Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Articles 2000 Code switching: American Sign Language and cued English Peter Hauser Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.rit.edu/article Recommended Citation Peter Hauser, Code switching: American Sign Language and cued English, In M.Metzger (Ed.), Bilingualism and Idientity in Deaf Communities (2000) This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Analysis of Codeswitching: American Sign Language and Cued English Peter C. Hauser Sociolinguistic studies on the codeswitching that occurs when Ameri- can Sign Language (ASL)and English come into contact have claimed that the codeswitching is qualitatively different from spoken language code- switching (e.g., Davis 1989, 1990; Lucas and Valli 1989, 199;2;).These studies have focused on the contact between users of ASL and users of spoken English. However, the codeswitching between English in a visual modality-cued American English (hereafter cued English)':""and ASL has not been studied. This chapter focuses on the codeswitching of a ten- year-old bilingual deaf girl who is fluent in ASL and cued English.! This chapter provides descriptive examples of ASL-cued English code- switching as well as a discussion on social motivations for and functions of codeswitching. In the first section of this chapter, studies on spoken language codeswitching are introduced, followed by a second section dis- cussing codeswitching in the Deaf community.2 The third section includes a description of cued English and a review of previous studies on cued lan- guages. Following the review of literature, evidence of ASL-cued English I wish to thank Hilary Franklin, Angela Hauser, Claire Klossner, and Melanie Metzger for their help in various parts of this study. I also thank the participants and their family for permission to videotape their interactions and for sharing information and providing previous video clips and documentation used in this study. 1. Some authors use the term code-mixing when referring to intra sentential codeswitching or borrowing when referring to single morpheme/lexeme switches from one language within an utterance to another language. (Additionally, some authors use code switching as two separate words, whereas others use codeswitch- ing as one word or use code-switching.) In this chapter, I use codeswitching to re- fer to both intrasentential and intersentential codeswitches as well as borrowing. 2..In this chapter deaf refers to the audiological condition of hearing loss and Deaf to social collectivities; Woodward (1972.)first made this distinction. 43 codeswitching is demonstrated and compared with examples of code- EXAMPLE 2 switching in spoken languages. The results of this chapter's study dem- You know they walk que e/las se comen e/ aisle comp/eto. onstrate that codeswitching between ASL and cued English follows a sim- ("in such a way that they take up the whole") ilar pattern found in spoken language codeswitching. It is generally held that an individual must know at least two languages in order to be able to codeswitch. Breitborde (1983, 5) stated that "the CODESWITCHING principal behavior through which bilingualism is expressed iscode switch- ing." Grosjean describes the everyday nature of a bilingual as follows: Codeswitching occurs when a bilingual or multilingual individual switches from one language to another. The term is used when identifying In their everyday lives, bilinguals find themselves at various points along alternations of linguistic varieties within the same conversation (Myers- a situational continuum, bilinguals are in a total monolingual mode in Scotton 1993). Romaine explains that codeswitching occurs when "the that they are speaking (or writing) to monolinguals of one-or-the-other items in question form part of the same speech act. They are tied together of the languages that they know. At the other end of the continuum, prosodically as well as by semantic and syntactic relations equivalent to bilinguals find themselves in a bilingual language mode in that they are those that join passages in a single speech act" (1995, iii). Codeswitching communicating with bilinguals who share their two languages and with is commonly found in bilingual communities and has been studied by an- whom they normally mix languages (i.e., code switch and borrow). thropologists, psychologists, sociologists, and linguists. Codeswitching (1982, 309) can be a communicative resource because it reveals the speakers' sensi- tivity to both formal and functional aspects of language (Grosjean 1982; When referring to bilinguals (or multilinguals), most researchers do Gumperz 1982; Heller 1988; Lanza 1992; Poplack 1981; Romaine 1995). not consider them to have native fluency in both languages (Baetsens- Codeswitching has been found to be used by children (two years old or Beardsmore 1986; Grosjean 1982, 1992; Hakuta 1986; Haugen 1969; older) who are from bilingual families (Boeschoten and Verhoeven 