bilingualism

These are the questions that prompted our research. An unprecedented level of media availability allows insight into how some speakers are utilizing code-switching (changing between different languages when speaking) in their daily lives today, almost in real-time. Some anecdotes that can give insight into how some Ukrainians are experiencing this change can be read in interviews in this article: Enemy tongue: eastern Ukrainians reject their Russian birth language | Ukraine | The Guardian. Another example is the subjects of our study, Ukrainian vloggers, who have made a noticeable shift from primarily speaking in Russian to primarily speaking in Ukrainian. Initially, before conducting this study, we anticipated that the subjects at first would most frequently code-switch from Russian to Ukrainian when they are telling jokes or just by inserting common words into their conversation.

The subjects of our study are three YouTube bloggers from a channel called “Lions on a Jeep” who spoke almost exclusively in Russian until after the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine started. They’re men in their late 20s – early 30s and were familiar with Ukrainian before, although they didn’t seem to actively use it on a daily basis. Starting March 3, 2022, they began to record live streams in their effort to collect donations for the Ukrainian military. Their first 2 streams were almost completely in Russian, but during the 3rd stream they started switching to Ukrainian at different rates. As of right now, they are still recording their streams and have transitioned to speaking Ukrainian for the most part. We collected over 70 speech samples from several live streams of theirs. The frequency, amount of videos in a short period of time, and the unedited and casual format of the conversation helped to consistently and closely analyze the transition.

Before gathering data, we divided the transition into 3 predicted stages: At the first stage they speak mostly Russian with some high frequency insertion of words/phrases from Ukrainian. At the second stage, they use more Ukrainian and there is continued high frequency insertion Ukrainian in addition to full switching between Russian and Ukrainian. Finally, at the third stage, they use mostly Ukrainian, occasionally borrowing words/phrases from Russian. We looked at the those stages individually for each speaker and then noted the code-switches that they had. We categorized each switch as a word, phrase, sentence, or clause, and counted the number of each type as they occurred. We then noted the context of each switch for further analysis so that we could more easily discover any code-switching patterns present later on.

When observing code switching, we used the categories of phrases, sentences, words, and clauses to organize cases. Phrases refer to switches from one language to the other halfway through a sentence, sentences refer to complete thoughts in one language, words to certain isolated switches, and clauses to small sentences embedded within larger ones. The main categories of contexts for code-switches in our data that we found were common Ukrainian word insertion, when showing national pride, humor, a slip, incorrectly using a Russian word believing it’s Ukrainian, and switching when not knowing the translation.

It’s clear to see these different kinds of contexts when looking at short examples such as in Figure 2. Here we can see that the speaker is inserting a Russian word into a Ukrainian sentence. Russian “уже” is a high-frequency word that closely resembles Ukrainian “вже”, so this is most likely a slip.

In the second example in Figure 3, we can see how wordplay is utilized. The word “сварка” means argument in Ukrainian and in Russian it means welding. One of the subjects said in Ukrainian that he had an argument (“сварка”) with his mom, and the speaker joked that they were making a metal structure with his mom, and thus there was “сварка”, meaning welding. Here we can see how the speaker used a word that exists in both languages but used it with Russian meaning for a comic effect.

In Figure 4, the speaker was clearly struggling to recall the right word, so he inserted the phrase in Russian into a Ukrainian sentence.

A clear example of the speakers assuming what they are saying is a correct word in Ukrainian can be seen in Figure 5.

The name of one of the speakers (Євген) is used in the nominative case, as it would be in Russian, whereas in Ukrainian, the vocative case (Євгене) should be used. “Bсе” is pronounced with a Ukrainian accent and is a hybrid of the Russian “всё” and the Ukrainian “усе”. The Russian word “понятно” is pronounced with a Ukrainian accent, and the speaker most likely assumes it to be a valid Ukrainian word. This seems to be a common pattern because we’ve seen several instances of it.

The speaker first uses masculine gender in Figure 6, because the Russian word for language “язык” is masculine, but then corrects himself and uses feminine gender, which is correct for the Ukrainian word “мова.” Also, you can see that he is inserting a clause in Ukrainian to prove that he has some proficiency in the language and show his Ukrainian identity.

Lastly, in Figure 7, the speaker is saying a common Ukrainian phrase that has been used extensively and is embedded by 2 sentences in Russian.

In cases of Ukrainian word insertion, speakers would add in phrases or words that are used regularly, such as greetings or slogans. Because of its fairly clear division amongst the stages in Table 1, we believe that the speakers first used phrases they were familiar and confident with as they began to transition as a way to clearly and immediately signal their solidarity and intent to distance themselves from Russian.

The speakers also used Ukrainian phrases and words to express national identity and pride. Similarly, to the case of common words and phrases, this behavior, as seen in Table 2, was utilized more in stage one than stages two and three to quickly and easily express their Ukrainian identity.

The use of this context eventually decreased, just like common words and phrases did, as the speakers grew more confident in Ukrainian and did not need to quickly express their pride, since speaking the language fluently accomplished the task. This use to express national identity was higher than we originally thought it would be, and it was somewhat surprising to see it happen so often.

Another pattern we observed was the use of code-switching in a humorous or comedic manner. This kind of code-switching is intentional and utilizes parts of both languages such as intonation and meaning to create a joke or a wordplay. However, the frequency of humor, shown in Table 2, was surprising, as we anticipated it to be far higher than it actually was in stage one. The use of humorous code-switching was present scarcely in stage one, not at all in stage two, and was most prominent in stage three.

