Metaphorical code-switching

Last updated

Metaphorical code-switching refers to the tendency in a bilingual or multilingual community to switch codes (language or language variety) in conversation in order to discuss a topic that would normally fall into another conversational domain. "An important distinction is made from situational switching, where alternation between varieties redefines a situation, being a change in governing norms, and metaphorical switching, where alternation enriches a situation, allowing for allusion to more than one social relationship within the situation." [1] For example, at a family dinner, where you would expect to hear a more colloquial, less prestigious variety of language (called "L variety" in studies of diglossia), family members might switch to a highly prestigious form (H variety) in order to discuss school or work. At work (where you would expect high prestige language) interlocutors may switch to a low prestige variety when discussing family. [1]

Contents

Development

Jan-Petter Blom and John J. Gumperz coined the linguistic term 'metaphorical code-switching' in the late sixties and early seventies. They wanted to "clarify the social and linguistic factors involved in the communication process ... by showing that speaker's selection among semantically, grammatically, and phonologically permissible alternates occurring in conversation sequences recorded in natural groups is both patterned and predictable on the basis of certain features of the local social system." They wanted to explain why, in a community where all the members of a community have access to two codes, a speaker will sometimes prefer one over another. They therefore did a study in Hemnesberget, a diglossic community in Norway, to test their hypothesis that switching was topic related and predictable. [1]

Hemnesberget

In Hemnesberget, most residents are native speakers of Ranamål, a dialect of northern Norway. Contrastively, formal education is always carried out in the standard, Bokmål. Residents of Hemnesberget see their dialect as part of their social identity. Gumperz and Blom showed the use of metaphorical code switching by Norwegian University students who were native to Hemnesberget and thus native speakers of Ranamål. The study was conducted in an informal setting in the home of one of the informants where refreshments were served and people spoke casually. Some elicitation strategies were used to make sure a wide variety of topics were covered. As they hypothesized, the students spoke in their dialect the low variety when talking about casual topics such as drinking habits and switched to the high variety when talking about more academic topics such as industrial development and university regulations. One of the most interesting findings was that these switches were subconscious to the speakers. When informants listened to the recordings of their conversations, they not only were appalled that their speech had diverged from their dialect, but they also "promised to refrain from switching during future discussion sessions." [2]

Examples

An example of metaphorical code-switching comes from conversation recorded by Susan Gal in Oberwaert, an Austrian town that is home to many ethnic Hungarians. According to Gal's study the German language had high prestige in Oberwaert, while Hungarian had low prestige. [3] In this exchange a grandfather is calling his two grandchildren to come and help him. (Hungarian is shown in ordinary type with German in italics.)

Grandfather: Szo! Ide dzsiini! jeszt jeramunyi
(Well, come here! out all this way)
mind e kettuotok, no hat akkor!
(both of you, well now)
kum her! (pause) Nem koapsz vacsorat
(Come here! You don't get supper.) [4]

The grandfather first calls his grandchildren in Hungarian. But when they do not answer him, he switches to German. Since the German language is associated with more formal settings, it gives the grandfather's words more force. [4]

Another example comes from testimony to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Muhammad Ferhelst, a man who was imprisoned and tortured during apartheid. Ferhelst speaks English but switches to Afrikaans when he quotes a white policeman.

At about seven or eight Van Brakel came, he started asking me questions, smacking me around what and then he left again and he said ons maak jou nog vrek, voor jy uit die tronk uit kom they told me they would kill me. [5]
(We'll make you die yet, before you get out of prison.)

Most of Mr. Ferhelst's testimony was in English, even when quoting white policemen. The use of impolite Afrikaans words in this case characterizes the policeman as rude and uncivilized. The switch from English to Afrikaans emphasizes the trauma of the experience. [5]

Domain specificity

Domain specificity refers to the pattern in bilingual or multilingual speech communities in which speakers use one language or code in formal settings and conversations (high variety) and another for informal ones (low variety). The general social situations and behavioral co-occurrences in which speakers prefer one code over another are termed domains. Domain specificity has been expanded to include the idea of metaphorical code-switching.

Charles A. Ferguson's 1959 work on diglossia served as a foundation for Joshua Fishman's later work on domain specificity. According to Ferguson, diglossia describes a situation where two or more distinct (related or unrelated) languages are spoken in a single speech community, and where the languages "are used side by side within a community each with a clearly defined role." [6]

Following Ferguson's work on Diglossia, Fishman developed his theory of domain specificity. Diglossia refers to the expected use of language on a broad social level (or macro-level) and domain specificity refers to the use of language in a face-to-face conversation (micro-level). [7]

Fishman stated that domains were "defined, regardless of their number, in terms of institutional contexts and their congruent behavioural co-occurrences." [7] He said "'proper' usage dictates that only one of the theoretically co-available languages or varieties will be chosen by particular classes of interlocutors on particular kinds of occasions to discuss particular topics." [7]

Though they did not define specific universal domains, Fishman and Greenfield observed five in a study that they published in 1970 on Puerto Rican communities in New York. They observed the community then specified apparent domains. The domains included: family, friendship, work, religion and education. They subsequently asked the community to report on their language use in these domains. The results largely fit with the patterns they expected to find where members of the community largely preferred Spanish with friends and family and English at work and in school. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.

In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation. Multilinguals, speakers of more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the syntax and phonology of each variety.

Anthropological linguistics is the subfield of linguistics and anthropology, which deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures. While many linguists believe that a true field of anthropological linguistics is nonexistent, preferring the term linguistic anthropology to cover this subfield, many others regard the two as interchangeable.

