Code-Switching

Unifying Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

Mareike L. Keller

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030346676
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Historische & vergleichende Sprachwissenschaften

This book systematically discusses the link between bilingual language production and its manifestation in historical documents, drawing together two branches of linguisticswhich have much in common but are traditionally dealt with separately. By combining the study of historical mixed texts with the principles of modern code-switching and bilingualism research, the author argues that the cognitive processes underpinning the human capacity to produce mixed utterances have remained unchanged throughout history, even as the languages themselves are constantly changing. This book will be of interest to scholars of historical linguistics, syntactic theory (particularly generative grammar), language variation and change.

© The Author(s) 2020

M. L. KellerCode-SwitchingNew Approaches to English Historical Linguistics https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34667-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Mareike L. Keller¹

(1)

Anglistik IV, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

Mareike L. Keller

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This chapter introduces the reader to the topic of code-switching as a diachronic phenomenon and shows that using more than one language in one single communicative event was just as common in multilingual communities of the Middle Ages as it is now. It describes the structural approach to the data taken in this book as a way of determining which features of code-switching are variable and which ones are stable across time. Lastly, it addresses the issue that modern and historical studies of code-switching could benefit from both mutual inspiration and collaborative projects.

Keywords

Code-switchingMiddle EnglishLatinMorphosyntaxLanguage change

End Abstract

One of the skills that sets humans apart from other living beings on this planet is the ability to express complex thoughts through words combined into sentences. In many of the most powerful countries of the Western world, speakers are expected to form their sentences out of words from one language at a time, especially in formal situations. Yet I am sure most of my readers have at times participated in or overheard conversations where the participants keep changing languages, between as well as within sentences (1):¹

(1) Dann ha’m wir in die Zeitung geschaut, dann war da ein Verwaltungsposten uh- da oben in (…) und-uh des Haus war oben, des waren unten like three garages, weil’s einmal a firehouse war, und oben war a grosse Wohnung, und die ham’mer dann kriegt, but we had to clean/ I had to clean the house across the street weil die Leut bloss a paar Mal im Monat am Wochenende kommen sind, I cleaned the house and Harry had to do the repairs on the house and paint, und hat ‘s Gras schneiden müssen.²

Then we checked the newspapers, then there was a job in administration uh-up there in (…), and-uh the house was above, below were like three garages, because it used to be a firehouse, and above was a big apartment, and we got that, but we had to clean/ I had to clean the house across the street because the residents came only a few times a month for the weekend. I cleaned the house and Harry had to do the repairs on the house and paint, and he had to cut the lawn.³

This effortless alternation between languages is typical of code-switching discourse where fluent bilinguals use the whole range of their linguistic resources instead of limiting themselves to only one language.⁴ Most of the time this seemingly unrestricted back and forth between languages is observed in casual oral discourse. In writing, which is normally acquired in a setting where monolingual texts are read and also expected to be produced,⁵ it is rarer, but we find it as well, for example, in informal genres like diaries and personal letters. The excerpt from a personal letter in (2) does not contain any visual cues indicating language affiliation of the individual words in the handwritten original.

(2) sure damals wurde alles fest gebaut, aber nach den Jahren & Bewohnern mei—Ich bewundere die J.—da ist sie frohen Mutes & zuversicht, wir schaffen es schon, my habe ich mir gedacht, ja in wieviel Jahren! Ich sagte noch zu G. You know what that cost on heating! Those high ceilings? Well wir wollen Solar heating rein machen lassen! (Tracy/Lattey Corpus, letters)

Sure, back then everything was built solidly, but after so many years and tenants, my—I admire J.—she is so happy and confident, we will manage, my, I thought to myself, but how long will it take! I also said to G, You know what that cost on heating! Those high ceilings? Well, we want to put in Solar heating!

Code-switching inside and between sentences is by no means a recent phenomenon. We have historical documents giving evidence of code-switching as it was written down centuries ago. A well-known example is the conversations that Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Church, had with friends and students at his dinner table in the early sixteenth century. During these conversations, many theological questions were discussed. A number of people from Luther’s circle had asked permission to take notes. These notes were later written up and shared with others. In the transcripts we find many passages that are surprisingly similar in form to what we know from modern oral and written code-switching (3).

