“Dat is best wel een big deal”: Patterns in code-switching to English by speakers of Dutch

Elements of English have been infiltrating Dutch casual speech to great extent (Edwards, 2016). Not only loans from English can be found; elements that are not fully accepted into the language, but that are merely a replacement of English elements for Dutch words, are also present in Dutch. This phenomenon (called code-switching) has been described by various researchers already, such as in Clyne (1987), and more specifically in Dutch by scholars such as Zenner and Geeraerts (2015). However, none of the existing studies have researched the grammatical structure of codeswitching to English in Dutch, or which particular speakers of Dutch are more inclined to use codeswitching. This report investigated whether there are patterns to be found in the use of codeswitching to English by speakers of Dutch; specifically grammatical, semantic and sociolinguistic patterns. The database for this research consisted of a Dutch TV programme called “First Dates” as a primary source for instances of...Show moreElements of English have been infiltrating Dutch casual speech to great extent (Edwards, 2016). Not only loans from English can be found; elements that are not fully accepted into the language, but that are merely a replacement of English elements for Dutch words, are also present in Dutch. This phenomenon (called code-switching) has been described by various researchers already, such as in Clyne (1987), and more specifically in Dutch by scholars such as Zenner and Geeraerts (2015). However, none of the existing studies have researched the grammatical structure of codeswitching to English in Dutch, or which particular speakers of Dutch are more inclined to use codeswitching. This report investigated whether there are patterns to be found in the use of codeswitching to English by speakers of Dutch; specifically grammatical, semantic and sociolinguistic patterns. The database for this research consisted of a Dutch TV programme called “First Dates” as a primary source for instances of codeswitching, for it contains casual Dutch conversations in an unscripted setting. In total, 421 instances of codeswitching to English were found in the dataset and analysed in terms of length, word category, semantic field, intentionality, creativity and pronunciation. The speakers’ sociolinguistic features, i.e. age, gender, social class and sexual preference, were also included in the analysis. Among other things, the speakers showed a tendency towards short codeswitches in various semantic categories and most of the codeswitches were intentional and uncreative in their structure. Additionally, speakers belonging to youth and gay communities were found to codeswitch very often, whereas social class or gender did not seem to affect the speakers’ codeswitching behaviour. Implications that can be interpreted from the results are the following: the elements of English seem to be integrated into Dutch speech to great extent; generally, unintentional codeswitching may be used to relate to cultural phenomena; and intentional codeswitching is possibly used in a conversational manner. Moreover, socio-pragmatic motivations for codeswitching is likely to involve constructing identity or indexing membership of a cultural subgroup. Hence, these patterns assist in providing a deeper understanding of codeswitching to English, i.e. what kind of tendencies there are on structural, semantic and socio-pragmatic levels, and, more generally, day-to-day language use of speakers of Dutch.Show less

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“Dat is best wel een big deal”: Patterns in code-switching to English by speakers of Dutch