Coulmas Handbook of Sociolinguistics / Part 2 - Social dimensions of Language / part 2 - 13. Code-switching

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13. Code-switching

CAROL MYERS-SCOTTON

DOI: 10.1111/b.9780631211938.1998.00015.x

1 Introduction

In many of the world's bilingual communities, fluent bilinguals sometimes engage in code-switching by producing discourses which, in the same conversational turn or in consecutive turns, include

morphemes from two or more of the varieties in their linguistic repertoire.1 Thanks to a plethora of publications and conference presentations on code-switching since the late 1970s, an overview of CS

in the middle 1990s can offer a rich characterization of CS itself, as well as comparing it more precisely with other language contact phenomena involving two or more languages.

Such an overview is necessary because, outside the community of CS researchers itself, some still assume that the main reason for CS is lack of sufficient proficiency to go on in the opening language, or that the selection of words in CS from one language rather than another is more or less random. It will become clear below that almost all researchers who study structural constraints on CS would deny that choice of language for all words is free, even if they disagree as to how choice is constrained.

It will also become apparent that the grammatical structure of CS and other language contact phenomena, such as first language attrition, follow the same principles. Another point to be discussed is the relationship of CS to borrowing. How borrowing and CS are similar or different as processes is discussed in section 4.

2 Goals

The first goal for this overview is to provide a more plausible characterization of CS, concerning both how it is grammatically structured and its nature as a sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic phenomenon. This will involve situating CS within the set of linguistic varieties which show either morphemes from two or more languages or effects of one language on another. The second goal is to survey CS research today. Research trends which are apparent in current literature are introduced below; in subsequent sections they are discussed further. Only CS between languages is considered here; however, switching between dialects, and even more so, between styles or registers is also frequent (Bell, 1984; Coupland, 1984; Scotton, 1988c).

Early CS studies considered the social functions of switching (e.g., Blom and Gumperz, 1972; Scotton and Ury, 1977). The research question addressed, “why is it that speakers engage in CS?” largely received the answer that CS is a strategy to influence interpersonal relations. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, CS researchers continued to find reasons to refine this answer. For example, first Gumperz (1982) and then Auer (1984) began to speak of CS as a “contextualization cue,” one of a number of discourse devices (both verbal and nonverbal) which are used in signalling and interpreting speaker intentions. Most researchers studied the social functions of CS on a micro-level, but argued that interpersonal usage patterns in CS reflect group values and norms associated with the varieties in a community's repertoire (cf. Heller, 1988a; McConvell, 1988; Heller, 1988b; Bhatia and Ritchie, 1989; Jacobson, 1990; Eastman, 1992). For example, in various publications Myers-Scotton developed the

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theme of CS as a tool for the speaker and an index for the addressee of the negotiation of interpersonal relationships, with participants cast within a “rational actor” framework, weighing costs and rewards of choices made against a backdrop of awareness for all interaction types of “unmarked vs marked” choices (e.g., 1993b, 1995a). Earlier (Myers-)Scotton (1976) introduced the notion of CS as a strategy of neutrality in interpersonal interactions, a notion developed by Heller (1988b, 1992a) in reference to intergroup relations. Heller and others are not so concerned with CS as emblematic in interpersonal relations as they are with CS as one of the linguistic choices reflecting the dynamics of competition between ethnic groups in a larger political context (e.g., Woolard, 1991; Gal, 1979, 1992a).

Yet only a few researchers have provided macro-level studies associating the use of CS with the group identities of the speakers involved. One of the reasons for this may be perceived difficulties in quantifying the use of CS in any meaningful way, plus a distrust of self-reports on CS use. A more important reason for avoiding macro-level studies may be that those CS researchers interested in social motivations for CS on an interpersonal level do not see the quantified study of the social identity features of “who uses what linguistic varieties where and when and to whom” as explaining the motives for employing CS interpersonally. True, whether a person has the ability to participate in a conversation involving CS depends on that person's linguistic repertoire, and repertoire may correlate positively with certain demographic features (e.g., without education to a certain level, it is unlikely a person will be able to speak the linguistic variety associated with political and socioeconomic power in the community). But the study of factors associated with the linguistic repertoires of different individuals in a community is not the same thing as the study of the personal motivations for CS.

