20/07/2024
Factors in Language Mixing/Switching
The term code switching (CS) to refer to the use of various linguistic units (words, phrases, clauses, and sentences) primarily from two participating grammatical systems across sentence boundaries within a speech event. In other words, CS is intersentential and may be subject to discourse principles. It is motivated by social and psychological factors.
The term code mixing (CM) to refer to the mixing of various linguistic units (morphemes, words, modifiers, phrases, clauses and sentences) primarily from two participating grammatical systems within a sentence. In other words, CM is intrasentential and is constrained by grammatical principles and may also be motivated by social-psychological factors.
Unlike the monolingual, who has access to only one set of mutually intelligible styles, the bi-/multilingual may exercise a range of styles in two or more varieties that are not mutually intelligible. The bilingual’s pragmatic competence enables him or her to determine the choice of one language over the other in a particular interaction. On the basis of a number of factors such as with whom (participants: their backgrounds and relationships), about what (topic, content), and when and where a speech act occurs, bilinguals make their language choice.
For most bilinguals, overt or explicit language negotiation is rather unnatural and counterproductive and can yield communication mishaps and sometimes alarming results. In most cases, the unmarked choice is made almost instantaneously and smoothly, which in turn results in language matching by participating bilinguals.
The rule of thumb is that LM/S marks a socio-psychological change of some kind. This change could be prompted by the presence of an out-group member, by constantly changing social relations or identities or by the need to create a special effect (in terms of socio-psychological, stylistic effects) within the sentence or beyond the sentence, i.e. within a discourse unit. In short, the following four factors determine language choice and mixing on the part of bilinguals: (1) the social roles and relationships of the participants; (2) situational factors: discourse topic and language allocation; (3) message-intrinsic considerations, and (4) language attitudes including social dominance and security.
(1) The social roles and the relationships of the participants
Participants’ roles and the dynamics of their relationships play a crucial role in bilinguals’ unconscious agreement or disagreement on language choice. Based on a mutual understanding of the obligations and rights of participants agreement leads to language matching, which in turn reflects the nature of their perceived social relationship.
(a) Language mismatching and repair
There are instances when the unconscious process of language negotiation does not work smoothly. This results in language mismatching and such mismatching occurs primarily under two conditions: (1) bilinguals are uncertain of each other’s language identity/backgrounds and are thus still in an exploratory mode, or (2) their preference for mutual identity through language shows a differing preference for identities, or degree of formality and power relations, among other possibilities.
Situation: For instance, in a South Asian restaurant, a bilingual waiter might choose to speak in English in spite of the fact that the customer has already made a move by choosing a shared South Asian language. The waiter might show preference for English rather than matching the customer’s language. This linguistic mismatch is the result of failure of the waiter and the customer to negotiate a preferred identity. The waiter’s choice of English shows his or her preference for educated identity and other perks (dominance, image of the restaurant, etc.) as opposed to seeking ethnic and regional solidarity. What is important is that the waiter’s choice is not a marked choice; it exhibits a difference in personal choice like that of choosing coffee over tea on a particular occasion or as an attempt to calibrate the dominance relation between the two participants. If the process of repair is not carried out quickly by arriving at a mutually agreeable code, the consequence is likely to be a widening distance between the two participants which can ultimately lead to deteriorating relations or even hostility, if each of the two participants sticks to his or her own choice.
(b) Dual/multiple identities, social distancing, and speech accommodation
Language mismatching does not necessarily reflect a failure of language negotiation. On the contrary, it may exemplify an accommodation to circumstances. Consider the following situation. Suppose two bilinguals, one Telugu-English and the other Hindi-English bilingual, are conversing with each other. The language of the conversation must naturally be English, the shared language of the participants. A third bilingual, a mutual friend of the two participants, joins them by greeting the Telugu-English bilingual in Telugu. The greeted bilingual does not greet back in Telugu, but chooses to respond in English instead.
The language mismatch in this situation signals the intention on the part of the greeted bilingual to stick to the code already agreed upon between the Telugu-English and Hindi-English bilingual. The choice of English in this instance is viewed as a “neutral” strategy and reflects speech accommodation on the part of the greeted bilingual, unlike the case of speech divergence in the restaurant example. Since the three participants are mutual friends, the phenomenon of language mismatching does not result in any ill-feeling toward the greeter. The mismatch is the result of an optimization process: while ethnic identity is already achieved through Telugu, the switch to English on the part of the greeted is an invitation to join in the formation of the mutually beneficial collective identity among all three participants. The greeter accepts this by responding in English. This shows how effectively and efficiently bilinguals can modulate between two identities, with the result that social distance is narrowed as desired by the participants.
The language mismatch in such instances occurs in a group of diverse participants and usually it takes place at either the beginning or the closure phase of the interaction.