Slips in our data involved a speaker starting a sentence in Ukrainian but accidentally reverting to Russian before they finished expressing their thought. In some cases, the speakers would realize they had slipped and correct themselves, but in others the speakers would continue, finishing the thought in Russian. Table 2 also shows that slips accounted for the majority of code-switches from stages two and three. This is likely due to the speakers using primarily Ukrainian for the second and third stages, so slips in the first stage are less common given that little Ukrainian is actually being used.

We were able to find recurring contexts related to speakers as well. As we previously mentioned, speakers would often code-switch at the start in order to index themselves as Ukrainians. The speakers did so relatively the same amount, but Speaker M did this slightly more than the other speakers, as shown in Table 3.

The use of humor however showed a greater disparity. Speaker V humorously code-switched to a far greater percentage than his counterparts. A better mastery and confidence of the language would likely allow the speakers to make more jokes and use differences between the two languages more effectively. We found that Speaker V seems to have the greatest ability of the three to speak Ukrainian. He demonstrated this by completely skipping stage two and barely needing any time to transition, so we believe that he was able to use the language more effectively to make jokes through his knowledge of both languages and their differences.

Since Speaker V displayed different code-switching patterns when compared with his counterparts and did less code-switching in general, he did not at any point use clause insertion when code-switching, as in Table 4, which showed more evidence as to his strength in the language. For Speaker A, we noticed that he code-switched more sentences than Speakers V and M, especially when switching from Ukrainian to Russian.

Looking further than these 3 subjects and this specific context, the data from our study may be a useful reference when looking at rapid language transition in other countries or perhaps what people tend to struggle with versus what they find easy when changing their primary language both in Ukraine and in other places. As this kind of research continues, we might be able to gain insight into how this rapid language transition could result in, or perhaps already has resulted in, new linguistic features such as an emerging accent or dialect and the creation of new words or slang from primarily Russian speakers becoming primarily Ukrainian speakers. If you are looking for additional information about the languages’ history and how they are being used in the ongoing war today, the following blog post, Ukrainian vs Russian: How Do These Languages Differ, is very useful.

References

Azhniuk, B. (2017). Ukrainian Language Legislation and the National Crisis. Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 35(1/4), pp. 311–329. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44983546

Gardner-Chloros, P. (2009). Code-switching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Krishnan, S., Noor, N., and Rasmani, K. (2011). Analysis on Stages of Code-switching by Bilingual Educators: A Case Study. International Conference on Applied Sciences, Mathematics and Humanities 2011, pp.  475-481. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338357063_ANALYSIS_ON_STAGES_OF_CODE-SWITCHING_BY_BILINGUAL_EDUCATORS_A_CASE_STUDY

Mahootian, S. (2020). Bilingualism (Routledge Guides to Linguistics). London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Common and Uncommon Ground: Social and Structural Factors in Codeswitching. Language in Society, 22(4), pp. 475–503. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4168471

Rating Group. (2022, March 19). The Sixth National Poll: the Language Issue in Ukraine. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from https://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukraine/language_issue_in_ukraine_march_19th_2022.html

San, H. K. (2009). Chinese-English Code-switching in Blogs by Macao Young People (Publication No. 9877103) [Master’s thesis, The University of Edinburgh]. Edinburgh Research Archive.

State Statistics Committee of Ukraine. (2003-2004). All-Ukrainian population census 2001. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/

Introduction and Background

The United States is becoming an increasingly multiracial, multilingual nation. While still constituting a relatively small portion of the population, people of mixed race make up the fastest growing demographic in America – in the past decade alone, the multiracial population within the United States has increased by 276 percent, from 9 million people in 2010 to 33.8 million people in 2020. Furthermore, since 1980, the number of people who speak a language other than English at home has more than doubled (US Census Bureau, 2020). In light of these changing demographics, research surrounding biracial identity and attitudes towards bilingualism is becoming particularly paramount.

In crossing over cultural boundaries and racial lines, biracial individuals exist at the crossroads of disparate backgrounds that at times may be at odds with one another. Existing within this liminal space “in between,” so to speak, can contribute to the formation of a “marginal” identity, feelings of conflict when negotiating identity (Poston, 1990), or distance from their cultural heritage (Bracey, Bámaca, & Umaña-Taylor, 2004). 

However, it is understood that when an individual perceives facets of their identity to be compatible, the individual’s sense of self becomes more unified, a process known as identity integration (Syed & McLean, 2016). Models of identity integration have been applied to examine the process of biracial identity negotiation in various domains. One framework of particular interest comes from Cheng and Lee (2009), who present four methods of identity indexation among those of biracial descent. These classifications represent how the individual navigates their cultural identity in society, and also serve as an indicator for the degree of conflict or turbulence that the individual has over their own identity. The classifications are as follows:

• Intersections: Identification with individuals of related groups
• Dominance: Identification with individuals of one primary group
• Compartmentalization: Identification with a group is situationally dependent
• Merger: Simultaneous, cross-group identifications

The present study applies Cheng and Lee’s framework to investigate the relationship between biracial individuals and their association or dissociation with their cultural identity. More specifically, we look at the role of heritage language maintenance in informing the stances and alignments of biracial individuals. Following the conclusions of Lee (2002), which suggests strong correlations between an individual’s heritage language proficiency and their cultural identity, there exists the question of whether dual language use within the home generates a hyper-salient cultural identity — or an aversion towards particular cultural indexations.

