"Carol Myers-Scotton's Codeswitching with English: Types of Switching, Types of Communities"
Dedy Subandowo
[email protected]
Pázmány Péter Catholic University
This paper outlines Carol Myers-Scotton's (1989) research study on codeswitching in Kenya and Zimbabwe in a sub-chapter book of Changing English published by Graddol et al. (2007). She published her study in the World Englishes journal under the title Codeswitching with English: types of switching, types of communities, vol. 8 no. 3 pp. 333-9. The discussion of the article begins with some key points in relevance to the ideas of markedness and unmarkedness choices in which they occur during the interaction of different contexts. This is followed by an explanation of sequential unmarked choices as well as switching as an unmarked and marked choice. The last reading session discusses how codeswitching demonstrates multiple identities.
Myers-Scotton's notion of codeswitching proposes that languages (codes) involve indexical social relationships. This means that s speaker as a certain kind of person with others. Furthermore, the speaker leads to measure a particular set of rights and obligations that will hold between participants in an interaction. A speaker then chooses a code that indexes the rights and obligations in the interaction among other speakers. Hence, Myers-Scotton investigates patterns of codeswitching based on the notion of markedness and unmarkedness. An unmarked choice refers to an expected choice, one that is associated with the type of interaction in which it occurs. On the other hand, a marked choice includes one that is not expected in that context to attempt to redefine a relationship.
Regarding sequential unmarked choices, the discussion focuses on a pattern involving a switch from one unmarked choice to another one when external forces including a new participant as well as a new topic adjust the expected balance of rights and obligations. Example (1) shows that a school principal who speaks English and Swahili in addition to his first language is in Nairobi on a visit. He tried to call on a friend working for a large automobile sales and repair establishment. Due to his plurilingualism, the school principal speaks Swahili to guard at the gate and switches to English. This situation is relevant to an unmarked choice, but once he speaks to the receptionist at the office, he switches to English which indicates the unmarked choice.
Switching as an unmarked choice tends to deal with participants who are bilingual peers. However, this choice may not lead to change at all in settings, participants, topics or any other situational features. At the level of ingroup communication, as an example, the pattern of alternating between two varieties may be unmarked especially in an informal setting. When the unmarked state of affairs is a simultaneous participant in two rights and obligations balances, each broadly corresponds with a different social identity. The goal of conducting this switching is to associate with dual identities. Examples (2) and (3) display how each individual switches and has no social significance at all. Example (2) is given a context focusing on administrator and principal interlocutions. The two speakers then may have more chances to switch their shared mother tongue and avoid divergence between them. Moreover, example (3) represents two students who shared their mother tongue, the Karanja dialect of Shona in the dormitory. In this context, their mother tongue is a kind of bedrock language, heavenly influencing the word order, word formation and other aspects of any switches from other languages.
Attention paid to codeswitching as a marked choice apprises solidarity particularly dealing with ingroup varieties. These groups also result from varieties associated with education and/or authority. Such switches often encode more social distance between participants; sometimes out of anger or desires to lower the addressee's or increase one's status. It is worth noting, that authority seems to examine English as the language of such a marked switch. In some contexts, English is nominated as solidarity, even though it is a second language, such as between highly educated peers. Example (4) is visible to underline two different marked choices, one to a mother tongue not shared by all and one to English.
The possibility to escort multiple identities may occur when people meet in non-conventionalized circumstances for the first time and when all the relevant social identity factors of the other person or situational factors are not known. It shows signs of codeswitching as an exploratory choice of someone's identity. A speaker may switch to settle upon a code that will be mutually acceptable as the unmarked choice of the exchange. The relevant context regarding this state of affairs appears in example (5) where English is a frequent component of exploratory switching conducted by a young man and his manager in a Nairobi business establishment.
To bring to the end of Carol Myers-Scotton's research study on codeswitching, some paramount aspects are conducive to language varieties precisely in the discussion of codeswitching with English, types of switching, and types of communities. Her notions including marked and unmarked choices are comprehensibly illustrated into five different extractions. One of these examples is evidence of showing how speakers act towards multiple identities in non-conventionalized exchanges which are considered as a neutral strategy.
References
Graddol, David; Leith, Dick; Swann, Joan; Rhys, Martin and Gillen, Julia eds. (2007) Changing English. London, UK: Routledge
Myers-Scotton, C. (1989) 'Codeswitching with English: types of switching, types of communities', World Englishes, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 333–9.
codeswitching_with_english.edited.doc |