code-switching

code-switching, process of shifting from one linguistic code (a language or dialect) to another, depending on the social context or conversational setting. Sociolinguists, social psychologists, and identity researchers are interested in the ways in which code-switching, particularly by members of minority ethnic groups, is used to shape and maintain a sense of identity and a sense of belonging to a larger community.

In the United States, code-switching was originally studied in the context of second-language acquisition as the process whereby native speakers of Spanish shifted from Spanish to English and vice versa. Sociolinguists such as John J. Gumperz were interested more generally in the circumstances that prompted members of a speech community to alternate between their native language and that of the majority population.

Code-switching was also studied among African Americans who shifted between standard English (a dialect of English that is recognized as the national norm in the United States and is spoken or written by the educated classes) and African American English (AAE), an Africanized dialect widely spoken by Americans of African descent. Other terms for African American English are African American Language, African American Vernacular English, Black English, Standard Black English, and Ebonics.

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Code-switching among African American students has been recognized since the 1970s and has informed different views of those students’ home dialect (AAE) and different approaches to the teaching of standard English. The “correctionist” approach to code-switching suggests that the students’ home speech amounts to “broken English” or “poor grammar.” Correctionists may also apply derogatory labels such as “ghetto” or “country.” From the perspective of the correctionist, if the students’ home speech is broken, then it needs to be corrected by getting them to use the appropriate language—standard English. For the correctionist, the students’ home speech is nothing more than a set of bad habits that prevent them from mastering correct English.

In response to the correctionist approach, the contrastivist approach emphasizes the importance of language plurality. Those who have adopted this perspective believe that the African American students’ home dialect is equally as important as standard English. Moreover, the students’ home dialect can be used as a “bridge language” for acquiring standard English. For example, African American students may come to school and say to the teacher something like the following: “My brother, he smart.” The contrastivist teacher will recognize this phrase as having a West African sentence structure known as topic-comment: “my brother” is the topic, and “he smart” is the comment. Recognizing that the phrase lacks a verb (a deficit only in standard English), the contrastivist educator will show the students the difference between the phrase “My brother, he smart” and its equivalent in standard English and, more generally, show the students how their home dialect differs grammatically from standard English and how the two dialects are appropriate in different social contexts. As a result of understanding those differences, the students have a better understanding of how to code-switch.

According to the American linguists Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir, language has the power to shape the worldview and identity of its users. Both the correctionist and contrastivist ideologies shape, through language, the identities of students in uniquely different ways. The student whose language is shaped by the correctionist’s ideology may adopt a mainstream cultural identity, one that is couched in Eurocentric values, ideals, and customs.

However, the student whose language is shaped by the contrastivist’s ideology may adopt different cultural identities depending on the social context or conversational setting. Here, the speaker may move back and forth between the dialect of the dominant culture and the home dialect, depending on the situation. So, for example, an African American business executive addressing colleagues in a professional setting may express disapproval by saying “I disagree.” However, the same individual, addressing friends in an informal setting, may say, “That ain’t cool.” It is safe to say that many African Americans, particularly within the middle class, speak on a continuum ranging from the language of the suites to the language of the streets.

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