Pidgin and Code-Switching: Linguistic Identity and Multicultural Consciousness in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey

Abstract

A recurring theme in Maxine Hong Kingston’s works is the search for a linguistic identity of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, and this theme receives the fullest treatment in her fourth book, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1987). In representing the social, cultural and linguistic reality for the Chinese American community living in the multicultural United States, Kingston’s fundamental strategy is to use pidgin expressions and code-switching in the characters’ speech to present a truthful picture of languages used in the Chinese American community. A close analysis of the patterns and functions of pidgins in Tripmaster Monkey reveals that while Kingston records actual linguistic features of Chinese Immigrants’ Pidgin English (CIPE) in dialogue to preserve the linguistic individuality and identity of the Chinese American community, she draws on stereotypical features of the past Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) to combat negative stereotypes of Chinese Americans’ languages. Furthermore, Kingston uses code-switching in the characters’ speech to reinscribe her multicultural consciousness into her writing. This article examines the thematic significance of pidgin expressions and code-switched utterances in the characters’ speech in Tripmaster Monkey.