Using monoracial students as a point of reference, we hypothesized that biracial students may exhibit more conflicted, turbulent attitudes or be more ambivalent towards bilingualism due to parents of differing cultural backgrounds, which would be reflected in how they culturally identify themselves. We also hypothesized that monoracial students may be more inclined to learn the heritage language, as both parents are likely to show a unified attitude towards bilingualism and thus exhibit less cultural conflict.

Methods

We utilized survey methods and metalinguistic interviews to collect data. In total, we surveyed 32 college students and interviewed 9 college students. Out of those that we surveyed, 27 participants were of monoracial descent and 5 participants were biracial descent. 5 interviewees were of monoracial descent and 4 interviewees were of biracial descent. While participants came from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the majority came from Asian backgrounds (n=26). All biracial participants were half white.

Our survey contained two sections. In the first section, we asked participants questions about their language demographic background information (e.g., What is your primary language? If you speak another language at home please list them.) We also asked whether they belong to a cultural community and/or they grew up in one. In the second section, participants ranked their agreements on a scale of 1-5 with a series of statements. Statements concerned both parents’ attitudes towards bilingualism (e.g., My parent thinks it’s important I learn another language.) as well as their personal attitudes (e.g., If I ever have kids, I would want them to know a second language.)

After surveying participants, we conducted interviews to further investigate their experiences and possible differences in attitudes towards bilingualism between parental units, especially if the student is of biracial descent. During the interviews, we focused more on how biracial students indexed themselves and looked at possible connections to their linguistic backgrounds (e.g., “What were your caregivers’ attitudes towards your heritage language(s)? Were they supportive, against learning it? Did their attitudes change as you got older?”)

Results

Unsurprisingly, both biracial and monoracial students had positive perceptions of bilingualism, and thought their parents had positive perceptions of bilingualism as well. However, these groups differed in how strong these positive perceptions were. Since the survey asked participants to rank how strongly they agreed with a series of positive and negative statements about bilingualism from a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), we were able to observe the distribution of their responses. Figure 1 below shows the distribution of responses of monoracial students and Figure 2 shows the distribution of responses for biracial students regarding how much the participants agreed that their parents have positive attitudes towards bilingualism.

Although both monoracial and biracial students thought their parents had generally positive views towards bilingualism, the monoracial students agreed more strongly than the biracial students. The monoracial students picked “strongly” agree over 50% of the time, whereas the biracial students only picked that 30% of the time. Monoracial students also agreed (ranking either 4 or 5) with the positive statements over 70% of the time whereas the biracial students only ranked the statements 4 or 5 50% of the time. Although this is merely a correlation, it is an interesting observation to note that could lead to more studies in the future.

For the interviews, there was variation across both monoracial and biracial students in how strongly their parents advocated for their learning in the heritage language. This is unsurprising given how each household is different and the variety of factors that shape parents’ decisions to teach the heritage language or not. Time may be an important factor, and the parents’ own fluency in the language may hinder or encourage this passing on of language to their children.

However, we did notice specifically that for biracial students who later chose to learn the heritage language on their own, they emphasized a want to connect to their heritage, especially since it gives a sort of “validity” to their cultural identities. Elaine, a half-Peruvian half-White student stated, “Once I started learning Spanish I had… more validity to my identity as a Peruvian because it’s like even though I didn’t look like it, well…I can speak in this language.” Biracial students appeared more questioning of their identities compared to monoracial students since they were not necessarily as exposed to their heritage culture and may feel more “outside” the culture due to their mixed appearance. They appeared to be more questioning of their own identities especially if they couldn’t speak the heritage language well, as language is often seen as a pillar of cultural identity.

On the other hand, the monoracial students we interviewed appeared to comfortably identify with the X-American label, for example Asian-American or Mexican-American. When asked about cultural identity, one student whose parents are first-generation Korean immigrants stated that she identifies as “just Korean-American” and “never really questioned it because [she] grew up in [a predominantly Asian area with a lot of other Koreans”. Presumably, she grew up in a household that was unified in culture and language, and people would not question her “Koreanness” based on her appearance. It is interesting to note that so-called “hyphenated” Americans have earned a spot in the mainstream social discourse of American society, yet biracial students have not necessarily done so due to the diversity in their parents’ heritages. A biracial identity is not easily constructed across all groups because there is such a mix of cultures.

Discussion

Overall, there were not drastic differences between the attitudes of the parents of monoracial individuals versus biracial individuals. There was a large degree of uniformity in the belief that being multilingual is a beneficial skill to have, albeit varying degrees of implementation. There were significant differences in the participants themselves, however. Among our monoracial survey population, we see that the majority of them informally acquired their heritage language and that the heritage language is the dominant language of the home. Among our biracial survey population, English is the predominant language at home, with only half of our participants having acquired their heritage language. With the exception of a single participant, the heritage language was formally acquired.

The most interesting difference between these two groups was that those of the biracial population exhibited a demonstrated awareness of their language indexation that monoracial individuals did not. One participant, Yukari, shares of how her Japanese mother passed down the Japanese language to her:

“When I was living in Japan, I honestly felt I was pretty privileged since the people around me were also half Japanese, but a lot of them didn’t know how to speak Japanese and so I had the sense of pride that ‘Oh, I can speak Japanese’ and I thought it was a good thing because I consider Japan my home, so being able to communicate with not only my family, but the community was a really important thing to me… If I wasn’t able to speak Japanese, I feel like I would’ve connected more to my American side of the family. I would’ve considered myself more as white instead of Japanese.”

