Code switching can be defined as the use of more than one language, or ‘code’, by someone engaged in speech or text. It is a practise employed by multilinguals in both oral and written...Show moreCode switching can be defined as the use of more than one language, or ‘code’, by someone engaged in speech or text. It is a practise employed by multilinguals in both oral and written conversations. Different multilinguals will have different switching patterns. These patterns can vary depending on the speaker’s language proficiency, community norms, the typology of their languages, and the cultural or political relations these languages might have with one another, among many other reasons. Code switching between Spanish and English and Spanish and French has been the subject of various studies. Although trilingual research is rare (e.g. Parafita Couto et al., 2023; Valdés Kroff et al., 2023), there has also been some research on the connection between Spanish, French and English, but most of this work is based in the French-speaking provinces of Canada (e.g. COLEM, 2023; Pato, 2019, 2022). This paper aims to study the code-switching patterns among a set of trilingual siblings living in Geneva who have Colombian heritage and attend a British school in the city. The participants recorded themselves for up to 30 minutes having casual conversations following a prompt in three separate occasions. The switches were identified alongside general information about the corpus, such as how many languages were present in each clause, the clauses’ matrix language, the general use of each language in the corpus, among others. This paper focuses on intraclausal switching. We followed Deuchar et al. (2007)’s methodology which categorises each intraclausal switch into insertion, alteration, or congruent lexicalisation according to the code switching pattern it most aligned with following Muysken’s typology of bilingual speech patterns (2000).Because English, Spanish and French are typologically similar, combined with the fact our participants are fluent in all three languages, and due to the culturally open context of Geneva, we expected alternation to be the dominant switch pattern in the recorded conversations. Having said this, since the participants go to a British school where their education is mainly in English, and because the Colombian community in Geneva is not as big as other bilingual communities around the world, a dominant insertional pattern was also a possibility. The corpus was composed of mainly unilingual clauses with 7.8% of the first recording being bilingual clauses, 19.6% of the second recording, and 8.95% of the third. Only three clauses in the entire corpus were trilingual out of 1215. Once we had analysed the entirety of the conversations, the dominant pattern was indeed overwhelmingly insertion with 77.55% of the switches in the corpus presenting this pattern. Congruent lexicalisation was present in 11.56% of the switches and alternation in the other 10.88%. Although these results do not necessarily align with our expectations of codeswitching in Switzerland, we believe our participants’ specific background, namely the fact that language separation is encouraged in the different spheres of their lives, could explain the prevalence of insertion over alternation in our case study. We hope our research will contribute to bigger corpus studies of trilingual codeswitching patterns in different communities.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2022-08-31T00:00:00Z
Research has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface...Show moreResearch has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface in bilingual performance (Bullock, 2009) has been largely neglected in CS research. It is likely that the interface between prosody and morphosyntax, and not merely morphosyntax alone, may play a role in constraining CS. However, the phonetic and phonological reflexes of CS remain relatively unexplored. This thesis aims to improve our understanding of prosodic constraints on CS by examining the speech from a Papiamento- Dutch conversation corpus (Gullberg, Indefrey & Muysken, 2004; 2009). This language pair is eminently suitable for a prosodic analysis because Papiamento has a tonal system with two level tones that interacts with lexical stress, and Dutch a different lexical system: with stress, without tone. I examined whether stress constrains CS in the nominal domain (Akinremi, 2016), and whether Papiamento tone constrains Dutch insertions (Zheng, 1997; Tuc, 2003). Furthermore, I examined whether speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances differ to add to the research on speech planning in CS (Johns & Steuck, 2021). My findings are that the stress of switched nouns does not constrain CS, but the stress of adjacent words might; Dutch insertions occur mostly in a context where the prosodic systems of Papiamento and Dutch coincide; and speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances does not significantly differ. I conclude that congruency in prosody facilitates CS and that CS does not inhibit speech planning. Taken together, my findings are compatible with the view that CS may be an opportunistic strategy that bilinguals use to aid speech planning as prosody in both languages openly contributes to production (Beatty-Martinez, Navarro-Torres & Dussias, 2020).Show less
