Miguel Mantero is Assistant Professor of Foreign Language and English as a Second Language Education. His research interests include cognition and SLA, as well as classroom discourse processes. Estelle Herpe is a graduate student in Modern Languages and Linguistics and has been a teacher in many international settings.
The use of more than one language in K-12 classrooms in most parts of the United States is, at best, minimal, and in reality, observed as an anomaly which must be remedied by the current approaches and policies of second language education (Crawford 1997, 1999, 2000). This paper came to light as we attempted to discuss the problem surrounding language education in American schools. That is, the questions which brought about some heated discussion were: “For the most part, why does the educational system in the United States strive to eradicate biliteracy, bilingualism, and biculturalism in English as a Second Language programs for newcomers? For the most part, these students do not receive educational support in their first languages, but then the schools in the US make the studying of foreign language mandatory in high school, and even in some middle schools? Why not help English language learners develop their first language skills and literacy as well as English? Is multilingualism in American schools only possible after students we have achieved monolingualism?” Needless to say, these questions are too broad to be responded to here. But, we did mention that one element which leads to American schools approaching education through a monolingual lens (Collier, 1995; Cummins,2001a, 2001b) is that some educators and administrators may not know, or believe, that some communities and families use one, two, or more languages to communicate with and educate their children. Therefore we decided to complete the present study. Although it is not situated in a classroom, we believe it is important to investigate the language use which our multilingual students engage in outside of the classroom, in the hopes of demonstrating that codeswitching and multilingualism is a natural occurrence which can support academic achievement, cognitive development, and multilingualism (August & Hakuta, 1997; Banks, 1993; Krashen, 1996, 2000).
Schools represent speech communities (Nieto, 1992, 1999). However, outside of schools are discourse communities where students see themselves as insiders or outsiders in relation to the educational processes. In other words, if a multilingual student does not believe that his experience and multilingualism will help him or her interact in the speech community, then they will most likely strive for monolingualism (Cummins, 1996).
If you believe, as we do, that everything we know is organized and related in some meaningful way or another, and everything we perceive is affected by our perceptual history, and that language reflects this embodiment and this experience (Bialystock, 2001) then multilingual individuals have a wealth of experience and linguistic tools which can be very useful in the classroom setting (Bennett, 1999). But, these students must be given opportunities to use and expand their linguistic knowledge and develop multiliteracies (Cummins, 1999).
The following is based on the spontaneous conversation between Tom, seven years old at this point, and his mother. The parents and their two sons are trilingual (German, French, and English). Keeping in mind the aforementioned rationale for investigating codeswitching outside of educational settings, the driving question is: Does the Tom code-switch? If so, does he exhibit any linguistic constraints given that he is a multilingual child? Also, we were interested to see what part of a Tom’s language was the most sensitive to code-switching. Tom has been raised in a bilingual French - German environment. His mother’s first language is French and his father’s is German. Tom and his family had been living in the Southeastern United States for three years at the time of the study that took place while he was in first grade in an American school. Also, during the school year, Tom began to attend a German school one afternoon a week for three hours.
The family is based on the principle of one person one language. The mother, who is a French native speaker, speaks only French at home. The father, who is a German native speaker, speaks mostly German at home, sometimes French, but he is more inclined to speak English with the children in presence of Americans. Though no rules have been established regarding the language use, the children (Tom has a younger brother) mostly answer in the same language that is initially spoken to them. Tom’s speaking proficiency is more or less the same in the three languages. When the children play together they speak mostly French but, when they play alone they are more likely to speak English with their peers and, at times, to themselves.
The data was collected in the natural environment, at home or in the car when spontaneous conversations naturally occur. We collected a total of 18 hours of data over a 10 week period. From this point of view the data can be considered as representative of natural speech and communication in a family setting.
According to Wardhaugh (1986) a code is a particular dialect or chosen language used on any given occasion. Thus, in this study, it refers to French, German or English. Wardhaugh also defines code-switching as the use at least of two languages or two dialects together in the course of a single discourse. Also, it is the mixing of pieces of one language into a sentence that might be dominated by the structure or rules of another language. Hudson (1980) also defined code-switching as the use of different languages varieties at different times by the same speaker, while Grinjas (1974) wrote that it is the alternation of grammatical rules drawn from two different languages which occurs between sentences boundaries.
In this paper we will use code-switching to refer to the alternate use of codes within an utterance and dialogue. This code-switching can be intrasentential when it occurs within a single sentence or intersentential when it occurs outside if a sentence boundary. It can come from the switching of different components such as words (unbound morphemes), affixes (bound morphemes), phrases and sentences.
According to Eastman (1992), the term matrix language refers to the language in which the majority of morphemes in a given conversation occur. In this study the matrix language is French for three principal reasons. First, in the data, the number of French words spoken by the child is largely superior to the number of English or German words. Secondly, the other interlocutor speaks only French during the recording. And, most interesting, the organization of the grammatical rules in Tom’s language reflects the patterns of syntax in French. The following example illustrates this point, interestingly, refers to Tom’s experience during a Spanish lesson.
