What do you call it nihongo de?
(What do you call it in Japanese?)
Only small prizes moratta ne. (We
got only small prizes, you know.)
Camp-seikatsu ga made him rough.
(The camp life made him rough.)
We've got . . . all these kids here right
now. Los que estan ya criados aqui, no los que recien venidos de
Mexico. They all understood English. (Those that have been born here, not
the ones that have just arrived from Mexico.)
Father: Como sabes todo eso? (How
do you know all that?)
Son: Porque si . . . soy astuto.
(Just because . . . I'm astute.)
Father: Que es eso? (What is that?)
Son: Astute.
Father: Si, pero que significa?
(Yes, but what does it mean?)
Son: Bright, smart . . . and sneaky.
Here you have some examples first of code-mixing,
or changing codes within a sentence-and then of code-switching, or changing
codes between sentences or across turns in a conversation. (In the first
three examples the other language is Japanese; in the remaining examples
it is Spanish.)
For this project you need to collect your
own examples like the ones above from real conversations. Then analyze
your data in the light of questions we could ask about code-switching and
code-mixing, such as Why do people change codes when they speak?
Who does this? Under what circumstances do they do this? What factors are
relevant to switching and mixing (e.g., fluency in the codes used, relationship
between the speakers, formality or informality of the situation, the topic
of conversation, age, gender)? How do the two codes fit together grammatically?
How do people feel about code-switching and mixing? You might want to record your examples.
It should not be difficult to find examples. Everyday I hear people switching
back and forth between Mandarin and Taiwanese, and between Mandarin and
English. Listen to your classmates and teachers, family and friends; eavesdrop
while you're on the bus; go places where you think code-switching might
occur. Students talking to foreign teachers who they know understand Mandarin
often go back and forth between English and Mandarin; people who work in
import-export companies frequently use a lot of English words (an example
I heard recently: "老闆會把你fire掉. " "No, no, I don't think so. 他不會.");
young, educated speakers of Taiwanese sometimes mix a good deal of Mandarin
into their Taiwanese (at least according to my casual observations-see
what you find out).