Shelly
我们今晚去吃pizza吧 ? (Shall we go out for pizza tonight?)
OK, 走吧 ! (ok. let’s go!)
你的pre在什么时候？（When will you do a presentation?）
下周。（Next week.）
This is the common and natural interaction when talking to my friends in my daily life after studying abroad: switching between the languages I can speak. This kind of language phenomenon is called “code-switching”.
According to Van Herk (2018), code-switching is a common phenomenon when “people who share more than one language get together and use two (or more!) languages (or “codes”) to communicate” (p. 136). Not surprisingly, bilinguals sometimes decide that only one of their languages is appropriate for a particular situation. But how do people in different contexts decide which language to use? Based on Van Herk, speakers switch language by considering “where they are, who they’re talking to, and what kind of speech activities are involved” (p. 149).
First, code-switching helps people to better express themselves. One example that came into my mind was that I switched from Mandarin to my local dialect instantly when my old friend called me in my local dialect. My roommate was quite surprised at that time because I switched so quickly and didn’t even notice. Sometimes I switch languages because the local dialect can express a sense of humor that can only be understood by the local community. Moreover, we felt closer when we interacted with each other in dialect. The other example is my students switched from English to their first language when they could not find a proper word in English. In this case, code-switching helped them to and we could work together to figure out the English expression.
Additionally, code-switching also carries affective functions that serve to express emotions. In China, people feel shy to express their love or gratitude to parents directly. My friend told me that her parents never say emotional and romantic words to each other. Moreover, it’s unheard of for me to say “I love you” in Chinese to my parents face to face. However, using English makes it easier and more natural to express this feeling, because it helps people get rid of awkward moments and feelings. Nevertheless, when they try to use Chinese to say those words, it sometimes sounds too serious and a little bit strange to do so. In this case, we select the ‘right’ language for each context or situation. The languages can have strong emotions when they are unavailable or only partly available at moments (Busch, 2017). English builds a bridge for people to express their feelings. In addition, when people want to express a feeling of sympathy to others, they are more likely to use English than Chinese, which has similar to acts expressing love.
However, sometimes, people will try to avoid code-switching because they do not want to make others feel excluded. It reminds me of the circumstance where we use English instead of Chinese to talk in a group discussion when most of the group members are Chinese. In this way, we try to avoid code-switching in this circumstance because we don’t want the other classmates who cannot understand Chinese to feel excluded from the conversation. As Busch stated, we don’t want people to feel the restrictive or exclusive power of linguistic categorization when language is not available to them (Busch, 2017).
All in all, there is no wall between languages (Rhymes, 2014). Individuals can use a collection of ways to participate in effective communication. Code-switching helps to build a bridge between different languages for better and effective communication and interaction.
Questions:
Have you ever code-switched in your study, work or daily life?
Can you share one or two examples with us and explain why do you code-switch?
References
Busch, B. (2015). Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of—The lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics, 38(3), 340-358.
Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Rymes, B. (2014). Communicative repertoire. In B. Street and C. Leung (eds) Routledge Companion to English Language Studies. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 287-301.
