International Conference on Bilingualism
Professor Gardner-Chloros is invited to give a talk at the University of Malta.
Professor Penelope Gardner-Chloros has been invited to give a talk at The University of Malta at their International Conference on Bilingualism 23-25th March 2015.
Abstract Below:
Code-switching – where next?
Since it was first recognized as a specific mode of speaking some 50 years ago in the work of John Gumperz (1964), the study of code-switching has ‘come of age’. Its systematic and functional nature has been established in multiple contexts, particularly in relation to pragmatic aspects, though grammatical regularities have proved harder to pin down in a principled manner. In this paper I will propose and try to justify some new methodological directions for code-switching research.
First, I will argue that code-switching should no longer be treated as a separate and discrete area of study, nested within the study of bilingualism, but should be more integrated with research on (a) language contact, and (b) innovation and change in monolingual speech, providing the missing link in the chain between these two areas of research (Backus 2005; Auer 2014). Research concerning the speech of 2nd generation speakers of immigrant origin provides one suitable source of data to illustrate the connections between these processes, and examples will be taken from a recently completed project focusing on young people’s speech in London and Paris (‘Multicultural London English/Multicultural Paris French’ http://www.mle-mpf.bbk.ac.uk/Home.html).
Second, I will argue in favour of a more inclusive approach to data in another sense. Ever since the early work of Labov, sociolinguists have relied overwhelmingly on spontaneous spoken data, and this reliance has extended to much of the non-laboratory based research on code-switching. But more recently the contribution of historical linguists to the study of bilingualism has developed into a rich resource for sociolinguistics, and has shown that written material, whether historical or contemporary and whether literary or otherwise, provides valuable insights on bilingualism and code-switching. Referring to this research, I will argue that the notion of genre is more significant than the medium - spoken or written - as such, in understanding and classifying the functions and patterns within code-switching.
Both arguments lead to the same conclusion: that research on bilingual speech and code-switching stands to gain by becoming more inclusive, more interdisciplinary and by drawing on more varied sources of data than heretofore.
References:
Auer, P. 2014 Language mixing and language fusion: when bilingual talk becomes monolingual. In: J. Besters-Dilger, C. Dermarkar, S. Pfänder & A. Rabus (Hrsg.), Congruence in Contact-Induced Language Change. Berlin: de Gruyter (= Linguae et Litterae Bd. 27), S. 294-336.
Backus, A. 2005 Codeswitching and language change: one thing leads to another? International Journal of Bilingualism 9(3/4), 307–341.