Lecture 3: When Languages Collide

English is spoken by a number of different peoples as their second language. In fact, soon more people will speak English as their second language than do people as their first language. (remember inner, outer and expanding circle?) Moreover, in each of these communities the English language is a little different—it has been made a little different because second language users have changed it and adapted.

What is it called when you speak more than one language?

MULTILINGUALISM: Multilingualism is the ability to speak more than one different language well. Notice this definition does not require you to be fluent.

review two concepts.

• the concept of language as a code.

• the concept of a speech community.

Review: code/language

When two or more people communicate with each other in speech we can call that system of communication they employ a code. Now, when two speakers are multilingual, again, that is they speak two or more languages, then they have access to two or more codes. If they switch between those codes we call that code-switching. This can also be called a third code or language that draws from the other two codes or languages.

Review: speech community

SPEECH COMMUNITY: All the people that you talk to everyday who use your language and dialect and now we can add: people who you talk to everyday you who use your language and dialect or languages and dialects.

For example in any given day, a immigrant New York taxi driver may speak his regional dialect, a social dialect (working-class), Standard English, and maybe a different native language, for example Arabic.

Verbal repertoire

every person within his or her speech community has what is called a verbal repertoire

VERBAL REPERTOIRE: The total range of linguistic resources a person has at his disposal is called a verbal repertoire. This could be another language, or it could be a regional or social dialect.

EXAMPLE

For someone who is multilingual, one language might be better for one thing and another for something else. Maybe you speak Russian at home and on the street, but you do a lot of business in English. Later, when you discuss politics with a friend, you switch to Ukrainian. Maybe you use a particular language with a different relative? This is an example of how you might use your verbal repertoire.

THE POINT is YOU choose when to use a particular language, and when not to.

Code-mixing

Code-mixing, again, is the mixing of two distinct languages or codes in a sentence. It usually happens in speech communities where people know more than one language very well—in fact, it happens in your speech community.

An interesting example of this is Surzhyk:

Surzhyk

Surzhyk: суржик, is currently the mixed language used by fifteen to twenty percent of the population of Ukraine. It is a mixture of Ukrainian with Russian. Normally Russian vocabulary is combined with Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation.

Borrowing

One of the most common ways that languages influence each other is the exchange of words. This is called borrowing. Borrowing is different from code-mixing that it is usually only a word or phrase and the user of the borrowed word or phrase does not have to know the language it is borrowed from. For example, in English we have many borrowed words and phrases that most English speakers know from other languages: