. CODE- SWITCHING vs.
STYLE- SHIFTING

CODE- SWITCHING STYLE- SHIFTING

 Bilingual speakers  Shifts made by
who switch between monolingual
two languages
 Constitutes changes
between registers
(alterations in
morphology, phonology,
and semantics)
 Continuum, ranging from
formal to informal
5.5. CODE- SWITCHING vs.
STYLE- SHIFTING

CODE- SWITCHING STYLE- SHIFTING

 Qualitative  Quantitative
(understanding (investigating into
speakers’ switching potential correlations
behavior in context) between sociolinguistic
variables, social groups
and speaking contexts)
6. CONCLUSION

Language variation in bilingual communities

Comparisons with monolingual ‘stylistic’ variation

Identifying patterns of language choice

Code-switching in bidialectal and bilingual communities

Code- switching & style- shifting