Code-switching and Emerging Identities in an Academic Driven Social Media Class Group

Research on code-switching particularly in academic contexts scrutinize the relation between code-switching and learner identity in sites where English is the language of wider population. Moreover, the focus is largely on emerging language learner identities in classroom-based communication. The aspiration of this study is to give precedence to the identity-related aspects of code-switching as they emerge in Turkish university students’ interactions in a language class group page in social media where English functions as the language of academic study. The article reports on findings attained from a qualitative research, English-mediated communication with a post-structural orientation to identity construction where English language learners negotiate multiple identities utilizing various discursive practices and multi-modal resources in digital spaces. A close analysis of code-switching in the corpus of social media interaction highlights that there are multifold functions of code-switching and enable users to make different aspects of their multiple identities more or less salient. Keywords: social media, digital literacy, negotiation, code-switching, multiple identitie

'Yep, I'm Gay': Understanding Agential Identity

What’s important about ‘coming out’? Why do we wear business suits or Star Trek pins? Part of the answer, we think, has to do with what we call agential identity. Social metaphysics has given us tools for understanding what it is to be socially positioned as a member of a particular group and what it means to self-identify with a group. But there is little exploration of the general relationship between self-identity and social position. We take up this exploration, developing an account of agential identity—the self-identities we make available to others. Agential identities are the bridge between what we take ourselves to be and what others take us to be. Understanding agential identity not only fills an important gap in the literature, but also helps us explain politically important phenomena concerning discrimination, malicious identities, passing, and code-switching. These phenomena, we argue, cannot be understood solely in terms of self-identity or social position

Binary-constrained code-switching among non-binary French-English bilinguals

This paper presents data on non-binary French-English bilinguals’ metalinguistic analyses of their code-switching behavior in discussing their gender identities. Six non-binary French-English bilinguals were recruited for sociolinguistic interviews via Montréal-based LGBT+ organizations and asked about their experiences using non-binary French and English, especially how they describe themselves in each language. Participants’ preferences for using English to describe issues of gender identity reveals a particular type of topic-based code-switching is utilized in this community—a novel phenomenon that I have deemed Binary-Constrained Code-Switching, where participants switch out of an L1 (French) into an L2 (English) because they perceive their L1 as lacking the appropriate lexicon or grammatical features, specifically non-binary pronouns and gender agreement markers, to index their gender identities. In parallel to their dispreference for using French to describe their gender identities, participants’ preference for using English correlated with their perceptions of English as a more gender-neutral language than French, as well as a language with more linguistic resources—chiefly, vocabulary— to describe LGBT+ identities (c.f. queer). The data presented here not only supplement the primarily binary gender models found in extant studies of socially-motivated code-switching, but also provide greater evidence for the perceptual link between grammatical gender and social gender

Socializing Role of Codes and Code-switching Among Korean Children in the U.s.

This study examines the code-switching habits of Korean children in a Korean speech community in the United States in order to understand the socializing role of codes and code-switching. The primary research question is: How do participants' code choices in the midst of ongoing interaction index and facilitate the co-construction of multiple layers of social identities? This study combines ethnographic and micro-analytic methods. The major data consist of 42 hours of videotaped interactions among Korean children over the course of four academic semesters. Additional data include observations, interviews, and collected artifacts. The primary research sites were a Korean Christian church and a university-sponsored club for kindergarteners in the U.S. Informal interviews were also conducted with participants to supplement the videotaped data. Data analysis is qualitative, focusing primarily on micro-analysis of videotaped interactions which include code-switching in situated activity types. For data analysis, the selected scenes were transcribed to examine whether and how the specific sequences exhibit the socializing roles of codes and code-switching in constructing social identities. In addition, macro-analytic techniques are incorporated to understand language use within the larger community of practice. a) There are unmarked code preferences which contribute to the construction of typical participation frameworks and thus to the construction of identities within those frameworks: boys mainly prefer to use Korean to construct their identities, whereas girls mostly prefer to use English; and b) Despite the unmarked code-preferences by gender, the Korean children often code-switch to a marked code, signaling their reconstruction of identities. The code-switching practices provide evidence that code choices index multilayered identities including complex gender roles, Korean vs. American identities, and power relationships rooted in age and English proficiency. This study suggests: a) that code-switching contributes to the dynamic construction of local identities through emergent contexts, rather than revealing fixed identities associated with different codes, and b) that code-switching has a social indexing function that signals particular features of social identities and contexts.English Departmen

Transitions across work-life boundaries in a connected world: the case of social entrepreneurs

Information and communication technologies (ICTs), including mobile technologies, have significant implications for the management of work-life balance (WLB) (e.g. Perrons, 2003) and thus for sustainable work practices within organizations and society at large. Boundary theory (Clark, 2000) argues that individuals maintain boundaries between role identities (e.g. parent, worker) within different social domains (e.g. family, work), and that they regularly have to transition between these domains. WLB may reflect the effectiveness of this transitioning. ICTs have significant implications for the management of these boundaries, particularly as they open up new areas for interaction through mobility and through the potential provision of a variety of easily available connections. In this paper, we report on the findings of 15 social entrepreneurs’ video and interview data. In particular, we explore and advance understanding of the individual experience of switching between roles and domains in relation to ICT use and connectivity

