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Triggered codeswitching between cognate languages*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2009

MIRJAM BROERSMA*
Affiliation:
Radboud University Nijmegen
*
Address for correspondence: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands[email protected]

Abstract

This study shows further evidence for triggered codeswitching. In natural speech from a Dutch–English bilingual, codeswitches occurred more often directly next to a cognate (or “trigger word”) than elsewhere. This evidence from typologically related, cognate languages extends previous evidence for triggering between typologically unrelated languages. With their large proportion of trigger words, the data provide insight into which words can trigger codeswitches; proper nouns, cognate content words with good and moderate form overlap, and cognate function words all induced codeswitching. Further, this study extends the evidence for triggered codeswitching from speech with relatively little codeswitching to speech with a high codeswitching density. In contrast with earlier work, not only words directly following a trigger word but also words directly preceding one were codeswitched more often than other words, suggesting that the scope of triggered codeswitching depends on the frequency of trigger words and of codeswitches in the speech.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Kees de Bot for useful discussions over the years. Thanks to Madeleine Hulsen for making her Dutch–English data available, to Laurence Bruggeman, Sybrine Bultena, Lies Cuijpers, Marieke Pompe, and Matthias Sjerps for coding the data, and to three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

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