SAR SH 524 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Metalinguistic Awareness, Code-Mixing, Code-Switching

• School: Boston University
• Department: Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
• Course: SAR SH 524
• Professor: Romeo

Document Summary

Code switching aka code mixing is the use of multiple languages in a single conversation. It is typically a pragmatic skill or a cognitive shortcut but not confusion. Subject and object pronouns must match the main verb. It is also constrained by social and communicative purposes (i. e. serves pragmatic functions). E. g. to convey emphasis or an emotion or to promote social solitary and/or social exclusion. By age 2, bilingual children already demonstrate some sensitivity to the linguistic and social constraints on code switching. Early studies found that bilingual children were cognitively disadvantaged. Bilingualism in young children is a hardship and devoid of apparent advantage. But the studies were awed and did not control for many confounding factors (ses, immigration, experience with both languages) More recent word suffuses that bilinguals (children and adults) may actually show some advantages in certain areas of cognition.