Alih Kode (Code-Switching) pada Status Jejaring Sosial Facebook Mahasiswa

Code-switching, a code change in language use, is a language phenomenon in bilingual or multilingual societies.The rapid development of technology causes many language changes also occur in internet including social networking sites such as Facebook. This research is about how the code-switching from Bahasa Indonesia to English is demonstrated in Facebook status of UAI students. The research focuses on the types of code-switching, language patterns, themes, and function of code-switching. Data are code-switched Facebook status analyzed with theories of code-switching by Poplack (1980), Gumperz (1982), and Romaine (2000). This research is a descriptive qualitative research. The result demonstrates the types of code-switchings in Facebook status are inter-sentential and intra-sentential switchings. Both types of code-switchings are expressed in words, phrases, and sentences. Code-switched words are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Phrases in code-switching are noun, adjective, adverbial, and prepositional phrases. Whereas code-switched sentences found in the Facebook status are single, compound, and complex sentences. The themes in code-switched Facebook status cover the themes related with social, academic, and personal lives of the language users. The functions of code-switching in the analyzed status are to express emotion and particular meanings, to impose specific meanings, and to show language user's identities

How do “mental health professionals” who are also or have been “mental health service users” construct their identities?

“Mental health professionals” are increasingly speaking out about their own experiences of using mental health services. However, research suggests that they face identity-related dilemmas because social conventions tend to assume two distinct identities: “professionals” as relatively socially powerful and “patients” as comparatively powerless. The aim of this study was, through discourse analysis, to explore how “mental health professionals” with “mental health service user” experience “construct” their identity. Discourse analysis views identity as fluid and continually renegotiated in social contexts. Ten participants were interviewed, and the interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Participants constructed their identity variously, including as separate “professional” and “patient” identities, switching between these in relation to different contexts, suggesting “unintegrated” identities. Participants also demonstrated personally valued “integrated” identities in relation to some professional contexts. Implications for clinical practice and future research are explored. Positive identity discourses that integrate experiences as a service user and a professional included “personhood” and insider “activist,” drawing in turn on discourses of “personal recovery,” “lived experience,” and “use of self.” These integrated identities can potentially be foregrounded to contribute to realizing the social value of service user and other lived experience in mental health workers, and highlighting positive and hopeful perspectives on mental distress

The Sociolinguistics of Code-switching in Hong Kong’s Digital Landscape: A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Cantonese-English Alternation Patterns on WhatsApp

This paper examines the prevalence of Cantonese-English code-mixing in Hong Kong through an under-researched digital medium. Prior research on this code-alternation practice has often been limited to exploring either the social or linguistic constraints of code-switching in spoken or written communication. Our study takes a holistic approach to analyzing code-switching in a hybrid medium that exhibits features of both spoken and written discourse. We specifically analyze the code-switching patterns of 24 undergraduates from a Hong Kong university on WhatsApp and examine how both social and linguistic factors potentially constrain these patterns. Utilizing a self-compiled sociolinguistic corpus as well as survey data, we discovered that those who identified as male, studied English, and had an English medium-of-instruction (EMI) background tended to avoid intra-clausal code-switching between Cantonese and English. Responses to the open-ended questions revealed that many of our participants used code-switching as a means to fill conceptual gaps, engage in socialization (e.g., to strengthen solidarity or make their speech sound more casual and natural), and construct bilingual and Hongkonger identities. Our findings shed some light on at least some of the locally embedded social meaning(s) of this linguistic practice in a digital context

Being a “colono” and being “daitsch” in Rio Grande do Sul: Language choice and linguistic heterogeneity as a resource for social categorisation

This paper investigates sociolinguistic styles as indexes to social identities in the context of the ‘German’ colonial zone in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. On the basis of a detailed sequential and stylistic analysis of three interactional episodes in a sindicato office it is shown that the deployment of sociolinguistic style is relevant for the display and ascription of identity-related features of ethnic belonging (daitsch) and positioning on the rural-urban continuum (colono). In particular, the paper focuses on language choice and code-switching/mixing. Key words: identity, bilingualism, German in RS.This paper investigates sociolinguistic styles as indexes to social identities in the context of the ‘German’ colonial zone in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. On the basis of a detailed sequential and stylistic analysis of three interactional episodes in a sindicato office it is shown that the deployment of sociolinguistic style is relevant for the display and ascription of identity-related features of ethnic belonging (daitsch) and positioning on the rural-urban continuum (colono). In particular, the paper focuses on language choice and code-switching/mixing. Key words: identity, bilingualism, German in RS

Code-switching ‘in site’ for fantasizing identities: A case study of conventional uses of London Greek Cypriot

Sociolinguistic studies of minority languages and bilingualism have increasingly moved away from a singular emphasis on issues of ethnicity that poses direct links between the use of a language and an ethnic or cultural identity towards exploring the construction of identities that are not firmly located in category-bound descriptions. In this paper, we draw on these latest insights to account for processes of identity construction in a bilingual (in Greek Cypriot and English) youth organization group based in North London. Our main data consist of the audio-recorded interactional data from a socialization outing after one of the groups meeting but we also bring in insights from the groups ethnographic study and a larger study of the North London Cypriot community that involved interviews and questionnaires. In the close analysis of our main data, we note a conventional association between the London Greek Cypriot (henceforth LGC) variety that is switched to from English as the main interactional frame and a set of genres (in the sense of recurrent evolving responses to social practices) that are produced and taken up as humorous discourse: These include narrative jokes, ritual insults, hypothetical scenarios, and metalinguistic instances of mock Cypriot. We will suggest that the use of LGC demonstrates a relationship of ambivalence, a partly ours partly theirs status, with the participants carving out a different, third space for themselves that transcends macro-social categories (e.g. the Cypriots, the Greek-Cypriot community). At the same time, we will show how the discursive process of choosing language from a bi- or multi-lingual repertoire does not only create identities in the sense of socially and culturally derived positions but also identities (sic (dis)-identifications) in the sense of desiring and fantasizing personas