Yukari’s experience, building off of the information presented by Elaine previously, allows us to draw parallels between these two participant’s experiences. Each biracial individual indicated a high level of indexation through their heritage language. Both Elaine and Yukari used their heritage language to make a claim to their non-white identity. Not only was this consciously done, but each of them used their heritage language to navigate social circumstances and interactions. Considering the point made by Cheng and Lee (2009) (see quote below), it is evident that in the increasingly multicultural, multilingual United States, more and more biracial individuals are operationalizing their heritage language to make claim to a multifaceted and multicultural identity.

“People change their identification strategies depending on individual constraints such as attention and cognitive resources, and contextual factors such as situational cues that make a particular social identity more or less salient.” (Cheng & Lee, 2009).

One limitation to our study was that the survey responses we collected were not evenly distributed between monoracial (n=27) and biracial students (n=5). Furthermore, we tried to keep our survey as simple and concise as possible, so we were limited in the number of questions we could ask. There’s only so much a survey can cover in terms of nuances in attitudes towards bilingualism. Lastly, even with our interviews, the participants tended to only talk about topics adjacent to our questions, so this was only the tip of the iceberg as well. We hope that despite these limitations, our study serves as a foundation to more discourse and research about biracial students, language use, and cultural identity in the future.

In conclusion, there was little to no significant variation between parents of monoracial and biracial individuals in perceptions of bilingualism. The greatest factor for heritage language acquisition was its presence, or lack thereof, in the home. Our research did provide evidence for cognizant identity indexation through heritage language acquisition on the part of the biracial individuals. This was in direct contrast to the motivations for heritage language use in monoracial individuals. Moving forwards, it would be beneficial to investigate ways that language is encouraged through the maternal line, as our data gave some implications for this. Our sample size, however, does not provide enough variation or control to determine the validity of this statement.

Additional Resources 

This Ted Talk is given by two high school sophomores who talk about the experience of being biracial as well as some common misconceptions about biracial individuals. It’s a personal account of being biracial that also emphasizes the ways language can exclude people or deny their identities.

Check out this related Languaged Life blog post from a previous class to find out more about social factors that inform language maintenance within multilingual families!

References

Bracey, J.R., Bámaca, M.Y. & Umaña-Taylor, A.J (2004). Examining ethnic identity and self-Esteem among biracial and monoracial adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 33, 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOYO.0000013424.93635.68

Cheng, C., & Lee, F. (2009). Multiracial identity integration: Perceptions of conflict and distance among multiracial individuals. Journal of Social Issues, 65(1), 51-68. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01587.x

Foster-Frau, S., Mellnik, T., Blanco, A. (2021, October 8). ‘We’re talking about a big, powerful phenomenon’: Multiracial Americans drive change. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/08/mixed-race-americans-increase-census/

Lee, J. (2002). The Korean language in America: The role of cultural identity in heritage language learning, language, culture and curriculum, 15(2), 117-133, DOI: 10.1080/07908310208666638

Poston, W. S. (1990). The biracial identity development model: A needed addition. Journal of Counseling & Development, 69(2), 152–155. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1990.tb01477.x

Syed, M., McLean, K.C. (2015). Understanding identity integration: Theoretical, methodological, and applied Issues. Journal of Adolescence, 47, 109-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.09.005.

United States Census Bureau. (2022, March 25). 2020 Census illuminates racial and ethnic composition of the country. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html

United States Census Bureau. (2020). Populations and people. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?g=0400000US06

Introduction & Background

Our goal was to study multilingualism in families and the social patterns that are common in failure of heritage language maintenance. We found a significant amount of research on the rates of heritage language retention among immigrant populations around the world. However, the majority of this has been structured around maintenance of Spanish speaking immigrant families in the United States. Also, much of these studies further focus on particular populations such as Cubans in Florida (Lambert, 1996). This is a gap that we wanted to address, as our research contains data points from many different language groups. These studies did give us a good amount of information as to the cause behind heritage language loss, some of which include socio-economic class (Pearson, 2007), education level of family (Bill,  Hernandez-Chavez & Hudson, 2000), and perceived social status of heritage culture/language by local society (Kloss, 1966). However, some of these studies have varying results, which makes it difficult to take away one consistent conclusion. Additionally, none have compared all these factors across different immigrant populations of various status and locations to find the commonalities that might exist among the specific low heritage language maintenance group. We took this information as a starting point, and decided to aggregate all of our data points to make a full comparison. With the increase in positive attitudes toward ethnic diversity in the United States (Budiman, 2020), there seems to be a shift underway that could impact the maintenance of heritage languages and culture in both multigenerational immigrant families in the country and families who may immigrate in the future. Our study aims to observe these factors in low heritage language maintenance families and understand commonalities in this group.  We hypothesize that younger people will have a more positive outlook towards heritage language acquisition,  but we also hypothesize that this will contribute less to language maintenance than factors such as formal education and language use outside of the household. Additionally, we hypothesize that code switching does not occur in these families but that they may pass on small bits of language, like vocabulary that allows them to communicate things in particular social situations, such as when they want to talk about something they want to keep private while not at home.

