Blackwell Reference Online

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Code switching is the alternate use of two (or more) languages within the same utterance, as illustrated in (1) ( Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio, 1994 ). (1a) This morning mi hermano y yo fuimos a comprar some milk This morning my brother and I went to buy some milk (1b) The student brought the homework para la profesora The student brought the homework for the teacher Code switching of the sort shown in (1), in which an alternation occurs below sentential boundaries, is known as intrasentential code switching , whereas switching between sentences is known as intersentential code switching . Because grammatical theory is primarily focused on relations below the sentence level, research on grammatical aspects of code switching has focused almost exclusively on intrasentential code switching. The chapter begins with a discussion of early research on code switching, and the emergence of code switching as a field of linguistic research. We then review a number of theoretical approaches to code switching, focusing on a discussion of the implications of current research in syntactic theory for the analysis of code switching data. We end with some comments regarding directions for future research in code switching. First, however, a brief word on appropriate data in code switching research is in order. A recurring controversy in the code switching literature regards whether naturalistic ... log in or subscribe to read full text