One macro-level aspect of CS, the association of degrees of CS usage with demographic variables, has been studied by Poplack and her associates (Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988; Poplack, 1988a, b). Specifically they considered which speakers in French-Canadian communities with different sociopolitical profiles are the most frequent users of either borrowed English lexemes or CS involving English. In addition to such factors as social class, they considered proficiency and community attitudes. They concluded that “the norms of the community override individual abilities” as the best predictor of an individual's use of CS (Poplack et al., 1988: 97–8). That is, the major insight this study offers is that what one's community peers do, not so much demographic variables or even one's own linguistic proficiency, is paramount.

The major interest among CS researchers shifted in the 1980s to characterizing the morphosyntactic constraints on intrasentential switching. This new focus attracted many entries to the field in the 1980s (e.g., Pfaff, 1979; Poplack, 1980, 1981; Sridhar and Sridhar, 1980; Bentahila and Davies, 1983; Joshi, 1985; Gardner-Chloros, 1987; Nishimura, 1989). These researchers focused on intrasentential CS and their research question became, “where in a sentence can a speaker change languages?” In the 1990s, the publication record already in place implies that structural constraints will be the major focus of CS research. Little research on the phonology of CS has been reported, but a new study supports the notion of surface level changeover from one language to another. Based on experimental evidence, Grosjean and Miller conclude, “When bilingual speakers insert a word or phrase from the guest language into the base language, the switch usually involves a total change, not only at the lexical but also at the phonetic level” (1994: 205).

Morphosyntactically based CS research has at least two major branches. Some consider CS patterns as an “empirical window” on the nature of lexical entries and/or of language production as well as competence (e.g., Azuma, 1993; de Bot and Schreuder, 1993; Myers-Scotton, 1993a, 1994, 1995a; Myers-Scotton and Jake, 1995). Others use CS as a test for the efficacy of various claims in current syntactic theories (e.g., Woolford, 1983; Ewing, 1984; DiSciullo, Muysken, and Singh, 1986; Stenson, 1990; Muysken, 1991; Halmari, 1993; Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio, 1994; Jake, 1994; Santorini and Mahootian, 1995).

At the same time, the social and discourse motivations for CS continue to attract many researchers in the 1990s. What is new is that some of them relate differences in the structural characteristics of CS to social or psycholinguistic characteristics of different groups in the community. This is especially evident in work which stresses CS as a reflection of macro-level phenomena, such as the dynamics of intergroup relations in the community (e.g., Treffers-Daller, 1992, on CS patterns as reflecting interethnic tensions in Brussels; Wei, 1994, on CS patterns in different generations of Cantonesespeaking Chinese immigrants in Tyneside in Britain) or the interaction between bilingual proficiency

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and attitudes toward group affiliations in the switching group (Bentahila and Davies, 1992, on Arabic/French bilinguals in Morocco; Backus, 1994, on Turkish/Dutch CS among Turkish immigrants in Tilburg, the Netherlands).

Others consider specific types of CS structures as organizing devices in discourse or study CS from the standpoint of its role in organizing discourse sequences (e.g., McConvell, 1988; Wei, 1994). For example, Auer (1995) argues that, in arriving at the intended social messages, an adequate analysis of CS pays prime attention to the conversational turn. He stresses “the criterion of juxtaposition,” or that “the meaning of code-alternation depends in essential ways on its sequential environment.”

Finally, another new research direction is to view CS within the larger context of other types of bilingual speech production, and some second-language acquisition researchers are considering models of constraints on CS in proposing models to explain features of second-language production (Poulisse and Bongaerts, 1994).

3 The Structural Description of Code-switching

There still is no agreement among CS researchers themselves as to what constitutes CS. For example, Pandharipande (1992) labels as convergence between Hindi and Marathi what many would call CS. In contrast, de Bot and Schreuder (1993) discuss as CS the product of an interview request to speak Dutch, made to a Dutch immigrant long resident in Australia and unaccustomed to speaking Dutch. Many would rather call the result (Dutch with much English interference) an example of the late stages of first language attrition. Because of such mismatches in analysis, this discussion begins by establishing some boundaries.