Methods

A short survey was the primary method of data gathering. These surveys were sent to friends and classmates who are bilingual or multilingual adults and come from bilingual or multilingual homes. The surveys will attempt to understand the heritage level of heritage language mastery, methods of learning in the family, knowledge of English among older members of the family, living conditions, and other questions to assess attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and enthusiasm towards the heritage culture and ethnic identity. There were five yes or no questions and six short answer questions for individually specific information such as language(s) and exposure type. Following this, a short interview was conducted with three survey participants and one of their parents each. This was to get a more in-depth description of particular social and family factors that impact motivation and need to acquire the heritage language. After we collected the data, we measured the level of heritage language competence and in what ways, types of informal and formal exposure, and level of necessity of the language in the family environment. We then analyzed the data to identify common social and speech patterns in groups with low language maintenance.

Key Words

Active Language Skills: This term refers to skills with a given language that amount to some amount of active conversational ability or working proficiency.

Passive Language Skills: This term refers to abilities with a given language that amount to some understanding and ability to use the language in socially specific circumstances.

Heritage Language: This term refers to a language that is spoken by an immigrant family that is not the dominant language in the society in which they now live.

Formal Language Exposure: This term refers to exposure to a language that is purposeful and deliberate such as classes, school, guided reading, and/or cultural events focused on language.

Informal Language Exposure: This term refers to exposure to a language that is random and without specific purpose such as family speaking at home, presence in a larger speaking community such as a neighborhood, and/or random exposure to music and media of the language.

Findings

Our data included 18 respondents to our questionnaire and 3 interviewees. There may be some bias toward specifically individuals exposed to Tagalog as a significant portion of our respondents (7 out of 18) and interviewees (2 out of 3) described Tagalog in their responses. One interview was conducted in person, one interview via zoom call, and one interview through email. These data points are the basis of our findings, and while a more diverse data set and more speaking interviews would have been preferred, this is what was accessible to us due to the pandemic and time zone constraints.

There are two significant correlations uncovered in the questionnaire that may reveal important social factors regarding language acquisition. Firstly, every single respondent with active language skills also had formal language exposure. Conversely, of the thirteen respondents to not have active language skills, only 3 of them had exposure to the language in a formal setting.

The other highly correlated response to the questionnaire was the descriptions of motivation for the respondents to learn the language. All 13 respondents with only passive language skills either described their family as not motivating language acquisition or presented some roadblock to motivation. This included situations where only one parent spoke the language and thus hindered the overall family motivation for the children to also learn the language. On the other hand, 4 out of 5 of respondents with active language skills presented some necessity in understanding and using the language. In many of these cases, respondents described family members who did not speak English such as their grandparents, and a need to speak and understand the language to communicate with these family members.

The last piece of data from the questionnaire revealed an overarching positive opinion of bilingualism and multilingualism. Every respondent except for 1 thought of bilingualism or multilingualism as a positive thing. The one respondent who did not have positive views of bilingualism or multilingualism described their viewpoint as “Neither positive nor negative”. Additionally, every respondent said they would want to pass on the language to their children if they could. This indicates that sentiment about heritage language learning was positive, even in cases where the respondents had only passive language skills or limited vocabulary and gives little prediction into whether a child will acquire the language with active skills.

The interview allowed us to observe how the interviews used their limited language skills in their everyday life. All 3 interviewees described their language skills as “limited vocabulary only” but still made significant use of the language. Namely, all interviewees were able to immediately recognize the language when hearing people speak it. They all had limited vocabulary as they described and some of the terms and phrases common amongst all of the interviewees included food items and common greetings. More significantly, however, is that all interviewees actually used the language in certain social situations with their family members. The first interviewee’s younger brother refers to her as “ate” or “older sister” in Tagalog, and despite not speaking Tagalog she is uncomfortable with him referring to her by her name. The second interviewee described using the language “strategically” in disguising some sensitive vocabulary in public. This included describing items as “cheap” or “expensive” while shopping to not offend the clerks or describing the physical appearance of someone. The last interviewee described their family using Spanish to ask for favors from each other. The family viewed Spanish as more formal and a more polite and effective way to ask something of each other.

Combining these findings, we learn that the strongest correlations are found in active language skills being present with highly motivated families whose children were exposed to language in formal settings. Conversely, members of the group without active language skills only had very low formal language exposure and did not have families that highly motivated language acquisition. The passive-only language skills group all seemed to acquire some level of the language and all interviewees still used the pieces they knew in socially significant manners. From these findings, we can predict that the informal language exposure in the passive-only groups still had social meaning to this group and even low levels of language acquisition are often used in socially specific tasks. In other words, informal language exposure in families with low motivation to pass on their language still resulted in the language being a part of the way they speak and interact with other members of the family. Particularly, the language is often leveraged for specific social tasks and part of the speech patterns of the family even when the dominant language is not the heritage language.

Conclusion

Based on our results, we conclude that a child’s educational environment plays the most significant role in failing to pass down languages. Even when parents wanted to pass down their native language, the primary language spoken in the host nation’s environment interfered with that goal. Unless some form of formal language education was pursued by the family. Additionally, children who grew up in bilingual households retained culturally significant words more than they did with other general words. These types of words include food and words related to etiquette in the culture. Lastly, the people we surveyed generally had a positive outlook on multilingualism and would want to pass down their heritage language if they could.

