Code-switching as a research area

Although today code-switching (also the form ‘codeswitching’ is used), defined by Milroy and Muysken (1995:7) as the alternative use by bilinguals of two or more languages in the same conversation, is a rapidly growing research area in the field of language contact studies, this was not always the case. Originally, according to Gardner-Chloros (2009:9), code-switching was scarcely noticed in the field of bilingualism for a long time and, therefore, according to Milroy and Muysken (1995:8), the study of code-switching was slow in starting, when compared to for example the research on bilingualism in general and to the research on borrowing and interference. Discussing reasons for lexical borrowing, Weinreich (1968:56-60) named, among others, the low frequency of words in a language, homonymy and the need for synonyms as possible motives for lexical borrowing. Additionally, Weinreich also referred to this

“transfer of words” from one language to another as a common phenomenon in bilinguals’ speech but stated that it may also occur through “mere oversight”, especially in affective speech when the speakers’ attention is almost completely

focused on the topic of the message instead its form. Haugen (1950:211), for his part, explained the altering use of two languages as “merely an alternation of the second language, not a mixture of the two”, occurring only in “abnormal cases”. To sum up, at the time code-switching was merely seen as an oddity, deficient use of language caused by a speaker’s lacking knowledge and skills in one language. According to Kovács (2001:62), code-switching research really took off in the late 1970s after some fundamental works related to bilingualism and code-switching (Weinreich 1966, Haugen 1953, Clyne 1967, Hasselmo 1972, Blom and Gumperz 1972). Gardner-Chloros (2009:9) also states that the study of code-switching had remained more or less invisible until the work of Gumperz and his associates in the 1960s and early 1970s, after which the interest in the subject increased considerably. Milroy and Muysken (1995:9) also mention the pioneering research by Gumperz in the 1980s on interactive strategies applied by bilinguals (code-switching), after which the subject was seen as a credible research subject by linguists. According to Milroy and Muysken (1995:9), Gumperz was the first one to directly challenge in his analyses the view of code-switching as a deficient knowledge of language. Gumperz referred to the dominant view as follows:

The bilingual exchanges we have examined furthermore show that code switching does not necessarily indicate imperfect knowledge of the grammatical systems in question. Only in relatively few passages is code alternation motivated by speakers’ inability to find words to express what they want to say in one or the other code. In many cases, the code switched information could equally well be expressed in either language. Something may be said in one code and reiterated without pause in the other, or an expression in one code may be repeated in the other code elsewhere in the same conversation (Gumperz 1982:

64-65).

Gumperz (1982:65) concludes that intelligibility, lucidity, ease of expression as well as educational inferiority cannot, therefore, be considered as the main determining reasons for bilinguals to switch codes. Instead, his findings suggested that code-switching has a discursive and interactional function for bilinguals; code-switching is a linguistic resource through which a variety of social and metaphorical meanings are conveyed (Gumperz 1982, Milroy and Muysken 1995:9).

According to Auer (1999:1) and Gardner-Chloros (2009:9), code-switching related phenomena have gained a great deal of scientific interest during the last decades. Ever since the field of code-switching truly started to gain interest among researchers, it has been studied from various perspectives. At least four main disciplines can be distinguished: the sociolinguistic, the psycholinguistic, the syntactic (grammatical perspective) and the conversation-analytic approach.

According to Auer (1999:1), the pioneering code-switching studies (e.g. Poplack 1979, Blom and Gumperz 1972) have turned code-switching into a center of focus of a great deal of syntactic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studies.

Kovács (2001:65) also divides the field of code-switching into four main areas:

sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, linguistic (grammatical aspect) and interactionist/conversationalist perspective. Kovács (2001:66) states that the early research on code-switching focused on the social function of the switch, referring to the work of Blom and Gumperz (1972) and Gumperz (1982), whereas the linguistic or grammatical approach was at the core of the code-switching research until the 1990s . Furthermore, according to Kovács (2001:65), attempts have also been made to combine the different approaches into one single model in more recent studies. Auer (1999:1) on the other hand, mentions the syntactic (grammatical aspect), sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic research perspectives as some of the main approaches within the field of code-switching in the last decades. Kovács (2001:65) continues by stating that Auer himself has approached code-switching from the conversation-analytic perspective, where code-switching is seen as a discourse device, as in Gumperz’ work, and mainly explained through conversation analysis. Although the names for the different approaches somewhat differ, it could be said that the perspectives adopted most often by researchers either concentrate on the social, psychological, linguistic (grammatical) or conversational side of code-switching. However, since the present study mainly focuses the use of code-switching in Finland and thus does not directly belong into any of these, there is no need to discuss these areas in more detail. Instead, I will move on to discussing the thorny issue of defining code-switching and phenomena related to it, the most central issues from the point of view of the present study.