“His Favorite Things Mahi Al-hadia” Social Functions of Code Switching in Bilingual Children’s Conversations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Muhammad Alasmari

This study explored the occurrence of code switching among six Arabic-English Saudi bilingual children living in the United States at the time of the study. A Qualitative research design, using three research instruments namely, parental questionnaire, language portraits, and recorded storytelling sessions, was conducted in order to investigate the social functions of code switching. The study adopted Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Markedness Model to examine better the social motivation behind code switching in children’s conversations. Overall, the findings revealed the participant’s dominant and preferred language to be English, and the switch to English was frequent to serve certain functions, such as to change the addressee, engage in interaction, make alignment, ask for translation, expand, invoke authority, and finish the conversation. Moreover, this study contributes to the current research on the Markedness Model among bilingual children by providing evidence for Myers-Scotton (1993) as marked and unmarked code switching was observed among the Arabic-English bilingual children. This study also agrees with previous studies (e.g., Bolonyai, 2005; Fuller, Elsman, & Self, 2007; Myers-Scotton, 2002) that argued that bilingual children are rational and social actors who choose a given code intentionally to achieve certain social goals in a given interaction.

Linguistics ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 15 (193) ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROL MYERS SCOTTON ◽  
WILLIAM URY

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 565-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Maloney

Simulation experiences captivate the imagination of today's entertainment-seeking public. Once located exclusively at a few venues, these simulations are increasingly prevalent in a variety of locales including malls and casinos. While today's public may view these entertainments as novel, these forms of simulation have rich historical antecedents that can be traced to entertainment and technological innovations of the nineteenth century. Focusing on American examples from the time period of 1820 to the present, this paper examines a wide variety of immersive entertainments that attempted to simulate an experience, environment, or event so realistically that viewers accepted the imitation as authentic and realistic. This paper examines cycloramas, panoramas, historic recreations, and a selection of mechanical rides from amusement parks and world's fair midways that provided group experiences. An examination of the social functions of these precursors strengthens our understanding of the significance of contemporary simulation entertainments in the United States.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 788-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy R. MENKE

AbstractRhotics, particularly the trill, are late acquired sounds in Spanish. Reports of Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers document age-appropriate articulations, but studies do not explore productions once exposure to English increases. This paper reports on the rhotic productions of a cross-sectional sample of 31 Spanish–English bilingual children, ages 6;8 to 13;5. Children produced taps with high rates of accuracy across age groups; the trill did not reach 80% target production until age 11;3, later than reported for monolingual speakers. Increased English exposure is explored as a contributing factor, arguing a need for continued study of bilingual phonological development beyond the preschool years.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  

The unexpected Corona crisis is affecting all ages, but mostly the elderly people of 65 years and over have been infected, hit and dead. The Coronavirus has also highly affected the rate of natality everywhere in the world. Besides that, many marriages have been postponed or suspended. In the United States where the number of Coronavirus affected people is the highest as compared with other parts of the world; 8 out of 10 deaths reported have been in adults 65 years and older [1]. Therefore, the present crisis will lead to the lack of children, optimistically when Coronavirus will be behind us. Even the children during the Corona crisis have not easy access to pediatrics and medical treatments. So, the natality situation is currently a hidden event, not being monitored by the social actors. The aging affected people are observed and talked about, whereas the newborns are not spoken about. Increasing number of developing societies are concerned with the issue. Therefore, natality issue needs more investigation by the sociologists as well as demographers. The method of research used in the present research is of qualitative type, and the whole theme is more sociologically appraised.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krystal M. Ribot ◽  
Erika Hoff

Relations between bilingual children’s patterns of conversational code-switching (responding to one language with another), the balance of their dual language input, and their expressive and receptive proficiency in two languages were examined in 115 2½-year-old simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. Children were more likely to code-switch in response to Spanish than English. Children’s expressive vocabulary scores were higher in English than in Spanish, while their English and Spanish receptive language scores were not different. Analyses of subgroups of children with different but consistent patterns of code-switching confirmed that children who code-switched to English showed greater English skills, specifically in the expressive domain. Children who did not code-switch were more balanced bilinguals in both expressive and receptive skills. Children with other code-switching patterns showed still different profiles of dual language expressive and receptive proficiency. These findings reveal that some, but not all, bilingual children show different profiles of expressive and receptive skill in their two languages and that these proficiency profiles are related to their language choices in conversation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-105
Author(s):  
Chit Fung Lam ◽  
Stephen Matthews

This paper examines the relationship between language dominance and the under-investigated topic of inter-sentential code-switching in Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual children. Longitudinal data for six children showing different dominance patterns were analysed. MLU differentials (Yip & Matthews, 2006) were adopted to measure dominance based on five criteria: methodological compatibility, typological comparability, gradient measurement, variance validity, and multifaceted compatibility. Our results showed that bilingual children produced more inter-sentential code-switching in the context of their non-dominant language and less in their dominant-language context. We account for this asymmetry in relation to mechanisms of inhibitory control (Gross & Kaushanskaya, 2015). Further, we propose that intrasentential and inter-sentential code-switching each have a different status in bilingual children’s developing grammar, underlining the methodological importance of separating the two constructs in future investigations. We also suggest that, in societies where intra-sentential code-switching is a social norm, inter-sentential code-switching could serve as signs of early bilinguals’ dominance status.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie L. Perry ◽  
Katelyn Kotlarek ◽  
Lucia Mendez ◽  
Yolanda Holt ◽  
Stephen Fafulas ◽  
...  

Objective: It is well established in the literature that English diagnostic tests should not be directly applied to speakers whose primary language is Spanish. Normative nasalance data across word and sentence-level stimuli among Spanish–English bilingual children living in the United States have not been provided. The present study aims to (1) compare differences in nasalance between typically developing Spanish–English bilingual children and English-speaking monolingual children and (2) determine whether within-speaker nasalance differences exist in Spanish–English bilingual children when presented with English and Spanish speech stimuli. Design: Thirty-four typically developing children including 17 monolingual English speakers and 17 Spanish–English bilingual speakers with normal velopharyngeal anatomy between 5 and 7 years of age participated in the study. Speakers were recorded using a nasometer producing sets of stimulus items at the word and sentence level in English (English monolinguals) and in both Spanish and English for bilingual children. Results: Results indicated no statistically significant difference between nasalance values across the different stimuli between monolingual and bilingual participants. However, within-subject effects showed statistical significance between English and Spanish word stimuli among the bilingual group. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the importance of using language-specific diagnostic materials for nasalance testing, which would be of importance in the treatment of individuals with cleft palate.


Author(s):  
Raquel Fernández Fuertes ◽  
Esther Álvarez de la Fuente

Abstract Research on the acquisition of two first languages from birth (2L1A) has focused, among other issues, on how the grammars of the two languages being acquired interact (e.g. Bhatia & Ritchie, 2012; De Houwer, 2009; Deuchar & Quay, 2000; Döpke, 2000; Köppe & Meisel, 1995). A case in point is natural interpreting which evidences how bilingual children exposed to two languages from birth deal with the grammatical properties of the two languages and how this leads them to potentially convey the same message in either (or both) of these languages. More specifically, as part of the simultaneous processing of their two L1s, 2L1 bilingual children have been reported to often translate between their two L1s (Álvarez de la Fuente & Fernández Fuertes, 2012, 2015; Cossato, 2008; Harris, 1980a, 1980b; Harris & Sherwood, 1978), a phenomenon that has been called natural interpreting (Harris, 1977, 2003). In this respect, natural interpreting can be included with other language contact phenomena, such as interlinguistic influence or code-switching, as a typical defining property of 2L1A. Therefore, in this study we aim to offer an analysis of the way in which Spanish-English bilingual children use natural interpreting in their 2L1A process by focusing on the Spanish-English bilingual corpora freely available through the CHILDES project (MacWhinney, 2000).


Author(s):  
Valentin Voskresenski

The article examines monumental memorialization of political violence in the period of communism in Bulgaria. The text reviews contemporary research presenting the topic of transitional justice, formation of victim’s identities and as part of post-communist cultural memory. A research is made of three theoretical approaches to understanding monumental memorialization – through traumatization, contestation or dangerization of memory and the social functions and meanings stemming from them. The analytical part represents a case study from Bulgaria, using ample empirical material – interviews, archive materials and other sources, part of a larger research by the author. Comparative analysis is used for description of national idiosyncrasies which is used as a basis to present their variants, temporal and spatial aspects. Social functions, political uses, interpretations, their use for reconstruction of national past and formation of national identity. A separate part of the text examines the initiators of these memorial signs – social actors, nongovernmental organizations and political parties, on which the degree of institutionalization and politization of this memory depends, as well as their use for far right radicalization. The text tracks the change of memorial landscapes and the major spatial trajectories (logics) of this post-communist topography of terror, as well as the symbolism embodied in it, combining political, traditional and religious meanings.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document