(3) Das ist peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum. Sic kompt man ex secunda tabula in primam. Quando autem sentis, es sey vnrecht, vnd machst bos gewissen draus, hoc non est peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum; sed quando peccatur vnd macht noch ein gutt gewissen draus, hoc est peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum. (Luther 1912: 168)

This is a sin against the Holy Spirit. Thus you get from the second tablet to the first.⁶ When you feel that something you did is wrong and it causes you to have a bad conscience, then this is not a sin against the Holy Spirit. But if someone sins and still has a clear conscience, that is a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, neither oral nor written code-switching was recognized as worthy of serious linguistic investigation, as it was primarily regarded as flawed language produced by incompetent speakers or writers. This misconception appears to be quite old. Even Luther himself, a highly educated and eloquent man, was accused of not knowing Latin properly when he freely mixed it with German during a scholarly dispute.⁷ In an entirely Latin letter to his friend Georg Spalatin dated 14 January 1518 (4), Luther comments on the incident:

(4) Is est Vir ille, qui ubique iactat usque hodie me adeo fuisse convictum, ut nec latinum verbum nec vernaculum respondere potuerim. Nam quia mixtim (ut fit) vernacula lingua digladiabamur, omni fiducia pronunciavit me nescire latinum verbum. (Luther 1930: 301)

This is the same man who goes around boasting everywhere that today I was so utterly refuted that I could respond neither in Latin nor in the vernacular. Just because we fought mixed (as usual) with the vernacular, he seriously declared me ignorant of Latin.

This comment of an Early Modern active bilingual confirms that conducting a conversation in two languages was the norm in his circle. It is rare to find this kind of contemporary commentary on oral code-switching in earlier times. Many historical bilingual texts that have survived do not contain any direct information about the social context in which they were produced; often, we do not even know the identity of the author or the scribe. Consequently, the texts do not lend themselves easily to a sociolinguistic investigation, which interprets the formal aspects of the data in the light of carefully collected metadata about the speakers. However, a primarily structural analysis can still be carried out successfully with little to no metadata. This book illustrates what a solid structural analysis of historical mixed texts can reveal about code-switching in its diachronic dimension. The potential of historical texts to shed light on code-switching across time has already been pointed out by Schendl (1996: 50) but has so far received little scholarly attention. The analysis of a collection of mixed sermons in Chap. 3 brings out the systematic differences and similarities between historical bilingual writing and modern bilingual conversations. Once we have a clearer understanding of code-switching structures both in the past and in the present, we can begin to determine which features are variable and which ones are stable across time.

In recent years, interest in the multilingual history of the English language has steadily increased. As a consequence, a once marginal branch of historical linguistics has become a regular topic of conferences and publications, addressing a wide range of text types and also different types of language interaction. However, awareness of this interesting field has been limited to an exclusive circle of specialists, and the body of literature on historical code-switching consists primarily of specialized journal publications and collections of essays (Trotter 2000; Schendl and Wright 2011; Jefferson and Putter 2013; Pahta et al. 2017). Handbooks and textbooks have yet to appear. The demand for societies promoting the study of historical code-switching is only just emerging, and with it an appreciation of the potential that historical multilingual texts offer for answering general linguistic questions. In this context Schendl and Wright (2011: 28) point out the need to relate the study of historical code-switching to language change, bilingualism, language processing, theoretical grammatical frameworks, but also manuscript studies and history.

Studies of modern and historical language mixing have so far existed side by side and not noticeably benefited from each other. To date, there are an impressive number of papers on modern oral code-switching, complemented by some fairly recent textbooks and handbooks. Most surveys of code-switching do not address it as a diachronic phenomenon at all. One notable exception is a textbook by Gardner-Chloros, which briefly mentions the fact that code-switching can be found in medieval texts (Gardner-Chloros 2009: 20).⁸ Conversely, some articles on historical code-switching do discuss their data with reference to theoretical frameworks adapted from the study of modern code-switchin...