This study examines the voice onset time (VOT) in voiced and voiceless plosives of Dutch late-language learners of English. Dutch contrasts prevoicing with short-lag VOT, while English has a short...Show moreThis study examines the voice onset time (VOT) in voiced and voiceless plosives of Dutch late-language learners of English. Dutch contrasts prevoicing with short-lag VOT, while English has a short-lag and long lag VOT contrast, making them an interesting language pair to look at for bilingual research. In order to find naturalistic VOT values, the data used for this study was found by analysing five speakers as case studies on YouTube. The data was collected in Dutch, English and code-switched sentences. Although there were individual differences, some speakers managed to produce native-like English VOT values for both the voiceless and the voiced plosives. In code-switched utterances, the VOT values for the voiceless plosives were slightly higher than the Dutch values, while the voiced plosives were still produced with prevoicing. Some speakers were thus able to maintain separate categories in both languages, although there was more L1 interference in code-switched contexts. The data also showed that the velar and alveolar plosives followed by a sonorant consonant in English and code-switched contexts contained higher VOT means than those followed by a vowel, suggesting that these are easier to acquire for an L2 learner.Show less
Intrasentential code-switching requires cognitive control in production (Verreyt et al., 2016) as well as comprehension (Adler et al., under review). The first language needs to be inhibited as...Show moreIntrasentential code-switching requires cognitive control in production (Verreyt et al., 2016) as well as comprehension (Adler et al., under review). The first language needs to be inhibited as soon as the second languages is encountered. The neurological system that is associated with cognitive control may stay active for a while after being triggered. Cognitive control is used for any (cognitive) task that requires inhibition, selected attention or decision making. An example of such a task is the Flanker task, in which a participant has to determine the direction of an arrow surrounded by four (congruent or incongruent) distractors. In general, when the arrows all point in the same direction (congruent condition) participants have a shorter reaction time than when the surrounding arrows point in the opposite direction of the target arrow (incongruent condition). The effect of code-switches on Flanker trials has been studied behaviourally. These studies show that processing a code-switch has a positive effect on the reaction time on the incongruent Flanker trials. In this study, we support previous behavioural findings with an electrophysiological investigation of the effect of code-switch detection on cognitive control. We recorded the EEG of 34 participants while they alternated between reading sentences (with and without code-switches) and Flanker trials. In the analysis of the EEG, we were specifically interested in the P300 component, which is associated with shifts in attention. The P300 amplitude is higher when more cognitive control is required (Neuhaus et al., 2010). Since incongruent Flanker trials require more cognitive control than congruent trials, the classic Flanker effect is that the incongruent trials produce a larger P300. However, after being activated by a code-switch, if the cognitive control mechanism indeed stays active for a while, the P300 amplitude of an incongruent Flanker after a code-switch would be lower than one after a sentence without a code-switch. The mean ERP amplitudes were analysed with a 4-way repeated measures ANOVA. Significant interactions were found between sentence type and congruency. There was a significantly larger P300 in the congruent condition than in the incongruent condition, but only when the preceding sentence did not have a code-switch. The P300 was significantly larger after sentences with a code-switch than after sentences without a code-switch, but only in the incongruent condition. There was no effect of sentence type in the congruent condition. These results provide electrophysiological support for previous findings by Adler et al., (under review).Show less
