Spanish and English in U.S. Service Encounters

Linguistic fusion: A comparative sociolinguistic study of Spanish-English code-switching found in natural and planned speech

“…In other words, some linguists support the notion of free variation because unexplainable instances of code-switching have been found to occur in natural, spontaneous speech. In terms of function, several researchers (Valdés, 1981;Sánchez, 1983;Montes-Alcalá, 2001; Raschka, Wei, & Lee, 2002;Callahan, 2009) have examined the various roles of natural, spontaneous code-switching, looking specifically at when and why subjects take part in this phenomenon. Throughout the remainder of this section, I will further discuss the above-mentioned studies in more detail in an attempt to shed additional light upon the current issues that have prompted my own comparative study on the form, frequency and function of Spanish-English code-switching found in both natural and planned speech.…”

“…Other linguists such as Callahan (2009) and Raschka, Wei, and Lee (2002) have attributed instances of code-switching to much more. They state that the occurrence of code-shifts depends primarily on the age of the speaker, ethnicity of the interlocutor, and the interpersonal relationship (i.e.…”

“…the perceived social distance) between the bilingual individuals involved in the conversation. Callahan's (2009) ethnicity, and the neighborhood in which the encounter took place. Callahan (2009) discovered that 86% of the service encounters rendered accommodation (in other words, after initially addressing the customer in English, the worker switched to Spanish upon hearing the customer reply in Spanish), and 14% rendered non-accommodation.…”

“…Callahan's (2009) ethnicity, and the neighborhood in which the encounter took place. Callahan (2009) discovered that 86% of the service encounters rendered accommodation (in other words, after initially addressing the customer in English, the worker switched to Spanish upon hearing the customer reply in Spanish), and 14% rendered non-accommodation. Callahan (2009) found no correlation between the informant's sex and language of response, nor the neighborhood in which the encounter took place.…”

“…With the recent rise and proliferation of media controlled code-switching, it is surprising that very little has been studied in terms of the replication of code-switching in planned speech. In the past, linguists such as Callahan (2009), Lipski (1985), and Sánchez (1983) have conducted studies on the form, frequency, and function of Spanish-English codeswitching found in natural, spontaneous speech and literature. Studies conducted on codeswitching found in non-print media, however, are miniscule (Miner, 1998;Woolard, 1987), specifically those on the Spanish-English code-switching found in American pop culture film.…”