Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:07:00.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

English–Afrikaans intrasentential code switching: Testing a feature checking account*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

ONDENE VAN DULM
ONDENE VAN DULM*
Affiliation:
Department of General LinguisticsStellenbosch University
*
Address for correspondence: Ondene van Dulm, Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, Private bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The work presented here aims to account for the structure of intrasentential code switching between English and Afrikaans within the framework of feature checking theory, a theory associated with minimalist syntax. Six constructions in which verb position differs between English and Afrikaans were analysed in terms of differences in the strength of particular features associated with functional categories, and the ability of verbs of either language to check these features. Predictions for the well-formedness of code-switched constructions were informed by data elicited from thirty fluently bilingual participants by means of relative judgements of visually-presented code-switched sentences and auditorily-presented code-switched utterances, and a sentence construction task. Findings indicated straightforward support for the predictions for adverb, focalisation, and topicalisation constructions, but less support for embedded that and wh clauses and yes-no questions. Alternative explanations for the latter results are proposed. The work suggests that the same mechanisms and devices proposed to account for monolingual data can also account for code-switching data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 193 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This material is based upon work supported by the South African National Research Foundation under grant number NRF GUN 2069846. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Research Foundation. My thanks to three reviewers of an earlier version for their valuable comments.

References

Adendorff, R. (1993). Code-switching amongst Zulu-speaking teachers and their pupils: Its functions and implications for teacher education. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2 (1), 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adger, D. (2003). Core syntax: A minimalist approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbiers, S. (2000). The right periphery in SOV languages: English and Dutch. In Svenonius, P. (ed.), The derivation of VO and OV (Linguistik Aktuell 31), pp. 181–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belazi, H. M., Rubin, E. J. & Toribio, A. J. (1994). Code switching and X-bar theory: The functional head constraint. Linguistic Inquiry, 25 (2), 221–237.Google Scholar
Biberauer, M. T. (2002). Afrikaans V2: Is this a unitary phenomenon? Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 34, 19–69.Google Scholar
Biberauer, M. T. (2003). Verb second in Afrikaans: A minimalist investigation of word order variation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Branford, W. & Claughton, J. S. (2002). Mutual lexical borrowings among some languages of Southern Africa: Xhosa, Afrikaans and English. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Language in South Africa, pp. 199–215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1995)a. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1995)b. Bare phrase structure. In Webelhuth, G. (ed.), Government and binding theory and the Minimalist Program, pp. 383–439. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2000). Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Martin, R., Michaels, D. & Uriagereka, J. (eds.), Step by step: Essays on Minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, pp. 89–156. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clyne, M. (1987). Constraints on code switching: How universal are they? Linguistics, 25, 739–764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, V. J. & Newson, M. (1996). Chomsky's universal grammar: An introduction (2nd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cornips, L. & Poletto, C. (2005). On standardising syntactic elicitation techniques (part 1). Lingua, 115, 939–957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D. (1991). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (3rd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Den Besten, J. B. (1989). Studies in West Germanic syntax. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Di Sciullo, A. M., Muysken, P. & Singh, R. (1986). Government and code-mixing. Journal of Linguistics, 22, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlayson, R., Calteaux, K. & Myers-Scotton, C. (1998). Orderly mixing and accommodation in South African codeswitching. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 3, 395–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlayson, R. & Slabbert, S. (1995). “We just mix”: Code switching in a South African township. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 125, 65–98.Google Scholar
Finlayson, R. & Slabbert, S. (1997). “I'll meet you halfway with language” – codeswitching within a South African urban context. In Pütz, M. (ed.), Language choices: Conditions, constraints, and consequences, pp. 381–421. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez, K. (2007). The functional superstructure: Constraining intrasentential code-switching. Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Hamburg.Google Scholar