Despite the fact that English became the second official language of Puerto Rico in 1902 (Muñiz Argüelles, 1989), the English language is still not widely spoken in Puerto Rico. In fact, according...Show moreDespite the fact that English became the second official language of Puerto Rico in 1902 (Muñiz Argüelles, 1989), the English language is still not widely spoken in Puerto Rico. In fact, according to the most recent data, 78.1% of the population claims to speak English less than very well (U.S. Census, 2016). Prior research has demonstrated that there is a connection between education, wealth and English in Puerto Rico. English has the reputation of being the language of the Puerto Rican elite (i.a. Pérez Casas, 2016; Torruellas, 1990). This is due to the high costs of private primary and secondary education and not easily accessible English language resources such as a network of English speaking friends, high speed internet and cable television (i.a. Pousada, 2000; Urciuoli, 2013). This current study builds on Bischoff (2017), who argues that the English language requirements at public universities are a barrier to economically disadvantaged students. As a result, one’s economical and educational background can serve as either a privilege or a misfortune in one’s professional aspirations as well (i.a. Barreto, 2000; Schweers and Hudders, 2000). The aim of this study was to gain insight into public university students’ perceptions of the connection between education, wealth and English in Puerto Rico. Data to address this was collected through the distribution of an online questionnaire and carrying out in-depth interviews with students from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez (UPRM) and the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras (UPRRP). In total, 119 questionnaire responses followed by in-depth interviews with 12 UPRM students were used for analysis. The results showed that, contrary to prior research (i.a. Bischoff, 2017; Pérez Casas, 2016; Pousada, 2000), public university students deny or do not recognize a connection between wealth, education and English in Puerto Rico. Instead, they view English language acquisition as a matter of putting in effort in learning and practicing instead of wealth. Furthermore, English language skills are perceived as necessary tools for professional successes and feeling like a global citizen. Puerto Ricans who lack English skills are perceived as unmotivated, missing out on life and not wanting to feel connected to the US Mainland. Nonetheless, it appeared that the majority of public university students have attended private primary and/or secondary schools, have access to English resources and grow up in a social environment filled with English speakers. In other words, public universities serve increasingly wealthy Puerto Ricans who seem unaware of their privileges, whereas economically disadvantaged Puerto Ricans are blamed for their lack of English skills and presumably experience a misfortune while aiming to reach their academic and professional goals. Studying the perceptions of private university students in Puerto Rico in further research would create the opportunity to compare the perceptions of the current studied Puerto Rican elite students versus those of the presumably economically disadvantaged private university students.Show less
The current thesis aims to investigate the set of factors operative in gender assignment process in Greek-Turkish nominal constructions, that is in code-switching where Greek determiners (gendered)...Show moreThe current thesis aims to investigate the set of factors operative in gender assignment process in Greek-Turkish nominal constructions, that is in code-switching where Greek determiners (gendered) and Turkish nouns (non-gendered) are combined together. MacSwan (2005) using the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995) suggests that in determiner-noun code-switches determiners can only stem from the gendered language, since it encodes the largest amount of uninterpretable features compared to the non-gendered language it interacts with, while nouns as non-function words might as well originate in the non-gendered language. Likewise, Matrix Language Frame was proposed by Myers-Scotton (1993b) in an attempt to set up a theoretical framework within which insertional CS production occurs and is framed by constraints. The latter theory posits that in bilingual speech only on language is dominant, the Matrix Language, while other-language constituents stem from the Embedded Language(s). Bilingual NP Hypothesis complementing MLF model suggests that system morphemes can only stem from the Matrix Language. As opposed to system morphemes, content morphemes may be lexical items from the Embedded Language. In either way, Matrix language accounts for the morpho-syntactic frame in bilingual speech. This results in DPs where Matrix Language, that is Greek, is responsible for determiner. Drawing on the abovementioned frameworks, a 20-person sample of Greek Turkish bilinguals were called to participate in the Director-Matcher task. Through this controlled elicitation and artificial technique Greek-Turkish bilinguals were instructed in such a way that they were prompted to use Turkish nouns within Greek phrases and sentences. Except for the Director-Matcher task, the same subjects were asked to reply to an online linguistic questionnaire where they had to answer crucial for this research questions as well as to evaluate their language skills. The results from the Director-Matcher task indicate