Linguistic Codeswitching as a Cross-linguistic Lexical Bridge in Bilingual Communication

Abstract

Most studies of linguistic codeswitching (CS) focus on what language items can be switched and how such switched items are intrasententially configurated at the surface sentence level. This study investigates linguistic CS at a rather abstract level by adopting the Bilingual Lemma Activation (BLA) Model (Wei, 2020). This model claims that lemmas (i.e., abstract entries in the mental lexicon about lexemes) are language-specific, language-specific lemmas are in contact in bilingual speech involving CS, and thus CS is cross-linguistically and lexical-conceptually driven in bilingual communication. In support of such a claim, this study provides evidence that bilinguals perform CS as a communicative strategy to make their intended meanings realized in terms of language-specific lemmas activated for the current exchange. Some typical instances of naturally occurring CS as observed in various language pairs involved in CS are described and explained at two levels of abstract lexical structure: lexical-conceptual structure and predicate-argument structure. This study offers some explanations of linguistic CS from a particular perspective and aims to explore the nature and activity of the bilingual mental lexicon during CS.