Diglossia Situation in which two dialects or languages are used in fairly strict compartmentalization by a single language community

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety, a second, highly codified lect is used in certain situations such as literature, formal education, or other specific settings, but not used normally for ordinary conversation. In most cases, the H variety has no native speakers but various degrees of fluency of the low speakers.

In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, a profession, an age group or other social group.

Speech community Group of people who share expectations regarding linguistic usage

A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a substratum.

Autonomy and heteronomy are complementary attributes of a language variety describing its functional relationship with related varieties. The concepts were introduced by William A. Stewart in 1968, and provide a way of distinguishing a language from a dialect.

Multilingualism Use of multiple languages

Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Always useful to traders, multilingualism is advantageous for people wanting to participate in globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is becoming increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.

In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige. In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs, which may not be pronounced enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for the phenomenon of variation in form, among speakers of a language or languages.

Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure or acquisition of languages or language varieties within a speech community. Robert L. Cooper (1989) defines language planning as "the activity of preparing a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community”. Along with language ideology and language practices, language planning is part of language policy - a typology drawn from Bernard Spolsky's theory of language policy. According to Spolsky, language management is a more precise term than language planning. Language management is defined as "the explicit and observable effort by someone or some group that has or claims authority over the participants in the domain to modify their practices or beliefs” Language planning is often associated with government planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations such as grass-roots organizations as well as individuals. Goals of such planning vary. Better communication through assimilation of a single dominant language can bring economic benefits to minorities but is also perceived to facilitate their political domination. It involves the establishment of language regulators, such as formal or informal agencies, committees, societies or academies to design or develop new structures to meet contemporary needs.

John Joseph Gumperz was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching in Norway, and on conversational interaction, has benefitted the study of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and urban anthropology.

Linguistic insecurity comprises feelings of anxiety, self-consciousness, or lack of confidence in the mind of a speaker surrounding their use of language. Often, this anxiety comes from speakers' belief that their speech does not conform to the perceived standard and/or the style of language expected by the speakers' interlocutor(s). Linguistic insecurity is situationally induced and is often based on a feeling of inadequacy regarding personal performance in certain contexts, rather than a fixed attribute of an individual. This insecurity can lead to stylistic, and phonetic shifts away from an affected speaker's default speech variety; these shifts may be performed consciously on the part of the speaker, or may be reflective of an unconscious effort to conform to a more prestigious or context-appropriate variety or style of speech. Linguistic insecurity is linked to the perception of speech varieties in any community, and so may vary based on socioeconomic class and gender. It is also especially pertinent in multilingual societies.

Sociolinguistic research in India is the study of how the Indian society affects and is affected by the languages of the country.

In Singapore, language planning is associated with government planning. In this top-down approach, the government influences the acquisition of languages and their respective functions within the speech community through the education system. Language planning aims to facilitate effective communication within the speech community, which can result in a language shift or language assimilation. The goals of language planning are very much dependent on the political and social forces present in Singapore during two distinct periods: Colonisation by the British and the Post-Independence period after 1965.

Situational code-switching is the tendency in a speech community to use different languages or language varieties in different social situations, or to switch linguistic structures in order to change an established social setting. Some languages are viewed as more suited for a particular social group, setting, or topic more so than others. Social factors like class, religion, gender, and age influence the pattern of language that is used and switched between.

Translanguaging is the process whereby multilingual speakers use their languages as an integrated communication system. The term "translanguaging" was coined in the 1980s by Cen Williams in his unpublished thesis titled “An Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Methods in the Context of Bilingual Secondary Education.” However, the dissemination of the term, and of the related concept, gained traction decades later due in part to published research by Ofelia García, among others.

The bibliography of code-switching comprises all academic and peer-reviewed works on the topic of code-switching. It is sorted by category, then alphabetically.

In sociolinguistics, covert prestige is a type of scenario in which nonstandard languages or dialects are regarded to be of high linguistic prestige by members of a speech community. This is in contrast to the typical case of linguistic prestige, wherein only the standard varieties of a speech community are considered prestigious.

A social domain refers to communicative contexts which influence and are influenced by the structure of such contexts, whether social, institutional, power-aligned. As defined by Fishman, Cooper and Ma (1971), social domains "are sociolinguistic contexts definable for any given society by three significant dimensions: the location, the participants and the topic". Similarly, Bernard Spolsky defines domains as "[a]ny defined or definable social or political or religious group or community, ranging from family through a sports team or neighborhood or village or workplace or organization or city or nation state or regional alliance".

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gumperz, John Joseph; Dell H. Hymes (1986), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
  2. ↑ Blom, Jan-Petter; John J. Gumperz (1972), "Social Meaning in Linguistic Structures: Code Switching in Northern Norway", in J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (ed.), Directions in Sociolinguistics, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston
  3. ↑ Gal, Susan (1978). "Peasant men can't get wives: Language change and sex roles in a bilingual community" (PDF). Language in Society. 7 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1017/s0047404500005303. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 27, 2020.
  4. 1 2 Gafaranga, Joseph (2007). "Code-switching as a conversational strategy". In P. Auer & L. Wei (ed.). Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Walter de Gruyter. p. 287. ISBN   978-3-11-019855-3 . Retrieved February 19, 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  5. 1 2 Verdoolaege, Annelies (2008). Reconciliation Discourse: The Case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 93. ISBN   978-90-272-2718-8 . Retrieved February 21, 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  6. ↑ Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Diglossia. Word
  7. 1 2 3 Fishman, Joshua. 1970. Domains and the relationship between micro- and macro- linguistics
  8. ↑ Fishman, Joshua and Laurence Greenfield. 1970. Situational measures of normative language views in relation to person, place and topic among Puerto Rican bilinguals. Bilingualism in the barrio.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.