Provides an overview of the topic of this special issue of the journal--discourse markers in bilingual conversation. Introduces the studies included in the issue, which investigate discourse markers in bilingual conversation from a variety of perspectives. As a whole the articles document the phenomenon of language alternation at discourse markers…

Examines data recorded in Shaba, a province in the Congo, and documents the marked preference to employ French discourse markers in Shaba Swahili discourse. Treats discourse markers as a special kind of contextualization cue that ties parts of a discourse to each other, creating cohesion and coherence. (Author/VWL)

Argues for a cognitive motivation behind the nonseparation of systems of discourse marking available to bilinguals. Produces evidence that bilingual speakers, in an unconscious effort to reduce the mental effort necessary to monitor and direct the hearer's responses and reactions to the speaker's utterances, can simplify monitoring-and-directing…

Provides a detailed voyage into the bilingualism of two Israeli Hebrew-English bilinguals. Compares their patterns of discourse marker employment at two points in their lifetime, twelve years apart. Finds that after 12 years, cognitive and discourse markers show further grammaticization quantitatively, whereas interpersonal discourse markers show…

Focuses on syntactic regularities that underlie language alternations in Spanish-English bilingual speech, and the methodologies that may prove most reliable and informative in the exploration of this focus. Findings attest to the validity of the methodologies and of the elicited data. (Author/VWL)

Argues that differences at the level of the categories of language alternation as they are observed in the literature are not mere terminological differences, but rather reflect theoretical and methodological differences. Adopts a praxis view of language, arguing that the notion of code and that of language are not necessarily equivalent.…

Used event-related dense-sensor EEG recording techniques to examine the time course of language switching during a visually-cued naming task in which bilingual participants named digits in either their first or second language. Switch-related modulation of ERP components was evident over parietal and frontal cortices, and in the latter case showed…

Contrasted the effect of instruction-induced expectancies and language intermixing in an English lexical decision task performed by Dutch-English bilinguals. Results indicate that language intermixing rather than instruction-based expectancies drives the bilingual participants' performance. Consequences for current views on bilingual word…

This article explores some roles for conversation analysis (CA) as an approach to second and foreign language learning by examining the initial segment of a Gesprachsrunde, a dyadic conversation-for-learning conducted between a beginning learner of German as a foreign language and a native speaker of German. The analysis focuses on the situated…

This article examines patterns of national, cultural, and linguistic identification among Chilean-Swedish transmigrant adolescents in and around Stockholm, Sweden. Drawing from ethnographic interviews and observations, analysis focuses on adolescents' (a) views on ethnic and national identity; (b) general perceptions of Chileans and Swedes; and…

The blend between Spanish and English found in Hispanic or Latino communities in the United States is usually known as "Spanglish." It is suggested that Spanglish represents the most important contemporary linguistic phenomenon in the United States that has barely been approached from a linguistic point of view. Spanglish may be…

In this article we discuss different views about how information flows through the lexical system in bilingual speech production. In the first part, we focus on some of the experimental evidence often quoted in favor of the parallel activation of the bilinguals' two languages from the semantic system in the course of language production. We argue…

Codemixing of Cantonese Chinese and English is a common speech behaviour used by bilingual people in Hong Kong. Though codemixing is repeatedly criticised as a cause of the decline of students' language competence, there is little hard evidence to indicate its detrimental effects. This study examines the use of mixed code in the context of the…

This review of research considers the occurrence and function of Spanish discourse markers and other particles in indigenous speech. I discuss important research that has examined these phenomena and refer to studies of bilingual discourse markers in other non-indigenous language contact situations to address unresolved issues concerning the form…

Explores typology-based differences in patterns of bilingual behavior by analyzing code-switches of Korean-English bilingual speakers, a language group that has not received much study so far. Data collected from 20 balanced bilinguals were analyzed to address the issues of linguistic constraints on code-switching and applicability of concepts of…