Haider, H. (1998). OV is more basic than VO. Ms., University of Salzburg.Google Scholar
Henry, A. (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoekstra, E. & Zwart, J. W. (1994). De struktuur van de CP: Functionele projecties voor topics en vraagwoorden in het Nederlands. Spektator, 23 (2), 191–212.Google Scholar
Hornstein, N., Nunes, J. & Grohmann, K. (2005). Understanding minimalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kayne, R. (1994). The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kieswetter, A. (1995). Code-switching among African high school pupils (University of the Witwatersrand Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1).Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, A. (1998). BNC database and frequency lists: Lemmatised frequency list. http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/~Adam.Kilgarriff/bnc-readme.html (retrieved 25 October 2005).Google Scholar
Koster, J. (1975). Dutch as an SOV language. Linguistic Analysis, 1 (2), 111–136.Google Scholar
Koster, J. & Zwart, C. J. W. (2000). Transitive expletive constructions and the object shift parameter. In Hoop, H. de & Wouden, A. van der (eds.), Linguistics in The Netherlands 2000, pp. 159–170. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lance, D. M. (1975). Spanish–English code switching. In Hernandéz-Chavéz, E., Cohen, A. & Beltramo, A. (eds.), El lenguaje de los Chicanos, pp. 139–153. Arlington, VA: Centre for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Language Policy and Plan of the University of Stellenbosch. (2002). http//www.sun.ac.za/university/Taal/verkortetaal_eng.doc (retrieved 16 August 2006).Google Scholar
Lipski, J. M. (1978). Code-switching and the problem of bilingual competence. In Paradis, M. (ed.), Aspects of bilingualism, pp. 250–264. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J. (1999). A minimalist approach to intrasentential code switching. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J. (2000). The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3 (1), 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacSwan, J. (2004). Code switching and grammatical theory. In Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C. (eds.), The handbook of bilingualism, pp. 283–311. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J. (2005). Code switching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on “modified minimalism”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8 (1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, J. (2005). Questions and questioning in a local English. In Zanuttini, R., Campos, H., Harburger, E., & Portmer, P. H. (eds.), Crosslinguistic research in syntax and semantics, pp. 87–126. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Ncoko, S. O. S., Osman, R. & Cockroft, K. (2000). Codeswitching among multilingual learners in primary schools in South Africa: An exploratory study. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3 (4), 225–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oosthuizen, J. (1996). Minimalisme en woordordevariasie in Afrikaanse vraagsinne. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 29, 71–98.Google Scholar
Oosthuizen, J. (1998). The final nie in Afrikaans negative sentences. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 31, 61–93.Google Scholar
Pfaff, C. (1979). Constraints on language mixing: Intrasentential code-switching and borrowing in Spanish/English. Language, 55, 291–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ponelis, F. (1993). The development of Afrikaans. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I'll start a sentence in English y termino en Español: toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 18, 581–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raidt, E. H. (1989). Ontwikkeling van vroeë Afrikaans. In Botha, T. J. R., Ponelis, F. A., Combrink, J. G. H. & Odendal, F. F. (eds.), Inleiding tot die Afrikaanse taalkunde, pp. 96–126. Pretoria: Academica.Google Scholar
Ramsay-Brijball, M. (2004). Exploring identity through code-switching: A post-structuralist approach. Alternation, 11 (2), 144–164.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In Haegeman, L. (ed.), Elements of grammar: Handbook of generative syntax, pp. 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L. (2001). On the position of “Int(errogative)” in the left periphery of the clause. In Cinque, G. & Salvi, G. (eds.), Current studies in Italian syntax: Essays offered to Lorenzo Renzi, pp. 287–296. New York: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberge, P. T. (1993). The formation of Afrikaans. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 27, 1–109.Google Scholar
Rose, S. & Van Dulm, O. (2006). Functions of code switching in multilingual classrooms. Per Linguam, 22 (2), 1–13.Google Scholar
Schütze, C. T. (1996). The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (1996). The use of acceptability judgments in second language acquisition research. In Ritchie, W. C. & Bhatia, T. K. (eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition, pp. 375–409. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Timm, L. A. (1975). Spanish–English code-switching: El porqué y how-not-to. Romance Philology, 28, 473–482.Google Scholar
Zwart, C. J. W. (1997). Morphosyntax of verb movement: A minimalist approach to the syntax of Dutch. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar