&quot;Wir haben gut connected&quot;: A comparison of German-English and Dutch-English codeswitching in communication between strangers

This thesis investigates German-English and Dutch-English codeswitching in conversations between strangers. The aim was to grasp speakers’ perceived norms towards using English in German and Dutch speech. In order to do so, this study draws comparisons between German and Dutch speakers’ codeswitching, as well as compares codeswitching towards strangers to previous findings on codeswitching amongst members of specific communities. The dataset consisted of spoken data from the German and Dutch version of the TV programme First Dates. Over 600 codeswitches from 74 German and 99 Dutch speakers were analysed. The analysis examined structural elements (e.g. word category) as well as semantic elements of the switch (translation equivalence). In addition to this, the analysis considered speakers’ sociolinguistic features (age, gender, etc.) to see how widespread codeswitching is amongst various speaker types. The findings include that speakers do not engage in “creative” switching (i.e. new...Show moreThis thesis investigates German-English and Dutch-English codeswitching in conversations between strangers. The aim was to grasp speakers’ perceived norms towards using English in German and Dutch speech. In order to do so, this study draws comparisons between German and Dutch speakers’ codeswitching, as well as compares codeswitching towards strangers to previous findings on codeswitching amongst members of specific communities. The dataset consisted of spoken data from the German and Dutch version of the TV programme First Dates. Over 600 codeswitches from 74 German and 99 Dutch speakers were analysed. The analysis examined structural elements (e.g. word category) as well as semantic elements of the switch (translation equivalence). In addition to this, the analysis considered speakers’ sociolinguistic features (age, gender, etc.) to see how widespread codeswitching is amongst various speaker types. The findings include that speakers do not engage in “creative” switching (i.e. new formations regardless of standard English grammar) while communicating with strangers, in contrast to codeswitching between community members. Overall, Dutch speakers switched more often and the word categories of switches were more diverse than German speakers. This is likely due to the higher level of English exposure in the Netherlands. Moreover, accommodation in codeswitching (i.e. speakers adjust their behaviour either to emphasise similarities or emphasise differences) was correlated with whether partners wanted a second date. This suggests that speakers managed their codeswitching to moderate social distance. The use of codeswitching was not limited to specific groups (e.g. youth speakers); rather, the majority of the speakers used English expressively and functionally. These findings imply that codeswitching is generally perceived as acceptable in German and Dutch.Show less

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"Wir haben gut connected" A comparison of German-English and Dutch-English codeswitching in communication between strangers