6. Two speakers, one dialogue: An interactive alignment perspective on code-switching in bilingual speakers

Abstract

In code-switching research, a distinction can be made between approaches that focus on linguistic and cognitive variables within single individuals and approaches that emphasize processes between individuals and the social and interactive context. These approaches differ in terms of both theory and methodology, and are difficult to integrate. In this chapter, we build on recent theoretical developments in psycholinguistics and propose a model of interactive alignment in code-switching. The model takes dialogue as the basic unit of analysis and interactive alignment as the main cognitive mechanism underlying regularities at both the individual and social level of processing. Along with the confederate-scripting technique as the central method to test its assumptions, we suggest that this interactive alignment model provides a way to integrate different approaches to code-switching in terms of both theory and methodology.

Triggered codeswitching: Lexical processing and conversational dynamics

“…Fifth, as listening and speaking involve the same mental lexicon (e.g., Cutler, 2012;Levelt et al, 1999;Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler & Studdert-Kennedy, 1967), hearing a cognate might affect the level of activation of language subsets in a similar way as producing one. Studies on SYNTACTIC priming show that perceived speech affects produced speech, both monolingually (Konopka & Meyer, 2014;Pickering & Ferreira, 2008) and crosslinguistically (Hartsuiker & Bernolet, 2017;Hartsuiker, Pickering & Veltkamp, 2004;Kootstra & Doedens, 2016;Kootstra, Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2009;Loebell & Bock, 2003). The tendency to codeswitch (Fricke & Kootstra, 2016) and the word order in codeswitched utterances (Kootstra, Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2010) are also subject to between-speaker priming.…”

Syntactic alignment and shared word order in code-switched sentence production: Evidence from bilingual monologue and dialogue

“…Research on bilingual language processing has shown that elements from bilinguals' two languages can be coactivated at all levels of processing and thus influence language production and comprehension (e.g., Kootstra, van Hell, & Dijkstra, 2009;Kroll, Bobb, & Wodniecka, 2006). Because code-switching involves the combined use of these co-activated languages in one sentence, it will probably be easiest to switch when the level of this co-activation is very high.…”

“…At the same time, by leaving participants free to generate the structure and positioning of their switches themselves, we stayed relatively close to corpus-based studies of code-switching. This embedding of relatively free code-switching in an experimentally controlled setting is a way to bridge the gap between linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches to the study of code-switching (see Gullberg et al, 2009;Kootstra et al, 2009, for further discussion).…”

“…This hypothesis is based on evidence presented in, for example, Kroll et al (2006) and Kootstra et al (2009) that languages can in principle be co-activated at all levels of processing, which suggests that language processing in bilinguals is based on an interactive processing system. This interactivity of the processing system is exactly what is also assumed in the interactive alignment model.…”

A psycholinguistic perspective on code-switching: Lexical, structural, and socio-interactive processes

“…de Bot, Broersma, Kootstra et al 2009, for reviews). de Bot, Broersma, Kootstra et al 2009, for reviews).…”