The Social Psychological Significance of Code Switching in Cross-Cultural Communication

Abstract

Four studies were carried out to explore observers' evaluative reactions to bilingual code switching as a function of 4 factors: situational norms, sociocultural status of the language, ingroup favouritism, and interpersonal speech accommodation. English and French subjects gave evaluative reactions to code switching by English- and French-speaking Canadian actors who were depicted interacting in the roles of a salesman and a customer. Four different patterns of code switching, consisting of 3 or 4 speaker turns each, were depicted in each study. Subjects' reactions to the speakers' language choices were elicited after each turn. The major findings to emerge were a) there was a significant shift in the basis of the subjects' evaluations from primarily situational norms to interpersonal accommodation; b) early language choices during the interactions had significant effects on reactions to later language choices; c) the impact of the situational norms was reinforced when they were concordant with the sociocultural status of the actors but mitigated when they were discordant; and d) both English and French Canadian subjects expressed favouritism toward ingroup language choices; but this was especially true among the English subjects. It is concluded that the social psychological significance of code switching is both dynamic and multiply determined; a tentative empirical model integrating the results is outlined.