Code-switching in Computer-Mediated Communication : The use of Swedish and English in an Internet discussion forum

• Main Author: Urbäck, Katrin
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora 2007
• Subjects: code-switching; bilingualism; forum; computer-mediated communication; Specific Languages; Studier av enskilda språk
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:vxu:diva-1935

This essay investigates cases of Swedish-English code-switching in a bilingual discussion forum on the Internet. Code-switching is a linguistic term used to describe switches from one language to another in discourse. The material consists of excerpts from the forum which have been analyzed and presents various cases of code-switching which appeared in the forum. The examples from the forum presented in this essay are chosen due to their relevance to code-switching and bilingualism. The examples were analyzed according to Romaine’s (1989) and Klintborg’s (1999) classifications of code-switching. The research questions sought to find out if, how and why the bilingual users in this forum code-switch when communicating. The results proved that the bilingual users do code-switch, and that the most common switch is the insertion of one word, or several words, in another language into an otherwise monolingual sentence. The discussion part also consists of a summary of the switches in the forum. The conclusion of the study is that code-switching does exist in this forum, and the participants code-switch in different ways, however mainly to show hospitality and to signal a belonging to the group.