Discusses the major language shift in Singapore from the familial use of varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin towards the languages of education, English and Mandarin. An ethnographic study is presented of a Singaporean Chinese family that has moved from Cantonese to English, and the underlying pressures leading to this shift are examined. (19…

Using Scotton's model of codeswitching based on markedness theory, this paper examines a type of register variation known as "babytalk," defined as ambiguous talk of babies or young children and talk to babies or young children. It is argued that babytalk and the voice of authority are motivated by Chinese cultural assumptions about…

Discusses use of the mother tongue in bilingual content teaching as well as in conventional foreign-language classes. The controversy over mother tongue is examined by analyzing a history lesson taught in English as a foreign language. Suggests brief use of the mother tongue can function as a learning aid to enhance communicative competence in the…

Presents results from ongoing research about non-adapted language switches, highlighting a longitudinal study of an adult learner of third-language (L3) Swedish with first-language (L1) English and second-language (L2) German. The study is based on 844 non-adapted language switches. Researchers identified four types of switches. Results indicated…

Explores pragmatic dimensions of code switching by first-grade Korean-American schoolchildren. Growing up as members of the Korean immigrant community in New York City, the children all entered school with Korean as their mother tongue, and at the same time of the investigation alternated between English and Korean. (Author/VWL)

Comments on an article that argues that the compartmentalism of structures observed in mixed languages is the result of the cumulative effect of different contact mechanisms. (Author/VWL)

Seeks to establish connections between two different language contact phenomena, interlanguage, and code switching. Data for the study come from an interlanguage corpus that has English as the target language, but also contains material from the speaker's two first languages, Spanish and German; and a German-English code switching corpus…

Explores how the story "The Raja's Big Ears" traveled from Gujerat in India, where it is a well-known folktale, via a skilled story teller, to London, where it was transformed through contact with the multicultural world of London school children. (Author/VWL)

We present a hypothesis for a specific kind of code-mixing in young bilingual children, during the development of their two first languages, one of which is considerably weaker than the other. Our hypothesis, which we label the Ivy Hypothesis, is that, in the interaction meant to be in the weaker language, the child uses portions of higher…

Quebec rap lyrics stand out on the world Hip-Hop scene by virtue of the ease and rapidity with which performers in this multilingual, multiethnic youth community codeswitch, frequently among three or more languages or language varieties (usually over a French and/or English base) in the same song. We construct a framework for understanding…

A growing body of research recognizes the pervasive difficulties involved in accommodating multilingual practices in the English language classroom and acknowledges that one aspect of this conundrum is the role that languages play in the constitution of student identities. Such studies point to how students use off-stage spaces to covertly engage…

Research on language in Hong Kong is reviewed, focusing on work in the areas of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and survey research. Discourse analysis studies examined include research on classroom language, discourse in other settings such as work environments, business telephone communication, news media discourse, and student language…

All speakers alter language stylistically in response to particular social circumstances at the moment of speech. Additionally, bilingual speakers switch codes. In fact, language differentiation and code switching are fundamental to behaving bilingually. This article examines how language differentiation and code switching developed in a young…

A study examined variation in code choice in the same speakers in two contrasting situations--interorganizational and intraorganizational bargaining. Naturalistic interactions between teams of teacher's union bargaining agents, role-playing teachers, and school board members in the two settings were coded, using measures of structural and lexical…

This study investigated the degree to which Portuguese students (n=100) educated in France switched or mixed languages in a written essay. Subjects were told to express themselves liberally in either or both languages. A linguistic history was also taken for each student. The measures were administered in a French-language school, and instructions…