Matrix Language Exchange
M : Mother, C : Child
Italics = Translation
Bold = codeswitching, French – English
Underline = codeswitching, French - German
You seem to be sad
I had to sit on the bench all the time
Why ?
I wasn’t nice to the teacher
What did you do ?
I spoke too much.
And then, what did happend ?
I said : I don’t care.
Of what ?
mis deux.
To get a check mark, a check mark it's a warning, and then she gave me two
Did you get the fit one because you spoke in Spanish ?
No, in German, but Lucas got just one and so he could play it was not fair!
Although this dialogue took place after German school, the topic (interaction during a Spanish lesson) was related to the previous day at the American school. Most words are French, and all the sentences are grammatically correct and respectful of French grammar. Only four words are English, three of them are nouns bench, teacher and checkmark. All of them use the determinant that would be needed in French: bench is a masculine noun, teacher can be both masculine and feminine, but here it would be feminine because it referred to a teacher who is a woman. Checkmark would also be feminine. The last English word warning is used as an adjective. This follows its use in French as well.
The switching generally occurs between the three languages English, French and German as in the above example with different types of words (nouns, adjectives) or sometimes sentences from both English and German languages. These are used in mostly French discourse. This example is representative of the collected data and supports the notion that the matrix language is French
This study also investigated three linguistic constraints that many researchers believe to be universal. Berk-Seligson (1986) identified these constraints as:
The data was also analyzed to see if Tom’s code-switching fits within these constraints, and if not, what rules and syntactical patterns emerge from the data analysis. Each constraint will be thoroughly explained in later sections of this paper.
The equivalence of structure constraint
Poplack (1980) defined the equivalence of structure constraint as: Code-switching will tend to occur at points in the discourse where juxtaposition of the first language and second language elements does not violate a syntactic rule of either languages, i.e. at points around which the surface structures of the two languages map into each other.
Tom’s sentences are, for the most part, grammatically correct. The “incorrect sentences” are due to the fact that this is the spontaneous discourse of a seven year old child. During his stay in France Tom has never been seen as an alien by his peers or by adults who don’t know his background.
In the following section, the surface structure of the sentences spoken by will be analyzed in order to see if the equivalence of structure constraint is respected.
Tom’s Code-switching, French – English
C’| est | son style (Tom’s utterance)
It’| s | her style
S | V | O
--------------------------------------------------------------
Il y | a | un peu de smoke | qui |sort (Tom’s utterance)
There| is| some smoke |that |is coming out
S | V | O S | V
These examples extracted from the data show that the surface structure between the both French and English languages is similar when code-switching occurs.
Tom’s Code-switching, French – German
Underline word = codeswitching. Translation of utterance in parentheses.
On lui montre ce qui | est | richtig (Tom’s utterance)
was | ist | richtig (what is right)
S | V | O
C’| est | schade! (Tom’s utterance)
Das| ist | schade! (It’s a pity)
S | V | O
The two first examples of code-switching occur between sentences sharing the same structure surface in French as well as in German. However the following examples point out that code-switching can also take place when the surface structure of the both languages is not similar even when the dissimilarity affects the switched word.
In Tom’s case, the first constraint, the equivalence of structure constraint, is not fully applicable to all the three languages. German and French don’t share always the same surface structure, however switching is possible without altering the surface structure of the matrix language. Switching will tend to occur with worlds belonging to categories which are used in structurally similar ways in both languages. However, this does not take place during French - German code-switching.
The second constraint, the size of constituent constraint, is defined by researchers such as Gumperz and Chavez (1975), Polack ( 1980) and Berk-Seligson ( 1986) as: the higher level constituents (clauses and sentences) tend to be switched more frequently than lower-level constituents (i.e. one-word categories such as Nouns, Verbs, Adverbs, and Adjectives).
About one-third of Tom’s switching occurs at a sentence or clause level. In addition, the code-switching rate is higher in English than in German. The switching occurred at the clause level and reveals a pattern as demonstrated by the following examples:
French - English code-switching examples
Bold = codeswitched word or phrase. Translation in parentheses.
1. En Amérique on a pas le droit de copier all a sentence of a book.
(In America it’s not allowed to copy)
2. On est entrain de study about the animals.
(We are studying)
French - German code-switching examples
Underlined = codeswitched word or phrase. Translation in parentheses.
1. Il lui parlait toujours , willst du das . . . oder das . . .
(He was always speaking, do you want this or that).
2. Il a pu jouer das ist nicht fair!
(He could play, it was not fair!)
In the two first sentences of French –English code-switching and those coming from the French- German code-switching the Tom is reporting sentences that occurred previously in another language. He integrates these English or German sentences in his French speech. As shown, one reason of the clauses and sentences switching might be the report of clauses or sentences in the language in which they originally occurred.
