The use of different codes and the occurrence of codeswitching is not restricted
to conversations with two or more different languages involved. This paper attempts
to examine the functions of codeswitching in a monolingual variant of intercultural
communication, that is, in xenolects. 'Xenolects' are defined as speech adjustments
made by native speakers of one language (e. g. German) towards addressees
having a different mother tongue (e. g. Turkish). Four different types of utterances
each showing a particular set of characteristic and dominant features (the code
inventary) are used to demonstrate textconstituing principles of codeswitching. A
clear distinction is made between transfer phenomena and codeswitching. In a final
section the impact of different variables on the choice of code is evaluated, and
parallels to codeswitches in other types of communication are discussed
