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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 269

Part of Session 134: Multilingual written internet data in language contact studies (Other abstracts in this session)

iSwitch: Spanish-English Language Mixing in Computer-Mediated Communication

Authors: Montes-Alcala, Cecilia
Submitted by: Montes-Alcala, Cecilia (Georgia Institute of Technology, United States of America)

Technology in the 21^st century has rapidly transformed the means of communication and written expression among monolingual and bilingual individuals alike in several ways. First, electronic correspondence (e-mail) seems to be slowly replacing traditional handwritten and/or typed letters (snail mail). Second, personal and professional blogs have emerged as publicly accessible journals for any individual who is willing to share their thoughts online. Finally, social networks appear to be the fastest growing mode of communication in the world. As an example, it is estimated that about 190 million “tweets” are sent via Twitter every day.

  Therefore, it seems obvious that the Internet era has opened the door to a fertile ground of research for sociolinguistics in general and bi- or multilingualism studies in particular. What takes place when bi- or multilingual individuals sit at the keyboard has been the focus of several studies exploring computer-mediated communication (CMC), a few of which specifically deal with language mixing (see, for instance, Paolillo (1996), Georgakopoulou (1997), Dascalu (1999), Warschauer’s et al (2002), Hinrichs (2006), Montes-Alcalá (2005), Montes-Alcalá (2007) and Negrón Goldbarg (2009) among others).

The present work analyzes computer-mediated communication among Spanish-English bilinguals in an attempt to further explore the still relatively new field of “electronic” code-switching. The study aims to find out whether bilingual individuals mix their languages when writing online and, if so, what their main motivations are. To this end, I compare bilingual data from different computer-mediated communication sources including electronic mail, blogs, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The underlying hypothesis is that these individuals’ online writing will display many of the socio-pragmatic functions traditionally ascribed to oral code-switching (see, for example, Valdés-Fallis (1976), Jacobson (1977), Poplack (1981), McClure (1981), Gumperz (1982), and Zentella (1997) among others.) Furthermore, it intends to draw attention to the cultural nature of code-switching, an important component that has often been overlooked in the search for grammatical and pragmatic constraints.

The main conclusions of this study indicate that: (1) the subjects actually engage in code-switching when writing to other bilinguals online; (2) their language mixing fulfills specific socio-pragmatic and stylistic functions similar to those attested in oral code-switching; (3) electronic code-switching would seem more socially acceptable than its oral counterpart; and (4) these individuals possess ample linguistic and cultural knowledge of both languages; thus, their language choices reveal that bilingual individuals live between two cultures and two languages they can and must use to fully express themselves both online and in real life.