Also, when the code-switching occurred Tom was very often emotionally involved in what he was speaking about. At this point, it is important to notice that this child is aware that his interlocutor is able to understand the three languages. During the study, the child was regularly in contact with a monolingual German speaker. At the beginning it was difficult for him to speak German without switching, he was always asking for help to translate some words. But, after a couple of days he was able to speak with her without code-switching. That shows that, for him, he is able to become aware of his code-switching, and, at times, avoid it.
In the above examples of French –English code-switching. The switching occurs with elements which are bigger than single words but are not whole clauses or sentences.
It’s important to realize that code-switching can occur at different levels with low as well as with high level constituents. However, the relevance of this indicator in order to judge the speaker’s level of proficiency isn’t always true. The study of sentences with high or low level switched constituents points to patterns that could explain why and when code- switching can occur such as in case of reported speech.
The free morpheme constraint
The third linguistic constraint, the free morpheme constraint, is defined according to Poplack (1980) as: Codes may be switched after any constituent in discourse provided that constituent is not a bound morpheme. What are free and bound morphemes? A free morpheme is a morpheme or a word which can occur in isolation, that is, which can be uttered alone in normal discourse, whereas a bound morpheme is simply a dependent morpheme which never occurs in isolation, that is, which can’t be uttered alone, such as prefixes, infixes. In general, the free morpheme constraint tell us that a free morpheme, not a bound morpheme, that can be mixed from one language to another.
After carefully analyzing the data, it was determined that the third constraint, the free morpheme constraint, is respected as shown in the following examples:
Morpheme examples
French word: manger ( to eat)
French stem: mang
German suffix: ieren
Tom’s French-German code-switching: mang ieren
German word: spazieren
German stem: spaz
French suffix: er
Tom’s German –French code-switching: spaz er
All of the switch items in the data are free morphemes. The most commonly switched words were nouns and those less affected were adverbs. The words used to express an activity (verb) or to definite it (adverb) are less likely to switch than the one which defines who is involved in the action.
Also, about two-thirds of the nouns switched expressed concrete things such as bus, book, house, fish and only one-third expressed more abstract notion such as heroes and news. This was true in English-French code-switching as well as German-French code- switching. Also, one-third of the switched words are cognates in either English-French code-switching as well as English-German code-switching. Cognate German - French code-switching never took place. This may be because most the French - German cognates are verbs, and in this data the switching of verbs has a low level (ten percent) of natural occurrence in a multilingual child’s speech.
Also, Tom is able to use a word coming from both languages (English and German) while interacting mainly French. In the data, it never happened that an English- French cognate or a German – French cognate was used in its “French” form. However, all the words such as bus, hero, and page are pronounced in English when Tom code-switches in English - French. Likewise most of the English – German cognates are pronounced in English as well when Tom is speaking German. At the time of the recording this child has been living in America for two years so that he hears and speaks most of the time in English. This may be why Tom prefers the English variant of cognates.
Interestingly, further study of the adjectives switched during Tom’s speech are related to feelings such as happy, glad, fun, free, richtig, pech. So an additional factor (that we call the emotional parameter) has to be taken into consideration. This factor is not relevant only with adjectives but as well as with nouns.
Tom always used the German word Freund that means friend, whatever language he speaks. He perceives himself as a German person, he is very proud of it, this belonging is very fundamental and valuable for him though he is proud to be considered as an American from people who don’t know his background. For these psychological reasons when he speaks about his friends they could be American, French or German he always uses the German word. In the same way he uses the English expression at home when he speaks French but refers to his American house and he uses the German expression zu Hause referring to his German home. These examples emphasize the relation linking this child to his different languages. The language he chooses to switch in is influenced by his emotional status regarding the topic he is speaking about. In this case the code-switching reflects his personality and feeling. Thus code-switching has an emotional component that has to be taken into consideration too.
Although this study focused on the linguistic constraints exhibited in Tom, it is essential to note that even though Tom (and his family members) switch between three languages that he creates one voice. That is to say, Tom is not an emotionally disjointed individual that doesn’t know which language to use. In fact, as our data analysis indicates, Tom actively and consciously chooses one language over the other two to produce meaning and engage in dialogue with other children and adults. Individuals that code-switch should never be seen as cognitively deficient or linguistically scattered in school, at home, or out in the community. As our communities welcome more multilingual families’ children such as Tom will continue to use more than one language to create their voices.
In school, Tom is doing very well. In fact, he is in the top 10% of his class. More importantly, Tom has been able to apply literacy-based skills from English, German, and French that have helped him become successful in the American classroom. Tom is always welcoming of new English language learners. And, even though he may not speak their language (Spanish, for example), Tom is a wonderful communicator and implements strategies which help the new students understand tasks and the general classroom environment. We suggested to Tom’s parents that they present this investigation to the school’s teachers and administration with the hope of setting the groundwork for understanding the linguistic activity of multilingual students in educational settings.
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