Code-switching between Arabic and English during Jordanian GP consultations

Abstract

This study draws conceptually on communication accommodation theory (CAT) to describe and analyze conversations between doctors and patients to identify the psycholinguistic and social motivations for code-switching (CS) between English and Arabic languages during medical consultations in Jordan. The researchers employ a thematic qualitative approach to interpret the phenomena under study. GP doctors (n=9) and patients (n=18) were observed and video-recorded in real medical settings and subsequently interviewed. This generated a comprehensive audio and videotaped corpus of data, which revealed that doctors and patients used code-switching during the medical consultation for two main reasons: 1) filling lexical gaps and 2) accommodating the other party. Jordanian bilingual doctors code-switched from English to Arabic and from Arabic to English to bridge lexical gaps, while both doctors and patients adapted their speech styles for the purpose of convergence. This study is significant as it investigates and examines the phenomenon of code-switching among Jordanian doctors and patients from psycholinguistic and social perspectives to gain a clearly defined sociolinguistic explanation of code-switching phenomena during their clinical interaction.