Codeswitching und Crossing zum Gastarbeiterdeutsch als ethnolektale Merkmale der deutschmarokkanischen Chat-Kommunikation

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is a study of code-switching and crossing into “guest worker's” German in chat communication between female bilinguals of Moroccan background, who are the descendants of so-called “Gastarbeiter” (‘guest workers’). Code-switching and crossing can both be seen as manifestations of ethnolectal speech. Linguists pay little attention to the language use of the Moroccan community in Germany, whereas the language use of migrants with Turkish background is well-researched. The results of studies concerning the language use (especially about language alternation) of bilinguals with ethnic Turkish background are compared with the results of the present study. The most important results are the following: The chat communication of the bilingual Moroccan migrants is characterized by code-switching, which is restricted to pragmatically delimitable constituents (such as in the case of religious routine formulas, which are the focus of this analysis) and by crossing into “guest worker's” German, which manifests itself when the pronunciation of specific words are imitated. Whereas bilinguals with Moroccan background apparently prefer code-switching as type of language alternation, bilinguals with Turkish background display a preference for code-mixing in addition to code-switching. This result stands in accord with the study of Dorleijn and Nortier (2008), which investigated the language alternation of Turkish and Moroccan migrant groups in the Netherlands. It is supposed that bilinguals with Moroccan background show no code-mixing, because they are, with regard to their language of origin, a heterogeneous group (Berber and Arabs) and because Moroccan Arabic has lost, in diasporic context, its function as