"Spanglish" and language Code-Switching

Link: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/7164

Summary: This is a valuable website for the understanding and studying of Spanglish. It shows the most common sentences used and provide several examples. Moreover, the website shows an interesting Spanglish dictionary. It is one of the most interesting sites on code-switching because of the great number of different words and examples of mixtures.

Code-switching in a Hong Kong community

Link: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/psy457_ksmal/home

Summary: This website gives a short summary of what is code-switching. However, the noticeable part of the website is the arousal of the question of identity in relation to code-switching. The website opens a space to reflection on how code-switching can affect and what its role can be on a person’s identity. The Video Footage link shows an interview on code-switching in Hong Kong and shows different opinions about this subject.

Child code-switch and adult code-switch

Link: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/content.pdf

Summary: This is an article from the International Journal of Binligualism (Volume 9, Number1, 2008, p 85-102) about Child code-switch and adult code-switch. The research shows children knows which code to use with certain addresses, while they are growing-up, they will increase they pragmatic skills. In adults, the code-switching may rely on semiotics differences implied by language; and it depends on specific sociolinguistic situations and personal histories. The text also discusses the different types and functions of code-switching, highlighting the differences towards the languages attitudes in bilingual children and adults.

Code-switching in bilingual children, by Katja F. Cantone

Link: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=40LW5OkHiTgC&dq=code+switching&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=1LVFBRX59b&sig=vKMW1gB3zk0gZejzsy50mhYa4zM&hl=pt-BR&ei=0fwSS8iVDsGfuAeZxri4CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBDjSAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Summary: This is an online version of Code-switching in bilingual children, by Katja F. Cantone. The book presents analysis about the theme, without making difference on child’s and adult’s code-switching. The data was collected spontaneously from the children (5 italian-german speakers), so the author could provide detailed empirical evidence for latest minimalist assumptions on the architecture of mind and confirms that code-switching is only constrained by the two grammars of the languages involved and reflects critically about the previous theories on the subject.

Attitude towards code-mixing and code-switching among university students of HK, Singapore and Mainland

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LUULzo5JU&feature=PlayList&p=5C4607319E0E1B57&index=2

Summary: This is a CBS presentation video (08/11/2007). It presents a questionnaire about language attitude towards code-switching and code-mixing in HK, Singapore and Mainland Universities. They have previous knowledge about it and their personal opinions were requested. All use both strategies and it varies according to personal and social reasons. When they opinion as university students were asked, it varied significantly: most of them think it is interesting, all of them agree it is a cultural phenomenon, but two interveners presents opposite answers: One think it is a symptom of lack of knowledge in one language; the other thinks it is fascinating how people can adapt and create language to suit their communication necessities. Although they are from bilingual cultures, they have different reactions towards the topic.

Code Switching in conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity, by Peter Auer (ed.)

Link: http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/c-s/toc.html

Summary: This is a non-commercial website page where it is possible to find the publications of Code-Switching in Conversation, a volume that emerged from the Colloquy on Code-Switching, organized by Peter Auer (Hamburg, February 1995). He allows us to explore the volume’s contents and to read the messages previously contributed to the Forum on code-switching. Although the Forum is closed, it is possible to join The Code-Switching Forum discussion list, created in 2000.

Code-Switching: perspectivas multidisciplinares

Link: http://www.maxwell.lambda.ele.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=9382@1

Summary: This article by Renata Sobrino Porto tries to investigate the Code-Switching (CS) phenomena through the systematic inquiry of all the studies regarding this topic. It aims to present e systematization and a international literature bibliographical evaluation upon CS through the presentation and characterization of the main research lines. It also was an effort in supplying the Brazilian expertise field with some of the vast international knowledge about the subject.

Strategic Ambiguity

Link: http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/view/6416/3404

Summary: This article called Strategic Ambiguity, by Monica Heller, shows how language code switching’s effects within conversation can be considered in order to manage conflicts. This conversational strategy reveals both stylistic and rhetorical aspects of code switching usage, as in situations in which the speaker chooses the language according to the interlocutor’s competences. The author’s hypothesis are based on the idea that code switching creates ambiguity primarily on these two situations: (a) when there are clear unmarked conversations of language choices; (b) when no such conventions may exist or there may be competing conventions. The author concludes that, by appealing to the notions of rights and obligations, it is possible to conceive a general concept of the strategic use of code switching “in which stylistic, conversational management and social significance effects can all be seen to be imbedded in one another”.

Processing of sentences with intra-sentential code-switching

Link: http://www.aclweb.org/anthology-new/C/C82/C82-1023.pdf

Summary: Aravind K. Joshi’s essay Processing of sentences with intra-sentential code-switching studies the phenomenon of language code switching as a computational framework which consists of two grammatical systems and a mechanism for switching between the two systems. The authors reveal how speakers of certain bilingual communities systematically produce utterances in which they switch from one language to another. This suggests that the two language systems systematically interact with each other in the production (and recognition) of these sentences. A variety of constraints apparent in these sentences are then explained in terms of constraints on the switching mechanism, especially, those on closed class items.

Social meaning in linguistic structure: code-switching in Norway

Link: http://books.google.com.br/books?hl=pt-BR&lr=&id=zfYYXKxPek0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA111&dq=code+switching&ots=f2rT-bzWBu&sig=Mf9ZNy4tV2NmqYz2PT9Nn58uJg4#v=onepage&q=code%20switching&f=false

Summary: Jan-Petter Blom and John J. Gumperz’s essay Social meaning in linguistic structure: code-switching in Norway. This online version of the text originally published in The Bilingualism Reader, edited by Li Wei. Based on Bernstein’s hypothesis that social relationships “act as intervening variables between linguistic structures and their realization in speech”, the author Michael Clyne, the authors collect a rich corpus based on two month’s field work in Hemnesberget, a small commercial and industrial town of about 1’300 inhabitants in Rana Fjord, close to the Arctic circle in northern Norway. The research revealed a rich repertoire based mainly in their mother language, Ranamal, but with many evidences from Bokmal and Nynorsk, among others. The cases are phonetically and syntactically analyzed, always considering the social status of language variations.

Contrasting Patterns of Code-Switching in Two Communities

LINK: http://www.sociolinguistics.uottawa.ca/shanapoplack/pubs/articles/Poplack1987.pdf

Summary: This is an online version of Shana Poplack’s Contrasting Patterns of Code-Switching in Two Communities, originally published in the book Aspects of Multilingualism. Based mainly in Labov (1971), Poplack analyses how Puerto Ricans who live in New York realize code switching in their common dialogues. It is important to consider that the analyzed community of East Harlem is traditionally a stable bilingual one. The linguist also confronts code switching with the function of borrowing, always seeking real examples and standards in the analyzed community.