To facilitate reference to the analysis of CS, uniformity in terminology is helpful. What follows comes from the Matrix Language Frame Model (Myers-Scotton, 1993a, 1995a), but others use the same or similar terms. The language which sets the grammatical frame in mixed constituents is the Matrix Language (ML). The grammatical frame is defined as morpheme order and system morphemes. System morphemes include inflections and most function words; they are defined by the features [– thematic

role receiver/assigner] and often [+ quantification].2 As such, they contrast with content morphemes, which either receive thematic roles (most nouns and adjectives) or assign them (most verbs, some

prepositions) thematic roles. The other language(s) participating in CS is the Embedded Language(s) (EL).

The ML frames the projection of the complementizer (CP) which constitutes intrasentential CS. (A CP is synonymous with a clause with a complementizer (COMP) e.g., because he came late, with because as COMP). Note that COMP is often null (e.g., in a main clause) and a CP may contain many null elements.

Under the Matrix Language Frame model (MLF model), within the CP frame there can be three types of constituents, all of which are maximal projections within X-bar theory (e.g., N', NP, PP): (1) Mixed constituents (ML + EL constituents) contain content morphemes from both the ML and the EL, but have a grammatical frame from the ML. This means that all syntactically active system morphemes come only from the ML. (2) Similarly, ML islands have an ML grammatical frame, but differ in that all morphemes come from the ML. (3) In a parallel fashion, EL islands consist of only morphemes from the

EL which are framed by the EL grammar.3

Example [1] illustrates the three types of constituents in a CP framed by the ML. In this case, the ML is Swahili, and English is the EL, and the discussion concerns a Nairobi, Kenya, supermarket and a temporary shortage of a certain laundry detergent. An example of a mixed constituent (ML + EL) is niko SURE “I am sure”; the pronominal clitic for first person (ni-) and the copula form (-ko) are both system morphemes and come from Swahili, the ML. The English adjective sure, a content morpheme, may be inserted into the grammatical frame provided by the ML. The temporal PP after two days is an EL island; like many EL islands, this PP is an adjunct, not an argument of the verb. Finally, u-ta-i-pata kwa wingi “you will find it in abundance” is an ML island. In the second speaker's turn, the verb form ni-me-DECIDE “I have decided” is also a mixed constituent; the other constituents are ML islands. Uchumi supermarket is a cultural borrowing (compound noun).

[1]

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Central to the MLF model and some other models of intrasentential CS is the claim that although both languages are “on” during CS production, they do not participate equally. As noted above, the ML sets the relevant grammatical frame, a generalization which explains the structure of mixed constituents parsimoniously. The consequences of viewing mixed constituents in terms of the ML vs EL distinction are detailed in Myers-Scotton (1993a); however, Joshi (1985) used this distinction first. Further, the observations of some earlier researchers indicate they were aware of the differential participation of the languages in CS (e.g., Forson, 1979; Gibbons, 1987; Petersen, 1988). Sridhar and Sridhar (1980) and Grosjean and his associates (e.g., 1988) recognized that the participating languages had different roles by referring to them as the host language vs the guest language. Kamwangamalu (e.g., 1989) and Azuma (e.g., 1993) also incorporated the ML vs EL distinction into their models early on. Today, many studies recognize the distinction (e.g., Jake, 1994; Walters, 1994).

Prior to models distinguishing the role of the ML and the EL, researchers suggested constraints on CS in terms of surface-based interdictions: linear ordering (the Equivalence Constraint and variations on it; e.g., Pfaff, 1979; Poplack, 1980, 1981), grammatical categories (e.g., switches between pronouns and finite verbs; Timm, 1975), or word composition (e.g., Poplack's Free Morpheme Constraint).

Numerous counter-examples to such claims followed soon (e.g., Nartey, 1982; Bentahila and Davies, 1983; Bokamba, 1988; Scotton, 1988b).

Taking a different tack, researchers using a Government and Binding (GB) framework attempt to constrain CS without considering the ML vs EL distinction (e.g., Woolford, 1983; DiSciullo, Muysken, and Singh, 1986). Counterexamples to these attempts, as well as to the earlier surface-based constraints, are found in many responses (e.g., Clyne, 1987; Bokamba, 1988; Romaine, 1989; Pandit, 1990; Myers-Scotton, 1993a). The claims of a more recent GB-based entry (Belazi et al., 1994) are also being challenged. Mahootian (1993) uses another theory based on X-bar theory, Lexicalized TreeAdjoining Grammar. Models couched in terms of such syntactic theories make correct predictions only in some cases. At the same time, these models are too powerful, allowing for maximal projections with combinations of content and system morphemes which do not occur. These would include syntactically active system morphemes from the EL, combinations prohibited under the MLF model. Further, if the unit of analysis is the maximal projection rather than the ML, switching of the grammatical frame theoretically could occur with every new maximal projection. The unwelcome result is obviously limited generalizability in predicting structure beyond each new projection. At this level of abstraction, the generalization which the ML vs EL distinction captures is not evident.

From the structural point of view, past researchers identified two main types of CS, intrasentential and intersentential, basing the distinction on whether switching took place within the boundaries of a sentence. However, most current structural theories of CS argue that the relevant unit for analysis is not the sentence but rather the CP (complement phrase) or the maximal projection. What qualifies as a

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sentence in discourse may contain one or more CPs.

Based on the CP, a definition of intrasentential CS becomes this: A CP shows intrasentential CS if it contains at least one constituent with morphemes from Language X and Language Y (a mixed constituent). This CP may also contain other constituents which are monolingual (i.e., ML or EL islands). Also, intersentential CS is now best defined as switching between monolingual CPs which are in different languages.

While the same constituent level, the CP, is the basis for analysis in both types of CS, discussing the languages involved as the ML and EL only makes sense for intrasentential CS (switching within a CP). In intersentential CS (switching between CPs), there is no structural opposition between the ML and EL in terms of what they contribute to a constituent since all morphemes and structures are from one language in any single CP.

Any CP may be completely specified or it may include null elements whose content is clear from the discourse. Thus, in [2], which illustrates switching between CPs (intersentential CS), the English CP has a null subject. This clause enjoyed the ice cream cannot be considered as a conjoined clause under Marathi control, because Marathi requires that the identical subject be retained in a conjoined clause.

[2] to ghari ālā ani ø enjoyed the ice cream he home came and “He came home and enjoyed the ice cream.”

(Marathi/English, Pandharipande, 1990: 21)

While the ML is a structural construct, with clear structural consequences, its definition is based on social and psycholinguistic as well as structural factors. Yet, the ML is not the same construct as “the unmarked choice” of an interaction type. The two operate as analytic tools at two different levels for two different purposes. The unmarked choice is a construct at the discourse level to explain choosing one linguistic variety or one structural variant over others. Choosing the unmarked choice indexes choosing the rights and obligations set which the participants perceive as expected, given the social dimensions of the interaction.

In contrast, the ML is a construct at the level of the CP to explain morphosyntactic and lexical choices. The ML is defined in the following ways. As indicated above, the ML is the language projecting the morphosyntactic frame for the entire CP which shows intrasentential CS. Two other parts of the definition have to do with morpheme frequency: (a) Generally, the ML is the language contributing more morphemes in a sample of discourse-relevant intrasentential CS (minimally two contiguous CPs, either from a single speaker or from an adjacency pair produced by two speakers); (b) It is also generally the language of more morphemes in the discourse as a whole, including monolingual stretches. That speakers perceive the ML as “the language we are speaking” is related to the greater quantitative role of the ML as well as to its role in setting the grammatical frame of the CPs of intrasentential CS.

Yet while ML designation determines structure, its underpinnings are sociopsycholinguistic factors. For this reason, it is a dynamic construct, that is, the ML can change, even within the same discourse, if various situational factors change (e.g., topic, expressions of attitude, participants). Such changes of the ML may be unusual in some communities; yet they may be frequent for some types of speakers, such as among the young Turks in the Netherlands mentioned below (Backus, 1994). Also, the ML can change over time for a community as the sociopsycholinguistic factors involved in its basis change within the community.

In those models making use of the ML as a construct, how surface level CS will be structured depends on decisions made at the conceptual level, the initial stage of language production. This is so because the ML is selected at this level. Based on such sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic considerations as community attitudes and proficiency, speakers select their discourse mode as well as the semantic/pragmatic messages they wish to convey. If these generally unconscious decisions result in intrasentential CS, selection of the ML is simultaneous and takes the same factors into account (MyersScotton and Jake, 1995).