To expand our study, we suggest studying heritage learners who grew up not just in multilingual households but multilingual communities. In our research, almost everyone we surveyed grew up in predominantly English-speaking communities. We are interested to see whether or not we’d be able to see different social patterns that contribute to the lack of maintaining a heritage language had the children grew up in multilingual communities. We also suggest finding people who learned a second language in only formal settings and comparing their retention rate to that of a person exposed only in informal settings. Furthermore, a more comprehensive study in the United States tracking social and educational factors across all immigrant communities might further shed light on the strongest factors affecting heritage language maintenance. Our study aimed to answer some of the many questions posed to understand the social implications of multilingualism.

References

Bill, G., Hernandez-Chavez, E., & Hudson, A. (2000). Spanish home language use and English proficiency as differential measures of language maintenance and shift. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 19, 11–27.

Budiman, A. (2021, April 28). Americans are more positive about the long-term rise in U.S. racial and ethnic diversity than in 2016. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/01/americans-are-more-positive-about-the-long-term-rise-in-u-s-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-than-in-2016/.

Kloss, H. (1966). German-American language maintenance efforts. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), Language loyalty in the United States: The maintenance and perpetuation of non-English mother tongues by American ethnic and religious groups (pp. 206–252). The Hague: Mouton.

Lambert, W. E., & Taylor D. M. (1996). Language in the lives of ethnic minorities: Cuban American families in Miami. Applied Linguistics, 17(4), 477–500.

Pearson, B. Z. (2007). Social factors in childhood bilingualism in the United States. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 399–410.

Introduction

Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon when a speaker switches from one language to another during a conversation. Specifically, we will focus on bilingual conversation. We will analyze two groups of bilingual couples: those who have similar language backgrounds, and those who have different language backgrounds communicating primarily in English as the dominant and common language between them.

The proposed outcome is that bilingual couples, with similar language backgrounds and English as their second language, are more likely to employ code-switching to convey a mood or perspective, while those with different language backgrounds are more likely to use code-switching as a communication strategy to build common understanding, such as borrowing (Van, 2012; Pietikainen, 2014).

Background

Code-switching has been proposed as a way to establish an identity (Piller, 2002). For example, De Fina (2007) looked at groups of Italian American men to reveal their code-switching patterns. De Fina found that the linguistic behaviors of an individual often influence those around them, so it may be that one partner may be influenced by the code-switching patterns of their partner. This theory was supported by Code switching in Mixed Couples that Code-switching has a specific reason for it. One of the reasons of code according to the findings was politeness. One of the partners would often accommodate to the other by switching the language. Some Code switching happens because of solidarity to establish a closer relationship. Lastly code-switching also shows confirmation (Dumaning 2015). Pietikainen also mentioned that lexical gap might be the reason for code switching. When a partner cannot successfully recall or produce the English word, they will sometimes use their partner’s first language (L1) instead of their L1 to ensure their partner understands (Pietikainen 2014).

Yodanis et al. (2007) studied the effects of bilingualism on couples’ relationships and found that having different native languages did not create more communication problems in couples with the same native languages. This suggests that these couples work harder and more effectively on their communication. The article ELF Couples and Automatic Code-Switching focuses on ELF couples and how code-switching influence their communication. The more common languages the couples shared the more they code-switched during their communication. Pietikainen found out that code-switching is automatic and unconscious and concluded that code-switching is the result of ELF couples’ relaxed atmosphere in their lives (Pietikainen 2014).

Methods

The methods used in this experiment were transcription analysis taken from clips of the popular show, 90-Day Fiancé. 90-Day Fiancé is a reality show that features Americans and their partners through their journey through the K-1 visa process (fiancé visa). 90-Day Fiancé follows couples during their first 90 days living together before they will be required to either get married or head back to their home country. We examined several bilingual couples from the show within two groups: different language background and the same language background Carolina and Fernando, Chantel and Pedro, and Devan and Jihoon. Carolina is a L1 Spanish speaker and acquiring English as her L2; her fiancé, Fernando, is a heritage Spanish speaker and also has native proficiency in English. Chantel is an American L1 English speaker and is Spanish as an L2; her partner, Pedro, is a Dominican L1 Spanish speaker, and acquiring English as his L2. Both Chantel and Pedro are acquiring their L2 to be able to communicate with each other, however, their language backgrounds are different, as they were not exposed to learning their L2 until after their relationship began. Devan is an American L1 English speaker and Jihoon is a Korean L1 English speaker who speaks very little English.

The clips analyzed were taken from moments of conflict and confrontation between the couples. For example, we use a clip from featuring Carolina confronting Fernando about a pair of women’s underwear she found in Fernando’s closet. Once a clip was selected, the dialogue was recorded, and the code-switching was marked and translated. Once properly transcribed, the code-switching events were categorized and compared with the results from the other couples (Piller 2002).

Results

We found that Carolina and Fernando were more likely to use code-switching as a way to convey their mood or perspective as well as stylistic purposes (such as comedy), when faced with confrontation. Their similar language backgrounds allow them to navigate communication in both languages while code-switching. Contrastingly, Devan and Jihoon used code-switching sparingly.

Devan:     Ok, get out.

Jihoon:    Yeah, sorry.

Jihoon:    피곤한다 피곤해

           Pigonhanda  pigonhae

           Frustrated  (very) frustrated.

In this exchange between Devan and Jihoon, the code-switching event happens after a long pause (about 2 seconds) after his initial phrase. Devan does not understand this utterance as she does not speak Korean and Jihoon knows this as he says it. It is not a continuation of the conversation he was having with Devan, but more of a mumbled expression to himself.

