Holmes Code Switching

Code-switching is an awesome linguistic talent!

What is code-switching? What situations can code-switching be used in? What effects does code-switching have on language? These are all good questions, and ones we'll find the answers to as we move through this article.

As we start to answer these questions, we'll also be looking at linguist Janet Holmes' ideas about code-switching to put things into context.

So sit back, strap in, and get ready to learn all about the wonderful world of code-switching!

Code-switching allows people to switch between languages in the same interaction.

Code Switching Meaning

Over the years, linguists have explored the concept of code-switching in different communities, looking at its triggers, effects, and users. The first mention of the term appears in Lucy Shepheard Freeland's book Language of the Sierra Miwok printed in 1951.

In the book, Freeland discusses the language use of the indigenous people of California, conveying the commonly held belief of the 40s and 50s that code-switching is an inferior or substandard linguistic feature.¹ This view reflects a prescriptivist viewpoint.

Since then, linguists have started to move away from largely prescriptivist approaches to language study and in more recent years, code-switching has gained a more positive reputation as an innovative and multi-functional use of language.

But what exactly is code-switching?

Gumperz definition of Code-Switching

John Joseph Gumperz, American linguist and academic, defined code-switching as:

That might sound a bit complicated so let's break it down. Gumperz' idea was that code-switching is essentially when a person changes between two different languages or language varieties within a single verbal exchange.

In other words, code-switching is the process of alternating between linguistic codes depending on the social context, within spoken discourse.

Code-switching is used in many different situations and for different reasons.

Difference between lexical borrowing and code-switching

Holmes notes in her book An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (2000) that code-switching is a different linguistic phenomenon from lexical borrowing. To be clear, lexical borrowing is when someone 'borrows' words from another language, often due to a lack of lexical terms in their own repertoire. Code-switching, however, is when speakers make conscious decisions about what words or phrases to use in each language that they speak.³

Types of Code-Switching

There are two key contextual subcategories of code-switching:

• situational code-switching
• metaphorical code-switching

As you can see, these two types of code-switching will be used in different situations. For a deeper understanding of each of these, let's look at some quick examples:

Situational Code Switching Examples

Let's imagine a bilingual family that speaks both English and French fluently. At the dinner table, the family is discussing an episode of Green Planet that they watched together. They begin talking about it in English as it was an English documentary:

One parent says 'David Attenborough has such a talent for giving living things a personality. I never look at trees and think of them the way he described them...' but then remembers something that happened in their day that they were suddenly reminded of, and switches to French, 'J'ai presque oublié de vous dire ce qui s'est passé aujourd'hui...' (meaning 'I almost forgot to tell you what happened today...')

These two utterances happen in the same speech exchange, by the same person, but in two different languages or 'language codes'. The two different utterances also address two different social contexts.

The English utterance serves to contribute to the family's discussion about the documentary, and the French utterance serves to signal that the speaker wants to share something about their day.

Metaphorical Code Switching Examples

Using another hypothetical family, let's say a family from London is also having dinner together. There are two young children at the table and they begin to argue over who is going to eat the last chicken nugget.

The father then chimes in with 'Oi, why don't we chop it in half then we've got two chicken nuggets for two chicken nugget eaters, hey?' As he cuts the chicken nugget in half and gives each child a piece, he turns to his wife and says 'I have until Friday to present my input on whether or not the company should go ahead with the merger, but frankly, I'm not convinced it will be a lucrative solution.'

Again, these two utterances happened in the same speech exchange by the same person, but two different language codes were used. Although both utterances were in English, the father character still switched between two different linguistic varieties.

When addressing his young children, he uses informal colloquialisms such as 'oi' and 'hey?' as well as the child-centric term 'chicken nugget eaters', whereas when he addresses his wife and talks about work his tone and language become more formal and professional.

This shift in linguistic code signals the change of topic and facilitates the conversation turning to a new subject that required a separate conversational domain.

Different Code Switching Formats

Within both of these subcategories of code-switching, there are several main formats that a code-switch can fall into. These formats are as follows:

• Intersentential code-switching: when the switch occurs outside of sentence level, or after a sentence is finished: 'I was thinking about going to the shop later. A quelle heure est la fête? (what time is the party?)'
• Intra-sentential switching: when the switch occurs within a sentence: 'Il aime seulement reading books.' ('He only likes reading books')
• Tag-switching: when the switch comes in the form of a tag question or phrase: 'We'll get some food on the way back, d'accord (okay)?'
• Intra-word code-switching: when the switch happens within a single word: 'beefesque' (meaning 'beef-like/ similar to beef', where the 'esque' suffix comes from French but the root word 'beef' is English).

Reasons for Code Switching

As the two examples above might have hinted at, code-switching can be used in lots of different ways. There are also many reasons why a person or community might decide to code-switch. We'll take a look at a few of these reasons now:

• Code-switching for privacy - if several bilingual/multilingual people are having a conversation and want to say something that they'd rather keep private from others around them, code-switching to a different language provides an opportunity to continue their conversation without allowing prying ears to understand what is being said.

Code-switching is often used for privacy or to create a sense of identity or community.

• Code-switching to fit in - switching from one language to another, or more commonly from one linguistic variety to another, in the same language can enable speakers to present themselves as part of the group. For example, someone might switch to using more formal and standard language forms when they're in a workplace environment in order to fit in with the tone and behaviour of colleagues.

• Code-switching to find the right word - being able to speak multiple languages is a blessing to many but it can present some difficulties if a person's fluency is not equal across all the languages they speak. Sometimes code-switching can be used to help someone find the right word to say if they couldn't think of it in the language they were previously speaking.

• Code-switching to improve expression - sometimes there just isn't an appropriate translation for words and phrases in different languages. Code-switching can allow multilingual people to express themselves in the most effective and evocative way if there isn't a comparable translation of a phrase in the language they're speaking. Holmes (2000) comments that code-switching can be used to convey an emotion more effectively by allowing the speaker to draw vocabulary from other languages or linguistic varieties.³

• Code-switching to express solidarity and community identity - code-switching is a powerful way of signalling to other people that you relate to them in some way. For example, George B. Ray discusses code-switching in his book Language and Interracial Communication in the United States: Speaking in Black and White (2009), commenting that in African American communities, code-switching is a key strategy for strengthening community ties. He also comments that code-switching is:

What he means by this is that code-switching amongst African American communities has always been viewed as a merely linguistic phenomenon when actually, a lot of the time, the ability to code-switch becomes a necessary skill in an often prejudiced world. In certain spheres, African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is perceived to be inferior to more standard language forms.

AAVE is a language variety commonly used by some African American communities where non-standard language forms are characteristic - for example, 'yo car' instead of 'your car'). If an African American person code-switches to more standard language varieties in certain situations, they're more likely to be perceived positively by other (predominantly white) people.⁴

AAVE users often code-switch in order to be perceived more positively by non-AAVE users.

Similarly, Janet Holmes supports this idea of using code-switching as a method for connecting with people of your own ethnicity or community, commenting that:

We all code-switch from time to time, even if it's only in small ways. Our language use changes depending on who we're talking to and the situations we're in, and these changes can be seen as examples of code-switching.