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4 Code-switching Compared with Other Bilingual Speech

Relevant to making any comparisons is a basic premise in CS research: Speakers engaged in CS are proficient bilinguals. They are so considered if they have the ability to produce well-formed constituents in their dialects of either language involved in their discourse; that is, they can consistently project grammatical frames according to the norms of their dialects. These are not necessarily those of the standard dialects. Further, showing more ability in one language than the other is usual.

There is a continuum of well-formedness in bilingual or “mixed” speech, with CS as one of the poles. This continuum takes account of two factors: the extent to which grammatical structures produced are predictable (i.e., there are demonstrable criteria for well-formedness) and speaker motivations (i.e., is the goal monolingual speech and/or does bilingual speech have social functions?).

These factors differentiate CS from its neighbors on the continuum. First, CS is structurally coherent (i.e., constituents are assembled in predictable ways). Specifically, this means that the grammatical frame for a CS constituent can always be characterized such that the source of that frame and the distribution of morphemes within it is predictable. This is the case for the recent structural models discussed in section 3.

No matter which grammatical model is followed, the argument can be made that CS shows predictable structures. For example, example [1] supports the prediction that in mixed constituents the grammatical frame (morpheme order and system morphemes – most function words and grammatical inflections) consistently comes from the ML while context morphemes may come from either language. In specific data sets, more specific predictions can be supported (e.g., frequent structural types of EL islands, the use of “do” constructions as a device for incorporating EL verbs, etc.).

The major motivations of CS also distinguish it from other language contact phenomena. In general, motivations can be conflated as any of the following or their combination: (a) to add a dimension to the socio-pragmatic force of one's “discourse persona” either through the individual lexical choices made or through the way in which CS is patterned; (b) to function as a discourse marker (e.g., signalling a change in topic, providing emphasis), or (c) to lexicalize semantic/pragmatic feature bundles from the EL which better convey the speaker's intentions than related lexemes from the ML (that is, existing ML and EL lexemes show a pragmatic mismatch), or (d) to lexicalize semantic/pragmatic feature bundles found only in the EL (there is a lexical gap in the ML). Variations on these motivations are discussed elsewhere in this overview; the relevant point here is that speakers select a bilingual mode because it suits their intentions. That selection is often below the level of consciousness is illustrated by the following example: A Senegalese politician who very effectively uses Wolof/French CS in his public speeches in Dakar still firmly stated in an interview that he did not mix Wolof and French (Swigart, 1994: 185).

In regard to their structuring, cases of language attrition (see chapter 15) border CS on the bilingual continuum. In fact, the same discourse may include CS while showing the effects of attrition. Attrition is a phenomenon found in the speech of some bilinguals and is characterized by waning ability in one language. Speakers lose either consistency in producing grammatical frames or lexemes in this language, or both.

Bilingual speech showing attrition coincides with CS in several ways, but with the resemblances fading over time: (1) Initially, the waning language still sets the grammatical frame, even though content morphemes from the waxing language are introduced; (2) Also initially, speakers are proficient enough in both languages to produce well-formed utterances in either language so that their bilingual speech may consist of both mixed constituents and islands which show the same predictable structure as does CS.

However, there are differences, too: (1) Over time, there is a gradual turnover in ML from the waning language to the speaker's waxing language, although this turnover may not be complete (see MyersScotton, forthcoming). Thus, as attrition advances, parts of the grammatical frame may come from one language and parts from the other. (2) To produce bilingual speech during attrition may not be the speaker's goal but only the product of necessity.

First-language attrition among adults often happens among immigrants when they join a community

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where another language is sociolinguistically dominant and the speakers become bilingual in this language. Of course, under such circumstances, language shift by the second generation often occurs.

Still, an alternative to shift is CS motivated by need, as noted above. If among immigrants a first language falls into disuse, and speakers can no longer speak it well enough to use it to construct grammatical frames to convey all of their intentions, CS may become a discourse strategy out of necessity, or because expressing certain ideas becomes associated with phrases in the second language. Such CS may show many EL islands from the L2, the more sociolinguistically dominant language in the new community. For example, EL islands are reported to be frequent among German immigrants to Australia whom Clyne studied, especially locative prepositional phrases (Clyne, 1987: 757).