1987; Myers-Scotton 1993; Romaine 1995; Zentella 1997). It is rare to find a Fantini 1985; Lanza 1992; McClure 1981; Zentella 1997). Children in bilingual who can pass as a native user of both languages (Grosjean 1992; bilingual communities do not only learn two languages but also the social Zentella 1997). Zentella (1997) claims that it is more accurate to speak rules regarding when and where the languages may be used and how to of a "bilinguallmultidialectal repertoire" that consists of a spectrum of codeswitch within a single utterance (Zentella 1997). Numerous studies linguistic codes. The linguistic spectrum ranges from standard use to non- have demonstrated that there are no qualitative differences between chil- standard dialects and from the language in which an individual is most dren's and older bilinguals' codeswitching patterns (e.g., Lanza 1992), fluent to other languages the individual may use only with specific inter- whereas others have found developmental patterns of codeswitching (e.g., locutors or for specific purposes. Zentella defined bilingualism as the abil- Zentella 1997). ity to produce meaningful utterances in two languages (which is also the Codeswitching can occur at the boundaries of complete sentences definition used in this chapter). As in other codeswitching studies, native (intersententia/) or within sentence boundaries (intrasententia/). The fol- fluency in both languages was not a prerequisite. lowing are examples of intersentential (example I) and intrasentential Language proficiency influences an individual's ability to codeswitch. (example 2) Spanish-English codeswitching from Zentella (1997, 80): Zentella found that the overall pattern of her subjects' language choices were related to their language proficiency; however, "the choice of lan- EXAMPLE I guage in a particular setting depends on a myriad of factors involving the Si, pero /e hab/o en espano/. When I don't know something, I'll talk to participants, the setting, and the social and communicative goals" (1997, her in English. 87). Children in her study who were Spanish-dominant often would start ("Yes, but I talk to her in Spanish.") their utterances in Spanish and move to their weaker language (English) 44 : PET E R c. H A USE R ASL and Cued EnK/ish Codeswitchinl! : 4~ with bilinguals. For example, a six-year-old (Paca) who was talking to served that Spanish-English bilinguals switched to Spanish for idiomatic Zentella (Z) changed from her dominant language to English (88): pauses. In Zentella's (1997) study, many community members stated that they codeswitch when they were at a loss for words. She termed this type EXAMPLE 3 of codeswitch a crutch because, just as crutches can help a mobility- PACA:Dame una cura. ("Give me a Band-Aid.") impaired individual to keep walking, a codeswitch can help speakers to Z: ~Pa(-ra) que? ("For what?") keep talking when they are at a loss for words in one language(98). PACA:For my hand. Kachru (1977) noted that Hindi-English bilinguals codeswitch to re- peat their utterances in order to avoid possible vagueness or ambiguity. Zentella pointed out that Paca codeswitched to English for several pos- Bentahila (1983) observed situations in which the speaker attempted- sible reasons: (a) for emphasis, (b) to recognize Zentella's U.S.-born iden- with difficulty-to explain something in one language before codeswitch- tity, or (c) to show off her knowledge of English -the "prestige language" ing and start explaining again in the other language. Bentahila claimed (1997,88). that repeating utterances in another language is not always used for add- Codeswitching can also occur because one language has an advantage ing clarity; instead it often occurs because the speaker wants to achieve a over the other. For example, in some situations, one language has a more suitable term for what the speaker is trying to express, and this motivates certain effect, such as emphasis. This type of codeswitching was also ob- served in Spanish-English bilinguals (Gumperz 1976; Redlinger 1976; the speaker to codeswitch. Clyne (1967) studied German-English bilin- Timm 1975; Zentella 1997) and in Hindi-English and Slovenian-German guals and observed that sometimes a speaker switches to the other lan- bilinguals (Gumperz 1976). Zentella (1997) found codeswitching for clar- guage before the particular term is used. He named this type of code- switching anticipational triggering because the need for a specific term in ity and for emphasis was most frequent among the children in her study. Codeswitching can also occur within utterances when one wants to the other language triggers the switch before the term is reached. In other make a comment unrelated to the main topic (Bentahila 1983; Zentella situations, a speaker may codeswitch when the particular term is reached and then continue using that term's language. Clyne named this type of 1997), or to recite a quotation (Bentahila 1983; Gumperz 1976; Timm triggering consequential triggering.