Language Mixing And Code Switching In Writing

"Code-switching," or the alternation of languages by bilinguals, has attracted an enormous amount of attention from researchers. However, most research has focused on spoken language, and the resultant theoretical frameworks have been based on spoken code-switching. This volume presents a collection of new work on the alternation of languages in written form. Written language alternation has existed since ancient times. It is present today in a great deal of traditional media, and also exists in newer, less regulated forms such as email, SMS messages, and blogs. Chapters in this volume cover both historical and contemporary language-mixing practices in a large range of language pairs and multilingual communities. The research collected here explores diverse approaches, including corpus linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, literacy studies, ethnography, and analyses of the visual/textual aspects of written data. Each chapter, based on empirical research of multilingual writing, presents methodological approaches as models for other researchers. New perspectives developed in this book include: analysis specific to written, rather than spoken, discourse; approaches from the new literacy studies, treating mixed-language literacy from a practice perspective; a focus on both "traditional" and "new" media types; and the semiotics of both text and the visual environment.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2.3, University of Stuttgart (Institut für Linguistik), 40 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a complete overview over the phenomenon of code-switching and code-mixing. The history of the research of code change has undergone various periods that have shown how complex the phenomenon of codeswitching and code-mixing are. In the course of research of code change it has become clear that code-switching and code-mixing can be investigated from different perspectives. Researchers focused on code change after they had realized that linguistic forms and practices are interrelated. And code-switching/-mixing, in their turn, embodies not only variation, but the link between linguistic form and language use as social practice. Research from a linguistic and psycholinguistic perspective has focused on understanding the nature of the systematic of code change, as a way of revealing linguistic and potentially cognitive processes. Research on the psychological and social dimensions of code-switching/-mixing has largely been devoted to answering the questions of why speakers code change and what the social meaning of code change is for them. The sociological perspective later goes on to attempt to use the answer to those questions to illuminate how language operates as a social process. Throughout the history of research on code-switching/-mixing it has been proposed that it is necessary to link all these forms of analysis and that, indeed, it is that possibility that is one of the most compelling reasons for studying code-switching/- mixing, since such a link would permit the development and verification of hypotheses regarding the relationship among linguistic, cognitive and social processes in a more general way (Heller, Pfaff 1996). As with any aspect of language contact phenomena, research on code- switching

The complex linguistic situation of earlier multilingual Britain has led to numerous contact-induced changes in the history of English. However, bi- and multilingual texts, which are attested in a large variety of text types, are still an underresearched aspect of earlier linguistic contact. Such texts, which switch between Latin, English and French, have increasingly been recognized as instances of written code-switching and as highly relevant evidence for the linguistic strategies which medieval and early modern multilingual speakers used for different purposes. The contributions in this volume approach this phenomenon of mixed-language texts from the point of view of code-switching, an important mechanism of linguistic change. Based on a variety of text types and genres from the medieval and Early Modern English periods, the individual papers present detailed linguistic analyses of a large number of texts, addressing a variety of issues, including methodological questions as well as functional, pragmatic, syntactic and lexical aspects of language mixing. The very specific nature of language mixing in some text types also raises important theoretical questions such as the distinction between borrowing and switching, the existence of discrete linguistic codes in earlier multilingual Britain and, more generally, the possible limits of the code-switching paradigm for the analysis of these mixed texts from the early history of English. Thus the volume is of particular interest not only for historical linguists, medievalists and students of the history of English, but also for sociolinguists, psycholinguists, language theorists and typologists.

This volume demonstrates that mixed utterances in young bilinguals can be analyzed in the same way as adult code-switching. It provides new insights not only in the field of code-switching and of language mixing in young bilinguals, but also in issues concerning general questions on linguistic theory which are difficult to be answered with monolingual data.

Although linguists have traditionally viewed code-switching as the simultaneous use of two language varieties in a single context, scholars and teachers of English have appropriated the term to argue for teaching minority students to monitor their languages and dialects according to context. For advocates of code-switching, teaching students to distinguish between "home language" and "school language" offers a solution to the tug-of-war between standard and nonstandard Englishes. This volume arises from concerns that this kind of code-switching may actually facilitate the illiteracy and academic failure that educators seek to eliminate and can promote resistance to Standard English rather than encouraging its use. The original essays in this collection offer various perspectives on why code-meshing--blending minoritized dialects and world Englishes with Standard English--is a better pedagogical alternative than code-switching in the teaching of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and visually representing to diverse learners. This collection argues that code-meshing rather than code-switching leads to lucid, often dynamic prose by people whose first language is something other than English, as well as by native English speakers who speak and write with "accents" and those whose home language or neighborhood dialects are deemed "nonstandard." While acknowledging the difficulties in implementing a code-meshing pedagogy, editors Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Y. Martinez, along with a range of scholars from international and national literacy studies, English education, writing studies, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, argue that all writers and speakers benefit when we demystify academic language and encourage students to explore the plurality of the English language in both unofficial and official spaces.

This book explores the linguistic expression of identity, intended as the social positioning of self and others, by focusing mostly on a scenario of prolonged language contact, namely the ancient Mediterranean area. The volume includes studies on language contact and on identity strategies developed at different levels of analysis, from phonetics to pragmatics, in, among others, Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syriac, (Cypriot) Arabic, Medieval Sardinian.

With a new Foreword by April Baker-Bell and a new Preface by Vershawn Ashanti Young and Y’Shanda Young-Rivera, Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy presents an empirically grounded argument for a new approach to teaching writing to diverse students in the English language arts classroom. Responding to advocates of the “code-switching” approach, four uniquely qualified authors make the case for “code-meshing”—allowing students to use standard English, African American English, and other Englishes in formal academic writing and classroom discussions. This practical resource translates theory into a concrete road map for pre- and inservice teachers who wish to use code-meshing in the classroom to extend students’ abilities as writers and thinkers and to foster inclusiveness and creativity. The text provides activities and examples from middle and high school as well as college and addresses the question of how to advocate for code-meshing with skeptical administrators, parents, and students. Other People’s English provides a rationale for the social and educational value of code-meshing, including answers to frequently asked questions about language variation. It also includes teaching tips and action plans for professional development workshops that address cultural prejudices.