As already suggested, over time any CS by speakers showing attrition/acquisition typically will show a change in the language setting the grammatical frame, the ML. Two studies of language attrition in children illustrate this (Kaufman and Aronoff, 1991; Kuhberg, 1992). Example [3] shows the types of sentences produced as a Hebrew-speaking child's acquisition of English progressed. She began this process upon coming to the United States at age 2½. While Kaufman and Aronhoff (1991) focus on the idiosyncratic nature of the verb stem formation rules which the child creates for Hebrew verbs, we suggest instead that attention be paid to the systematicity of her grammatical frame, which is always from English from about age 3 onwards, that is, her speech can be called CS, but with a change in the ML.

The same conclusion applies to the Turkish girls whom Kuhberg (1992) studied; over the time of the study (12 to 15 months) after they returned to Turkey from Germany, their production of German went through several stages, from monolingual German to German/Turkish CS and finally to CS with Turkish, not German, as the ML.

Second language acquisition (SLA) also belongs on the continuum with CS. Even though learner varieties (interlanguage) show little actual bilingual speech, learners frequently structure their utterances in terms of more than one language, that is, the grammatical frames which speakers are attempting to project are a composite, including many morphological realization patterns from the speakers’first language. In fact, if the definition of CS is extended to include not just morphemes from two or more languages, but also grammatical patterns, then both SLA and pidgin/creole formation are more obviously akin to CS (Myers-Scotton, 1995b). In these cases, however, the structures of the ML do not come from any single language and both the L1 and the L2 can function as embedded languages in that both can be sources of content morphemes or EL islands.

At the outset, (informal) SLA seems to be at its most bilingual and its least predictable stage, although one can predict generally it will consist only of content morphemes (Klein and Dietrich, 1994). Example [4] does show CS in SLA data from a Spanish worker in Germany. This utterance from the early stages of German acquisition shows an EL island from Spanish (mucho trabajo) as well as target language structures.

[4]

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Except as part of EL islands, system morphemes from the L1 rarely appear in SLA structures. For example, Poulisse and Bongaerts (1994) report that Dutch students who were advanced learners of English used some Dutch content morphemes, but no Dutch inflections at all. There were, however, some Dutch determiners (system/functional morphemes). Thus there is good evidence for an argument that when learner varieties/interlanguages contain morphemes from both the source and target language, they generally show predictability in line with that of the MLF model for CS about the source of content vs system morphemes (the L1 is like the EL as far as system morphemes are concerned and does not contribute system morphemes to mixed constituents).

Another form of bilingual speech closely related to both SLA and CS is pidgin/creole formation (see chapter 14). Pidginization and/or “immediate” creolization (i.e., pidginization is circumvented) resemble learner varieties of SLA because in both processes learners are attempting to structure utterances following the grammatical frame of which they do not yet have full command. Thus it is no surprise that utterances in both initial SLA varieties and pidgins are similar: They consist mainly, if not exclusively, of content morphemes. The difference is that the details of the target language frame are much more available to SLA speakers, so that SLA soon shows progression beyond the content morpheme stage to a more fully developed target-based frame. In the formative stages of pidgin/creole development, language switching/mixing is a likely strategy for the same reasons that it occurs during language attrition: inability to express or communicate all intentions in one language. However, such switching would differ from CS, as it is described here, because speakers would find it difficult to form a consensus on an ML frame; thus, switching in fully predictable ways is not possible (although see Myers-Scotton, 1995b).

As indicated at the outset of this overview, CS is not the same phenomenon as lexical borrowing. Yet the morphosyntactic treatment of both singly occurring CS lexemes and borrowed lexemes in the recipient language is very similar, and often identical. For this reason and because the process producing core borrowings (defined below) is related to that producing CS, the comparison between CS and borrowing deserves some detail. Finally, lexical borrowing requires discussion in relation to the bilingual continuum containing CS.