In Carolina and Fernando’s case, Carolina uses Spanish and English within the same phrases, as shown below.

Carolina: Fernando!

Carolina: What is this?

Fernando: uh?

Carolina: Sube. 

          Come up (the stairs)

Carolina: De quién son esos? Panties girl. De quién son?

          Whose are these?                Whose are (these)?

Fernando: Did you find ‘em in my closet?

Carolina: In your closet.

Fernando: I- That has nothing- That’s nothing from recent. That’s 

old, old. I’m serious.

What’s this all about?

Along with the growing bilingual population in the United States, there has been a shift in the way bilingualism is represented in the media, especially in television shows (Grosjean 2018). In this study, we wanted to look at the layers of language complexity of bilingual speakers through bilingual shows. Given bilinguals might have another layer to add to the technicality of their speech – code-switching – it is important to see how the media portrays that. Code-switching itself has layers of complexity when it comes to explaining why a speaker might do so.

Bilingual shows are becoming more mainstream for viewers of a wider age range, producing shows such as Dora the Explorer (DE) and One Day at a Time (ODT), the two shows we focus on in this study. We used these two shows as a lens through which we viewed the reasoning behind why bilinguals might use code-switching and the context in which these switches occur. By distinguishing between the two intended age groups for each show, we decided to focus on the different types of code-switching that may be more specific to each age group: metaphorical (using code-switching as a resource to enhance meaning) and situational (using code-switching depending on topic or other speaker) (Van Herk 2018, pgs. 151-152).

We hypothesized situational code-switching would be more frequent in DE, the show for younger audiences, and metaphorical code-switching would be more frequent in ODT, the show for older audiences. After analysis, we proved this true but found that classifying reasons for code-switching would require more categories to encompass its complexity.

What’s the context?

Our research focuses on bilingual television shows, specifically ones whose characters code-switch (CS) between Spanish and English. Despite incorrect assumptions that bilingualism always means total proficiency in two languages, this neglects to acknowledge the complexity of language use for those who are multilingual (Grosjean 1994). This definition is unclear, but CS helps to show bilingualism and is indicative of a speaker’s command over the language they are speaking (Bullock & Toribio 2009).

The types of code-switching used in these shows are our central linguistic variables. Metaphorical CS is a resource used to supplement the meaning of a certain word or phrase by tapping into the associations with a certain language (Woolard 2004). Situational CS occurs when a speaker uses a different language for a certain conversation topic or with a certain speaker (Gumperz 1977). Situational CS tends to occur intersentential (within a sentence) and metaphorical CS tends to occur intrasentential (over multiple sentences), and since intrasentential CS is linked with a better mastery of a language, metaphorical CS is implied to be a sign of that as well (Bullock & Toribio 2009).

How did we go about it?          

In the first three episodes of each show’s first season, we recorded each instance in which the speakers switched from English, the main language of each show, to Spanish, the secondary language. Each show has a different age recommendation, and Common Sense Media, an advocacy group that reviews the appropriateness of media for families and children, stated that Dora the Explorer (DE) is intended for audiences ages three and up, and One Day at a Time (ODT) is intended for audiences ages 12 and up (Herman 2004, Slaton 2016).

Our first step in collecting the data was to keep a running list of each instance of code-switching that occurred in each show. Along with the timestamp of the occurrence, we also included a brief description of the context in which we found the example. Once each instance was recorded from all of the episodes, we created six categories that grouped the different contexts in which CS happened. These contexts included insults, names (character called by relationship name), emotions, imitation (copying what someone else said in a different manner), commands, and labeling (calling certain things with their corresponding names in one language).

Originally, we planned to use these contexts to help us divide the CS occurrences into situational and metaphorical explanations, but this proved much more complex than expected. In order to compensate for the lack of coverage the explanations of situational and metaphorical CS gave, we created additional categorizations, which included lexical gaps (when speakers use words in one language that cannot be directly translated with the same weight), overlaps (combine multiple explanations), and exceptions (where CS did not serve as significant of a sociolinguistic purpose).

What did we find?

As we had predicted, there were more instances of situational CS in DE than there were in ODT, and there were more instances of metaphorical CS in ODT than there were in DE. For example, in ODT episode two (18:05 – 18:20), Penelope (in bold) is talking to her coworkers and boss in the office (none speak Spanish):

But maybe you didn’t hear because you were on your phone like now  
Uh, what?  

Yo voy a matar a este hombre    [I am going to kill this man]

Huh, what does that mean?

I am just thinking about lunch.

In this example, Penelope is angry at the situation at her work and chooses to switch to Spanish to express her anger. This is a metaphorical instance because Penelope is trying to create distance between her and her coworkers.

On the other hand, DE provides clear instances of situational CS. For example, in episode two, when Dora met with Baby Blue Bird (who is monolingual), she has to switch over to Spanish to be able to communicate with him (Dora in bold):

Where do you live baby bird?

¿Que?              [What?]

Oh, Baby Bluebird speaks Spanish         (at the audience)  

¿Donde vives?      [Where do you live?]

This example is situational CS because one of the speakers is only able to understand Spanish. Therefore, the situation calls for Dora to switch over to Spanish to be able to communicate.

Our hypothesis was based on the fact that DE would have less complex language usage and that ODT would have more complex language usage because of their respective intended audiences. This observation was confirmed when collecting data. We have summarized the contexts of CS for each of the shows per episode in Table 1.1 and Table 1.2 below.