(2) Situational factors: discourse topic & language allocation
In bi-/multilingual societies, languages generally do not overlap each other’s discourse domain. Some languages are viewed as more suited to particular participant/social groups, settings or topics than others. For instance, very often bilinguals organize their two languages according to their public vs. their private world. The public language often serves as the “they” code and code can be used to perform a range of functions, from creating distance, asserting authority, and expressing objectivity, to suppressing the tabooness of an interaction. The private language often serves as the “we” code and it conveys a range from in-group membership, informality, and intimacy, to emotions.
Example: Richard Rodriguez (1982) notes that Spanish was the language of his private world. His Spanish voice insisted, “We are family members. Related. Special to one another,” whereas English sounded loud, booming with confidence. The day the family decided to use English at home, family intimacy was not the same. In professional domains such as advertising, different languages carve their topical and social-psychological domains.
Social variables
Social variables such as class, religion, gender, and age can influence the pattern of LM/S both qualitatively and quantitatively. The social cueing of mixing is exemplified in (1) and (2).
(1) Hindi-Persian-English
(a) A. are cacaa jaan. aadaab., sab xairiyat hai, na?
‘Hey uncle. Hello. All is OK, isn’t it?’
(b) B. xush raho, sab xairiyat hai aur tumahaara kyaa haalcaal hai?
‘Be happy. All is fine. And how are you?’
(c) A. aapkii duaa hai
‘It is your kindness.’ (d)
B. kidhar jaa rahe ho?
‘Where are you going?’
(e) A. bhaaii jaan ne bulaayaa thaa. unke daftar jaa rahaa huun.
‘My brother called me. (I) am going to his office.’
(2) (a) A. are ankal jii namaste, sab Thiik hai, na?
‘Hey uncle. Hello. All is OK, isn’t it?
(b) B. xush raho, sab Thiik hai aur tumahaaraa kyaa haalcaal hai?
‘Be happy. All is fine. And how are you?’ (c) A. aapkii kripaa hai
‘It is your kindness.’ (d) B. kidhar jaa rahe ho?
‘Where are you going?’
(e) A. bhaiyaa ne bulaayaa thaa. unke aafis jaa rahaa huun.
‘My brother called me. I am going to his office.’
The exchanges in (1) and (2) mark LM/S with Persian and English, respectively. The two styles in (1) and (2) are in general not compatible. For example, though one might say cacaa jaan (with the Persian-Arabic honorific jaan) or cacaa jii (Hindi honorific jii) or ankal jii, the form *ankal jaan is not possible.
Even if the identity of the participants (A and B) is not given explicitly in (1) and (2), the pattern of LM/S provides sufficient indexical cues about the participants and their roles. The conversational roles played by participants are given in table 13.2 together with other roles played by the two aspects of mixing.
In many traditional societies, where gender roles are clearly demarcated, i.e. men work outside the home and women are engaged in domestic activities, LM/S in women is qualitatively different from that in men (e.g. lack of LM/S with English among women). Similarly, age plays an important role in determining the nature of LM/S; see, for example, the case of second- generation Turkish immigrants
Consideration of situational factors such as shifting personality, thoughts, audience and topic can further promote language alternation. This behavior can be well exemplified here by Kipling’s portrayal of a Tibetan Lama in his novel Kim, which is renowned for the author’s mastery of insights into the verbal repertoire of multilingual India.
(3) Message-intrinsic factors
LM/S is also a function of additional linguistic and pragmatic considerations such as those outlined below.
(a) Quotations
Direct quotation or reported speech triggers LM/S among bilinguals cross- linguistically. This function has been attested by a wide variety of empirical studies. The following example illustrates this function.
Urdu-English
From a conversation between two women discussing about their daughters study. One while referring to her daughter says the following:
My daughter was not good in Maths during mid-term exams, but she says, wo final term mei cover kr lay gi.
My daughter is not good in Maths, but she says that she will cover it in the final term exams.
(b) Reiteration
Reiteration or paraphrasing marks another function of mixing. The message expressed in one language is either repeated in the other language literally or with some modification to signify emphasis or clarification. The following examples illustrate the emphatic and clarificatory role of mixing, respectively.
English-Spanish: Chicano professionals (Gumperz 1982, p. 78)
A: The three old ones spoke nothing but Spanish. No hablaban ingles.
‘. . . They didn’t speak English.’
English-Chinese (Mah, 1997, p. 104)
The moment my aunt saw the jacket, she knew that Miss Chen was dis- honest and had fu zhong lin jia (scale and shell in her belly).
(c) Message qualification
Frequently, mixing takes the form of a qualifying complement or argument as exemplified by the disjunctive argument and the adverbial phrase respectively in the following sentences.
English-Urdu
‘Will you take coffee? ya chay?’
(d) Topic–Comment/relative clauses
Related to the function of message qualification is yet another function – the Topic–Comment function.
