Bilingual Communication

Introduction

As with the interlanguage construct it is not the purpose of this paper to outline in any refined way the complexity of code switching and its related notions. Nor is it the purpose of this paper to outline the relationship which exits between the interlanguage notion and the code-switching notions, although my hope is that someone is doing or will do this for us soon. It is the intent of this paper to try to see them both as interlinguistic phenomena specific to bilinguals.

These bilingual phenomena are in much need of explanation and understanding for those who must deal with them in the instructional context or other contexts where this is an important matter. While both interlanguage and code-switching are probably strongly related and may appear more or less concurrently in the language life of the developing bilingual I will use the term code-switching for that point in the developmental time of bilingual learners when they are conscious of such behavior and then choose more or less purposefully to use or not to use it.

Bilingual Communication Forum Analysis

For our purposes only, if there is a beginning, middle, and culminating phase in becoming bilingual I would associate the interlanguage notion with the earlier stages of developing bilinguals, and code switching (including mixing, transferring, and borrowing) with the middle and later phases of bilingual acquisition. However, while interlanguage is the language constructed before arriving at more ideal forms of the target language, code switching may occur during and after the interlanguage phase. It may be that with children who are simultaneously developing two (or three) languages from infancy that interlanguage and code-switching may be less distinguishable or less discernible one from the other. In any case, both seem to be a natural cross linguistic outgrowth of becoming or having become bilingual.

Code-switching is the use of two languages simultaneously or interchangeably (Valdes-Fallis, 1977). It implies some degree of competence in the two languages even if bilingual fluency is not yet stable. Code-switching may be used to achieve two things: (a) fill a linguistic/conceptual gap, or (b) for other multiple communicative purposes (Gysels, 1992). While in some places and cases code switching is the exception, in many multilingual and bilingual communities it is and should be seen as the norm (Swigart, 1992; Goyvaerts & Zembele, 1992). It appears that where code-switching is the norm it is perceived as fluid, unmarked, and uneventful, and where it is the exception it will be perceived as marked, purposeful, emphasis-oriented, and strange. How is code-switching explained by those who study it? Gumperz (1982) describes code-switching as discourse exchanges which form a single unitary interactional whole:

Speakers communicate fluently, maintaining an even flow of talk. No hesitation pauses, changes in sentence rhythm, pitch level or intonation contour mark the shift in code. There is nothing in the exchange as a whole to indicate that speakers don't understand each other. Apart from the alternation itself, the passages have all the earmarks of ordinary conversation in a single ...