Georgetown University Institutional Repository http://www.library.georgetown.edu/digitalgeorgetown De Fina, A. 2007. Code switching and ethnicity in a community of practice. Language in Society 36 (3):371-392. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404507070182 Collection Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/10822/559318 © 2007 Cambridge University Press This material is made available online with the permission of the author, and in accordance with publisher policies. No further reproduction or distribution of this copy is permitted by electronic transmission or any other means. Language in Society 36, 371–392. Printed in the United States of America DOI: 10.10170S0047404507070182 Code-switching and the construction of ethnic identity in a community of practice ANNA DE FINA Georgetown University Italian Department ICC Building 307 J 37 and O Streets NW Washington D.C. 20057
[email protected] ABSTRACT In the past twenty years the existence of a sense of ethnic belonging among immigrant groups of European ancestry in the United States has become the focus of frequent debates and polemics. This article argues that ethnicity can- not be understood if it is abstracted from concrete social practices, and that analyses of this construct need to be based on ethnographic observation and on the study of actual talk in interaction. This interactionally oriented per- spective is taken to present an analysis of how Italian ethnicity is constructed as a central element in the collective identity of an all-male card playing club. Linguistic strategies, particularly code-switching, are central in this con- struction, but their role becomes apparent only when language use is ana- lyzed within significant practices in the life of the club.