Original scientific paper

Psycholinguistic, metalinguistic and socio–psychological accounts of code–switching: a comparative analysis of their incidence in a large Croatian–English sample.

Jim Hlavac orcid.org/0000-0002-4998-9273 ; Monash University

Abstract

This paper presents examples of code–switching in a large Croatian–English corpus. Use of
forms from two languages is a common feature in the speech of 100 Croatian–Australians
and code–switching is a habitualised variety. Psycholinguistic and socio–psychological accounts
of code–switching are examined to test their applicability and explanatory power to
a sample of over 5,600 turns of which 40% contain code–switches. While some items such
as proper nouns are possible triggers for psycholinguistically ’involuntary’ code–switch ing,
the majority of code–switching examples are accounted within socio–psychological approaches
that focus on how speakers position themselves towards others. Bilingual speech,
in the context of this sample of semi–spontaneous discourse, is determined by speakers’
employment of ’other–language’ items which may signal re–positioning of roles and/or signal
discourse–internal features. Code–switching into English and back to Croatian reflects
speakers’ and listeners’ desired linguistic choices with the roles and discourse contexts
that they are able to enact within these choices.

Keywords

code–switching; bilinguism; australian Croats; Croatian; English

Hrčak ID:

83037

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/83037

Publication date:

11.6.2012.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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