Code Switching: A sociolinguistic perspective

Chapter 4, The Sociolinguistic dimension of code switching:
The study of codeswitching from a sociolinguistic point of view explores in particular the question why bilinguals perform codeswitching and in which situations a switch may be predictable. Although sociolinguists investigate the same questions they use different approaches in search of possible answers. In sociolinguistics, there is a basic distinction between macro-level approaches and micro-level approaches.
Macro level approaches, on the one hand, pay special attention to institutional and sociological categories which are prevalent in a linguistic community. These categories or boundaries are considered to be restricting to individual language behaviour. Accordingly, macro-level approaches explain individual language choices like code switching as derived from societal norms and structures. The individual behaviour of the interlocutors is exclusively regarded in terms of institutional, sociological categories and as a consequence of these factors.
Micro-level approaches, on the other hand, place their focus on the interlocutors of a conversation themselves and the relationship between them in order to draw conclusions on the meaning of speech behaviour.
Those linguists who apply micro-level approaches in order to explain the motivations behind codeswitching regard institutional and societal factors as insufficient or irrelevant to their goal. According to micro-level approaches it is the act of speaking itself and the speakers values and communicative needs which are expressed through it that indeed gives meaning to language choices.
The chapter continues with introducing a study applying a macro-level perspective. Joshua Fishman s domain analysis serves as an appropriate example to explain the relation between society with its norms and expectations and individual language behaviour. He establishes a theory in which he tries to explain under which conditions or for which activities bilingual

Thuy Nguyen has studied Anglophone studies and media and technology design at the University of Duisburg Essen and now works at the Technische Universität Dortmund in the field of teacher education.