Code-switching and code-mixing

Abstract

An asymmetry between lexical and functional categories is also found in the type of language mixing that we find in bilingual usage. Many bilinguals will use two languages when speaking to other bilinguals in in-group conversations. Sometimes they will even mix their languages within the same sentence, often by introducing an element from a second language into a first language utterance. In many cases of this particular sub-type of this mixing process, that is referred to as insertional mixing, grammatical elements tend to come from the base language they are speaking, and only lexical elements can come from the inserted language. The chapter will explore the different explanations that have been given for this phenomenon, as well as carefully reviewing the evidence presented for the restriction just mentioned. Given the fact that fragments from both of the languages are really interspersed in most of the utterances discussed in this chapter, I will use the term ‘code-mixing’ here (cf. Muysken 2000), even if in the general literature often ‘code-switching’ is used. The basic phenomenon I will start out by giving a number of examples of code-mixing involving Dutch and one of the minority languages in the Netherlands. The bold elements in the glosses reflect elements from the base languages, often functional in nature; the italicised elements are the inserted words. These tend to be lexical elements; lexical elements can but need not be from the non-base language, grammatical elements need to be from the base language, as can be seen in the examples.