CS and borrowing are clearly related in their motivations; in both, elements from one language are inserted into the grammatical frame of another language because these elements meet speakers’expressive needs. However, CS and lexical borrowing are different: (1) Monolingual speakers of Language X can and do use borrowed lexemes from Language Y, while only persons actually bilingual in both Languages X and Y engage in CS. (2) A second difference has to do with the psycholinguistic status of borrowed vs CS lexemes. When a Language Y lexeme is an established borrowing in Language X, this means it has an entry in the mental lexicon of Language X (as well as presumably retaining an entry in Language Y). This is why it is readily accessible for use in monolingual speech in either Language X or Language Y. Both this established borrowing and a second type of Embedded Language lexeme, a CS form, may appear in X/Y CS. The difference is that a CS form only has an entry in the mental lexicon of Language Y, meaning its only monolingual appearance is in Language Y. (3) A third difference has to do with the relation between the structural and sociopolitical profiles of the two languages concerned. In lexical borrowing, lexemes from a more sociopolitical dominant language are normally incorporated into a less commanding language. In contrast, the structurally more activated language in CS may well be the sociolinguistically less commanding member of the language pair, as will become clear.

We now consider the different processes which bring about the two types of borrowed lexemes and the relation of only one of them to CS as a process. While both types of borrowings are often present when there is CS, only one type is part of a continuum involving singly occurring lexemes in CS. These are core borrowings; they stand for concepts or objects already covered by the recipient language (Scotton and Okeju, 1973; Mougeon and Beniak, 1991). Since core borrowed lexemes do not fill lexical gaps, there is no motivation to adopt them overnight, but rather over time. This reasoning motivates the hypothesis that the life of a core borrowing into Language X begins as a form which occurs in CS between Language X and Y. As CS forms, these lexemes occur either as a singly occurring form in a mixed constituent or as part of what is referred to as an EL island above, a constituent entirely in the EL. When their frequency reaches an unknown threshold level, these EL lexemes move from being CS forms to becoming borrowed forms and therefore now part of the lexicon of the recipient language as well as the donor language (cf. Myers-Scotton, 1993a: 201–3).

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The type of borrowed form whose introduction need have nothing to do with CS is the cultural borrowed lexeme, which, almost necessarily enters the recipient language abruptly. Such lexemes fill lexical gaps which need immediate attention (e.g., borrowings of renditions of English television or telephone).

Once EL lexemes are borrowed forms, they may be used in monolingual speech as noted above. Thus, while they may also be used in CS, their presence is not diagnostic of CS.

There are, however, important similarities between how borrowed lexemes and singly occurring CS lexemes are treated in the grammatical frames in which they appear. This is the reason for an extended discussion of borrowings in an overview on CS. When either a borrowed or a CS lexeme from an EL appears in a constituent grammatically framed by the ML, the treatment of the EL lexemes is the same. Typically they are morphosyntactically integrated into the ML; they appear with ML system morphemes (i.e., they receive inflections from the ML and can be modified by ML function words) and

in syntactic patterns dictated by the ML.4 Example [5] shows how, in the same utterance, the speaker uses both a borrowed word (French prison) and its Wolof counterpart (kaso). What is of interest for this

discussion is that they appear in very similar morphosyntactic frames (from Wolof).

[5] … ENQUETE la, JE NE SAIS PAS, ci PRISON i Senegal … Dangay wax ne JAMAIS, JAMAIS duma def loo xamene di nanu ma japp, yobu ma ci kaso bi. “It was an enquiry, I don't know, on Senegalese prisons … You would say that never, never, will I do something that they will get me for and take me to prison.”

(Wolof/French, Swigart, 1992a: 89)

We can summarize this section on borrowing with the following generalizations. There are real reasons not to group singly occurring CS lexemes with borrowed lexemes if one is characterizing the direction of borrowing, the types of words which are borrowed, or the types of speakers who use borrowed lexemes. However, it should be just as clear that there is no reason not to group borrowed lexemes with singly occurring CS lexemes when the issue is their morphosyntactic framing in mixed constituents in CS. And this generally is the issue when structural constraints on CS are the topic. Since both types of lexemes show substantially the same patterning of morphosyntactic integration, the model which explains the patterning for CS lexemes also explains that for borrowed lexemes. Thus, when delimiting the corpus to be explained by a model for CS, there is no need to exclude singly occurring EL lexemes on the grounds that they cannot be distinguished from borrowed lexemes (for an opposing view see Sankoff, Poplack, and Vanniarajan, 1990).

