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Introduction: Special issue on codeswitching
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Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257 www.elsevier.nl/locate/pragma
Introduction Special issue on Codeswitching Marlene Dolitsky and Georgette Bensimon-Choukroun
With greater and greater recognition of the commonality of multilingualism, how bilinguals manage their languages has become a subject of primary concern. Contrary to popular belief that calling upon more than one language within a single conversation is a sign of linguistic deficiency, it has been found that codeswitching, as Harriet Jisa remarks in her contribution to this issue, is "an integral part of bilingualism" and proof of a bilingual's "control over the syntactic apparatus imposed by both languages". This special issue has as its purpose, to offer a broad view of the phenomenon from the points of view of time period, language pairs (or multiples), speaker age and discipline: from the youth of French and Italian to our own times, children's and adult speech, monologues, dialogues and written speech. It brings together an extensive range of articles on codeswitching linking work in many branches of the study of human behavior: psychology, sociology, historical linguistics, both monolingual and multilingual pragmatics and child language acquisition. These contributions based on different language pairs, studying different aspects of codeswitching show that codeswitching offers an extra tool in communication that is at the disposition of bilinguals and allows for greater nuances of expression including marking pragmatic functions, meaning (connotative and denotative), identity (psychological and social) and affect. For tool it is, as it is used rationally and with the specific purpose of finer communication among members of the same paired-language communities. Using Elster's (1989) framework of rational actor models, Lessig's (1995) examination of the regulation and construction of social meaning, and her own markedness model, Myers-Scotton develops a theory of language negotiation whereby when a speaker's switch is a marked choice, it should be considered that the message of this choice is that s/he is "attempting to construct a new social meaning for the speaker's own persona or the import of the ongoing discourse, thereby negotiating a new norm". Codeswitching behavior is, then, regulated by a rationale governing marked and unmarked choices of CS and the importance of social norms which act in harmony with constraints in linguistic structures. 0378-2166/00/$ - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 2 1 6 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 9 8 - 3
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M. Dolitsky, G.B. Bensimon-Choukroun / Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257
Gross takes this theory even further by applying it to codeswitching as it appears in literary texts that imitate natural language behavior in bilingual communities, demonstrating that a group "that is marginalized in its accessibility to positions of statusful power and prestige [will use] marked codeswitching as a strategy to express its interactionai power". The use of written traces shows that codeswitching, far from being a modem phenomenon, has probably occurred in bilingual communication since as long ago as Babel. Aslanov finds traces of codeswitching as far back as the Middle Ages and the Crusades, through a unique study of written texts reflecting oral language. At those times, too, it seems codeswitching did not occur by chance, but was motivated by communicative needs. Aslanov has found examples of codeswitching used for aesthetic, literary purposes, and for disambiguation of a potential homonym. Having noticed that "no systematic empirical comparison has been made between the functions of bilingual codeswitching and monolingual discourse structuring devices", Gardner-Chloros, Charles and Cheshire compare how four common conversational functions are realised in both monolingual speech and through codeswitching. They find that codeswitching is an additional linguistic device at the disposal of bilinguals which can "be used as a further dimension to the monolingual means which are available". It is a supplementary resource that "may take the place of monolingual ways of making significant moves in the conversation ... or add itself to these to reinforce the effect". Interested in the sociolinguistic dimension of codeswitching, Lawson and Sachdev, by comparing the attitudes of different listeners toward speakers of codeswitched or non-codeswitched discourse, observe that "the use and evaluation associated with codeswitching vary as a function of the social context" (which includes the ethnicity and gender of the interlocutors), and that "negative attitudes are often not reflected in actual behaviour". Codeswitching, thus, needs to be understood in terms of the socio-political context in which it takes place. With a common core interest, children's use of codeswitching, Jisa, Bain and Dolitsky's work radiates out in three directions. By reminding us of the oft-forgotten obvious, that "codeswitching competence does not emerge full blown in a bilingual child from one day to the next", Jisa shows how much "language mixing in young bilinguals" differs from the "codeswitching of adult bilinguals" through the study of mixing behavior of two bilingual sisters. Dolitsky has recorded monologues of a bilingual child, noting that there is little codeswitching p e r se. However, when the child speaks alone, there is a delayed tendency to change from the mother's preferred language to his own and an unmarked use of borrowing in contrast to dispreference marking which appears before a code change. Developing this codeswitching negative where social attitudes and constraints are eliminated from the picture, seems to reveal further proof of the existence of non-pragmatic constraints in codeswitching as well as a distinction between codeswitching and borrowing. In the same shot it continues to confirm codeswitching's role as a tool marking interpersonal relations. Studying codeswitching from a cognitive point of view, Bain considers codeswitching behavior as a way for a child to express his personality, affects and cognitive construction of the world around him.
M. Dolitsky, G.B. Bensimon-Choukroun / Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257
1257
The volume is concluded by Bain's more than apt call to put together all the Humpty-Dumpty pieces of the study of human behavior represented by the multitude of disciplines it has been divided into. It is our hope that this issue of the Journal of Pragmatics, presenting many facets of the complex phenomenon of codeswitching, can be considered as answering to this call in its own small way. We offer our heartfelt thanks to Hartmut Haberland for his painstaking post-editorial work, for which the editors will be forever grateful.
References Elster, Jan, 1989. The cement of society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lessig, Lawrence, 1995. The regulation of social meaning. The University of Chicago Law Review 62: 944-1045.
Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257 www.elsevier.nl/locate/pragma
Introduction Special issue on Codeswitching Marlene Dolitsky and Georgette Bensimon-Choukroun
With greater and greater recognition of the commonality of multilingualism, how bilinguals manage their languages has become a subject of primary concern. Contrary to popular belief that calling upon more than one language within a single conversation is a sign of linguistic deficiency, it has been found that codeswitching, as Harriet Jisa remarks in her contribution to this issue, is "an integral part of bilingualism" and proof of a bilingual's "control over the syntactic apparatus imposed by both languages". This special issue has as its purpose, to offer a broad view of the phenomenon from the points of view of time period, language pairs (or multiples), speaker age and discipline: from the youth of French and Italian to our own times, children's and adult speech, monologues, dialogues and written speech. It brings together an extensive range of articles on codeswitching linking work in many branches of the study of human behavior: psychology, sociology, historical linguistics, both monolingual and multilingual pragmatics and child language acquisition. These contributions based on different language pairs, studying different aspects of codeswitching show that codeswitching offers an extra tool in communication that is at the disposition of bilinguals and allows for greater nuances of expression including marking pragmatic functions, meaning (connotative and denotative), identity (psychological and social) and affect. For tool it is, as it is used rationally and with the specific purpose of finer communication among members of the same paired-language communities. Using Elster's (1989) framework of rational actor models, Lessig's (1995) examination of the regulation and construction of social meaning, and her own markedness model, Myers-Scotton develops a theory of language negotiation whereby when a speaker's switch is a marked choice, it should be considered that the message of this choice is that s/he is "attempting to construct a new social meaning for the speaker's own persona or the import of the ongoing discourse, thereby negotiating a new norm". Codeswitching behavior is, then, regulated by a rationale governing marked and unmarked choices of CS and the importance of social norms which act in harmony with constraints in linguistic structures. 0378-2166/00/$ - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 2 1 6 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 9 8 - 3
1256
M. Dolitsky, G.B. Bensimon-Choukroun / Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257
Gross takes this theory even further by applying it to codeswitching as it appears in literary texts that imitate natural language behavior in bilingual communities, demonstrating that a group "that is marginalized in its accessibility to positions of statusful power and prestige [will use] marked codeswitching as a strategy to express its interactionai power". The use of written traces shows that codeswitching, far from being a modem phenomenon, has probably occurred in bilingual communication since as long ago as Babel. Aslanov finds traces of codeswitching as far back as the Middle Ages and the Crusades, through a unique study of written texts reflecting oral language. At those times, too, it seems codeswitching did not occur by chance, but was motivated by communicative needs. Aslanov has found examples of codeswitching used for aesthetic, literary purposes, and for disambiguation of a potential homonym. Having noticed that "no systematic empirical comparison has been made between the functions of bilingual codeswitching and monolingual discourse structuring devices", Gardner-Chloros, Charles and Cheshire compare how four common conversational functions are realised in both monolingual speech and through codeswitching. They find that codeswitching is an additional linguistic device at the disposal of bilinguals which can "be used as a further dimension to the monolingual means which are available". It is a supplementary resource that "may take the place of monolingual ways of making significant moves in the conversation ... or add itself to these to reinforce the effect". Interested in the sociolinguistic dimension of codeswitching, Lawson and Sachdev, by comparing the attitudes of different listeners toward speakers of codeswitched or non-codeswitched discourse, observe that "the use and evaluation associated with codeswitching vary as a function of the social context" (which includes the ethnicity and gender of the interlocutors), and that "negative attitudes are often not reflected in actual behaviour". Codeswitching, thus, needs to be understood in terms of the socio-political context in which it takes place. With a common core interest, children's use of codeswitching, Jisa, Bain and Dolitsky's work radiates out in three directions. By reminding us of the oft-forgotten obvious, that "codeswitching competence does not emerge full blown in a bilingual child from one day to the next", Jisa shows how much "language mixing in young bilinguals" differs from the "codeswitching of adult bilinguals" through the study of mixing behavior of two bilingual sisters. Dolitsky has recorded monologues of a bilingual child, noting that there is little codeswitching p e r se. However, when the child speaks alone, there is a delayed tendency to change from the mother's preferred language to his own and an unmarked use of borrowing in contrast to dispreference marking which appears before a code change. Developing this codeswitching negative where social attitudes and constraints are eliminated from the picture, seems to reveal further proof of the existence of non-pragmatic constraints in codeswitching as well as a distinction between codeswitching and borrowing. In the same shot it continues to confirm codeswitching's role as a tool marking interpersonal relations. Studying codeswitching from a cognitive point of view, Bain considers codeswitching behavior as a way for a child to express his personality, affects and cognitive construction of the world around him.
M. Dolitsky, G.B. Bensimon-Choukroun / Journal of Pragmatics 32 (2000) 1255-1257
1257
The volume is concluded by Bain's more than apt call to put together all the Humpty-Dumpty pieces of the study of human behavior represented by the multitude of disciplines it has been divided into. It is our hope that this issue of the Journal of Pragmatics, presenting many facets of the complex phenomenon of codeswitching, can be considered as answering to this call in its own small way. We offer our heartfelt thanks to Hartmut Haberland for his painstaking post-editorial work, for which the editors will be forever grateful.
References Elster, Jan, 1989. The cement of society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lessig, Lawrence, 1995. The regulation of social meaning. The University of Chicago Law Review 62: 944-1045.