From observing the contexts of CS for both shows, it is noticeable that ODT has more complexity in CS than DE. Because of the lower level of language complexity, DE has no instances of insults, emotions or imitations, meaning that classifying the reasons for CS for ODT was not as clear as for DE. In some cases, a given instance of CS did not fall neatly into metaphorical or into situational. This is when we resorted to our additional categories of why a speaker might code-switch: lexical gap, an overlap, or not clear enough for any category (exception). For example, in ODT episode one, the grandma says:

You need to do something about this little sinvergüenza

[You need to do something about this little ___________]

In this case, the word “sinvergüenza,” refers to a person who is not ashamed of doing something that is seen as shameful. However, there is no direct translation in English that has the same meaning, and therefore we have labeled it as a lexical gap.

Another example of the categories we have created is in ODT episode three when the grandma says:

She thinks she’s tan fancy because her four grandsons are altar boys. Guataca.

[She thinks she’s so fancy because her four grandsons are altar boys. _______]

Here, the grandma is using an insult in Spanish. This word has no direct translation to English so we have labeled it as a lexical gap. However, it is also an instance where the speaker (the grandma) is trying to create distance between her and the person she is insulting, therefore it is metaphorical CS. Since this CS instance has aspects of both lexical gaps and metaphorical CS, we labeled it an overlap.

Sometimes we couldn’t fit the CS instances into any of the categories because there seemed to be no significant sociolinguistic purpose. An example of this is when Dora repeats a word in Spanish and English a few times to teach a new word, which we labeled as repetition. Another instance is mixing, which is done often by the grandma in ODT. To clarify, we defined mixing to be when a word is used in a different language (usually intrasentential) but can be directly translated into English; CS might have happened just out of convenience. For example, in one episode, the grandma says “café con leche” which translates directly to “coffee with milk.” Also, when calling someone by their relationship name in Spanish, such as “mami” or “abuelita,” there is little to no sociolinguistic meaning behind it (we labeled this naming). Imagine this: If CS did not happen in any of these examples, would it make a sociolinguistic difference? In these cases, the speakers chose to CS for a reason that can’t be explained by sociolinguistics. In other words, the sociolinguistic difference was not enough to warrant another category.

What does this all mean?

If we only look at the scope of our hypothesis, then we proved the main points: There is more metaphorical CS in ODT, and more situational CS in DE, both suitable for each show’s recommended age group. However, the hypothesis itself did not allow us to take into account the other types of language use related to CS that came up in data collection and analysis. In every instance, whether it be a simple word or phrase repetition in DE, or more dynamic instances of CS in ODT, the words or phrases from Spanish utilized in English (or vice versa) were grammatically sound, even if they had no direct equivalent in the other language. This phenomenon shows that bilingual individuals who utilize CS are, at the very least, capable in both languages. Characters in both shows were able to switch seamlessly from one language to the other, maintaining grammaticality and conversation flow at the same time. What this means is that depending on a speaker’s frequency of CS usage, CS itself could act as a marker of high proficiency in, or even mastery of two languages.

Our hypothesis and initial conclusion stemmed from the narrow definitions of CS provided in our class textbook. The textbook provided context and examples for how metaphorical or situational CS each functioned in an interaction. However, it presumes these categories are limited by where in the phrase or sentence the CS instance occurs. The book defines situational CS as only occurring from one sentence to the other, and metaphorical CS as occurring within a single sentence (Van Herk 2018, pg. 151-152). Although the book connects language proficiency and emotional states to CS usage, it uses narrow descriptions for the phenomenon itself.

The textbook also assumes metaphorical and situational CS are the only two categories of CS worth noting. While the textbook works to dispel language myths by defining the sociolinguistic reasons for CS, it could confuse readers that there might only be two main reasons, just like it did for us. To that end, the exceptions and overlaps from our data are defined as such because we couldn’t place them in either category. It’s up to readers like you to go back and define these instances however you see fit.

What’s next?

Since there is a wide variety of other bilingual media out there (reality TV, movies, podcasts, etc.), more data could be collected to find different examples of diverse bilingual speech patterns. We could even compare media across time periods to measure frequencies of CS across several years or decades. This all ties back into one observation – that bilingual individuals are being engaged with in mass media and are being positively validated.

References

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Grosjean F. (2018). Psychology Today, The Amazing Rise of Bilingualism in the United States. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/201809/the-amazing-rise-bilingualism-in-the-united-states.

Grosjean, F. (1994). Individual bilingualism. The encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 3, 1656-1660. http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/archive2/message/6760/Indiv%20bilm.rtf.

Gumperz, J. J. (1977). The Sociolinguistic Significance of Conversational Code-Switching. RELC Journal, 8(2), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/003368827700800201.

Herman, J. (2004, December 14). Dora the Explorer – TV Review. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/dora-the-explorer.

Slaton, J. (2016, December 19). One Day at a Time – TV Review. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/one-day-at-a-time-0.

Van Herk, G. (2018). Multilingualism. In Gerard Van Herk (Ed.): What is sociolinguistics? (2^nd edition: pp. 146 – 157). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Van Herk, G. (2018). Glossary. In Gerard Van Herk (Ed.): What is sociolinguistics? (2nd edition: pp. 220 – 237). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Woolard, K.A. (2004). Codeswitching. In A. Duranti (Eds). A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp.73-94). Oxford, Blackwell. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9780470996522#page=92.