that Greek-Turkish bilinguals in Western Thrace use neuter as default, while phonological and analogical factors play no role in gender assignment to Turkish nouns. Significantly enough, the persistent use of neuter in the data points to that, despite the perpetual affiliation of Greek and Turkish among the bilinguals in Western Thrace, they treat Turkish nouns as foreign. This study shows that this is true even for the bilingual system of individuals who are members of a community that has been bilingual for a century. Furthermore, the prevalence of neuter as default gender in Greek-Turkish nominal constructions proves the claim that the criterion determining the factors based on which grammatical gender is assigned to the nouns depends on the language pair under study. Another essential issue which drew my attention while transcribing the data I recorded is the absence of articles (definite or indefinite) in several data points (n=124). It is necessary to highlight that these occurrences do not adhere to the rules of Greek syntax and as, a result, violate the grammaticality of the Greek language system. Last but not least, this study confirms that neuter is the default gender in Greek.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2016-08-31T00:00:00Z
Intra-sentential code-switching in Dutch-Papiamento bilingualism may create a conflict within the determiner phrase, because in Dutch the adjective precedes the noun (1), whereas in Papiamento the...Show moreIntra-sentential code-switching in Dutch-Papiamento bilingualism may create a conflict within the determiner phrase, because in Dutch the adjective precedes the noun (1), whereas in Papiamento the adjective follows the noun (2). 1.Het rode huis [Dutch]. 2.E kas kòrá [Papiamento]. “The red house”. The Matrix Language Framework (MLF – Myers-Scotton, 1993) suggests that the matrix language will provide the grammatical frame and that the embedded language will supply some content elements. The matrix language will thus determine the word order in a code-switched determiner phrase. In the case of Dutch-Papiamento intra-sentential code-switching, the MLF will predict an [adjective-noun] order when the matrix language is Dutch, and the MLF will predict a [noun-adjective] order when the matrix language is Papiamento. However, the MLF does not make a prediction about the origin of the adjective or the noun. Thus, when the matrix language is Dutch, both combinations of [Dutch adjective-Papiamento noun] and [Papiamento adjective-Dutch noun] would be possible according to the MLF. The same principle applies for Papiamento as the matrix language, both language combinations [Papiamento noun-Dutch adjective] and [Dutch noun-Papiamento adjective] would be possible according to the MLF. The aim of the present study is to test the predictions of the MLF in Dutch-Papiamento code-switching production. The four code-switching patterns mentioned above were used as conditions that match the predictions of the MLF (“MLF+ conditions”). Another four conditions were created by reversing the order of the adjective and the noun in both matrix language paradigms, to create a violation of the predictions of the MLF (“MLF- conditions”). A total of eight conditions were used in this study. The MLF predictions were tested by using an advanced psycholinguistic method, namely electro-encephalography (EEG). The integration of a psycholinguistic method in a code-switching experiment is an innovative way of testing the predictions of a theoretical model. In this study, an EEG signal was recorded while Dutch-Papiamento bilingual speakers conducted a modified picture naming task. The conditions were analysed by looking at naming latencies and by looking at the part of the EEG signal following target presentation. Based on results of previous picture naming tasks (Christoffels, Firk & Schiller, 2007; Rodriguez-Fornells, Van Der Lugt, Rotte, Britti, Heinze & Münte, 2005; Misra, Guo, Bobb & Kroll, 2012), I expected slower naming latencies and a more negative waveform for the conditions that violate the predictions of the MLF. The expected slower naming latencies were observed in two MLF- conditions: Papiamento adjective followed by a Dutch noun (Papiamento matrix language) and Papiamento noun followed by a Dutch adjective (Dutch matrix language). The expected negative waveform was observed in only one MLF- condition: Papiamento adjective followed by a Dutch noun (Papiamento matrix language). Furthermore, a P300 (with an early peak in the frontal/central area and a later peak in the occipital area) and a late positive component seem to be elicited in code-switching production. The amplitude of the P300 peak was higher in the conditions that contain a violation of the MLF, which could be explained by the higher complexity of the MLF- conditions. The occurrence of the P300 could be explained in terms of the context-updating theory (Donchin, 1981; Donchin & Coles, 1988) or the neural inhibition theory (Polich, 2007). On the whole, the results do not provide conclusive support for the predictions of the MLF.Show less