For example, in the following sentence English LM/S revealed that the topic is introduced in English and the comment is given in Hindi, as shown in the following example:
English-Hindi
The boy who is going meraa dost hai.
my friend is
‘. . . is my friend.’
In English-Hindi LM/S, the English sequence the boy is understood to be a Topicalized NP with two associated Comments – the English who is going and the Hindi meraa dost hai.
(e) Hedging
LM/S serves an important function in hedging (e.g. taboo suppression, de-intensification, or a vague “sort of” expression). Although the formal and functional range of hedging is quite wide and both languages of a bilingual can contribute, the language which is allocated as the “they” code is often used for this purpose, particularly when hedging performs the function of taboo suppression. This aspect of LM/S is often deliberate and is by and large a conscious process. The passage below concerns a veterinarian doctor’s attempt to explain to villagers in rural India the process of artificial insemination. When the listeners fail to understand the English term, the doctor attempts to explain the concept by paraphrasing it figuratively into Hindi. The dilemma regarding how to suppress the tabooness via Hindi is clear from his hesitation and halting speech.
Doctor to villagers (Hindi-English)
“artificial insemination.” Dekho ise kyaa kahte hain hindi men . . . barii aasaan ciiz hai . . . jab bhains garam ho rahii ho . . . to use AI Center le jaaiyee aur uskaa AI karva Daaliye
“Artificial insemination.” Look, what do people call it in Hindi . . . It is very easy (to explain). When a buffalo is in heat, take her to the AI Center and have her artificially inseminated.” (Literally: have AI done on her)
(f) Interjections
Another function of LM/S is to mark an interjection or sentence filler. Bilinguals in Singapore are well known to exploit this function by mixing a number of particles, as in (12). Interlocutors A, C, and D are as described for (2) above.
English-Hokkien (Tay 1989, p. 416) D: Do what?
A: System analyst la
‘System analyst, what else?’ C: hà
‘Is that so?’
A: Programmer la.
(g) Idioms and deep-rooted cultural wisdom
English-Chinese (Mah, 1997, p. 238)
The solution is simple – yi dao liang duan
‘The solution is simple – let’s sever this kinship with one whack of the knife.’
(4) Language attitudes, dominance, and security
Other factors such as individual and social attitudes, language dominance, and linguistic security determine the qualitative and quantitative properties of language mixing. On the basis of differences in language attitudes, one can postulate primarily four types of language-mixing communities.
For instance, Puerto Rican bilinguals in New York City unconsciously have positive attitudes toward bilingualism and LM/S; consequently, they tend to code-mix/switch 97 per- cent of the time and this mixing/switching is smooth, as observed by Poplack.
English-Hindi mixing in India and Punjabi-English mixing in Great Britain follow this pattern. When such mixing becomes the mark of cultural or social identity, the speech community begins to view mixing positively at both the unconscious and the conscious levels. This may further promote the incidence of LM/S both quantitatively and qualitatively. As a case in point, extensive Arabic-French-English LM/S occurs in Lebanon, where trilingual mixing is viewed as a distinctive feature of Lebanese culture.
The third type of attitude toward mixing can be exemplified by the Ottawa- Hull speech community. In Hull the English-French mixing is one-third to one-fourth as frequent as in Ottawa. The metalinguistic commentary offered by bilinguals and accompanied by flagged mixing provides evidence that bilinguals view mixing covertly in negative terms although consideration of linguistic accommodation at the conscious level leads to flagged mixing.
The last type of bilingual, who considers bilingualism negatively on both conscious and unconscious grounds, is exemplified in the speech patterns of Flemish and French bilinguals in Brussels. Because of the long history of linguistic rivalry and conflict in Belgium, one witnesses Flemish-speakers and French-speakers entrenched in their own language while talking with each other and no attempt is made to switch or mix the two linguistic systems.
Within each community, variables such as gender and topic add further intricacy to language mixing. In India, male and female attitudes toward mixing are quite divergent. Males prefer mixing with English whereas women do not. Women’s role in the preservation of Indian culture goes largely uncontested by men. Therefore, the incidence of language mixing with English is much lower in women than in men. Unlike the Western English-speaking speech community, where men’s speech is regarded as standard, in South Asia, women’s speech is considered more standard than men’s. However, in the discussion of certain topics such as children’s education, one can witness the phenomenon of over-compensation of mixing with English among women. That is why female Indian writers often poke fun at excessive or odd mixing on the part of middle-class women. A case in point is women’s use of phrases such as childrens kii education ‘the education of children,’ and childrenon kii education ‘the education of children.’ In the first form, the speaker effectively reduplicates the English plural marker; in the second example, the speaker adds -on-, the Hindi oblique marker, to English children. Men will tend either to use children kii education or to prefer not to use English in the modifier position.
The speaker’s language proficiency and language dominance also determine the incidence and nature of LM/S. For instance, in South Asia English educators tend to code-switch with English more than balanced Hindi-English bilinguals.