5 CS and Other Contact Phenomena

Convergence is another contact phenomenon on the bilingual continuum even though under convergence all morphemes in utterances come from a single language.

While convergence is similar to attrition, it also shows contrasts. Under convergence, there is a “rearrangement” of how grammatical frames are projected in one language under the influence of another language. While structural simplification may also accompany rearrangement in convergence, such simplification is much more the hallmark of attrition. This is because the speaker's ability to project any grammatical frames at all in the language showing attrition is waning. For this reason, attrition is often necessarily accompanied by CS to a waxing language. While CS does co-occur with convergence, there is not the same structural imperative for its presence.

Most cases of convergence come from communities where there is especially high sentiment to maintain a language, or speakers are very numerous, even in the face of another language as more sociolinguistically dominant. Thus, many examples of maintained languages in spite of convergence come from German-speaking communities in the United States which have a religious basis. In these communities, the grammatical frame of German is changing to incorporate aspects of English. For example, Huffines (1991) comments on the use of du “do” as a pro-form and the increasing use of past participles in nonsentence final position. Also, Spanish in the bilingual Puerto Rican New York community shows the effects of convergence to English. While example [6] is entirely in Spanish, the

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placement of the time phrase is unmarked for English not Spanish (in Spanish, its unmarked position would be sentence initial). Also, cuatro años atras “four years ago,” a calque of the English time expression is used, instead of the Spanish equivalent, hace quatro años.

[6] Mucho cubanoh, cuatro años atras se mudaron pa'ca “Many Cubans, four years ago, moved over here.”

(Torres, 1989: 428–9)

Example [7], from the speech of a German immigrant to Australia, also illustrates restructuring of an L1. Convergence to English is apparent in word order; the German verb-second rule in main clauses is not followed (werden). In addition, it appears that the regular German conjugation pattern is being overgeneralized to the verb for “shear.” The fact that schert approximates English sheared may also be

aconsideration.

[7]Jed-es Jahr die Schaf-e werd-en ge-scher-t every/NEUTR year DET/PL sheep-PL become-3PL PPART-shear-PPART “Every year the sheep are ‘sheared’.” Note: St German: Jedes Jahr werden die Schafe geschoren

(German, Clyne, 1987: 750)

In convergence, while models for structural constraints on CS may predict correctly some ways in which such varieties are structured, they do not predict all. The reason is that convergence shows modification of one grammatical frame under the influence of another frame, but not a turnover to the second frame. Certainly, initial study of convergence indicates that not all aspects of the grammatical frame are modified at the same time, but morpheme order seems to change early on.

In those relatively rare instances when there is a turnover to a second grammatical frame, while maintaining many first language content morphemes, what has been called a “mixed language” results. Mixed languages result when there is a language shift which begins with a turnover in the ML, but a shift which does not go to completion. On this view, many language shifts which are complete should also begin in CS.

A suggested scenario is this: CS is a dominant discourse pattern in the community, but because of changes in the community's sociopolitical profile, there is a “turnover” in the ML for CS. The next step is that this CS-structured discourse is “reanalyzed” as “the community language” (i.e., a substantial part of the lexicon comes from the community's first language – the “new” Embedded Language in CS – but the grammatical frame comes from the “new” Matrix Language, the outside, more sociolinguistically dominant language which became the Matrix Language in CS). (See Myers-Scotton, 1993a: chapter 7.)

Ma'a may be such a mixed language (a Bantu grammar with a substantial Cushitic lexicon, discussed by Thomason and Kaufman (1988) and a subject of recent field work by Mous 1994). In other varieties cited, different grammatical subsystems come from different sources (Bakker, 1992, describes Michif as showing a French nominal system with Cree verbal morphology).

6 The Sociolinguistics of CS

6.1 CS patterning

While CS is a unified phenomenon from the structural point of view, different options in CS patterning are taken up in different communities, that is, “preference” is a production phenomenon subject to variation and is associated with cross-community differences in the saliency of relevant socioand psycholinguistic factors.

A way to begin this discussion of patterning options is to recognize that one language is typically more prominent in either intersentential or intrasentential CS in at least three ways.

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