Code-switching in the context of dialect/standard language relations

Bilingual advantage and language switch: What's the linkage?

“…We have assumed that speaking Italian dialects and Italian is in all respects equivalent to speaking two languages (e.g., English-French). Linguists proposed this equivalence primarily on the basis of the intelligibility criterion (Berruto, 1997;Giacalone Ramat, 1995;Mioni & Arnuzzo Lansweert, 1979;Savoia, 1997), according to which distinct languages are mutually unintelligible. To the extent that Italian dialects and Italian are unintelligible, they should be considered as distinct languages.…”

“…Despite these definitional difficulties, dialects typically share some common features, including the lack of an established written tradition and formal linguistic education (Auer, 2005). This holds true for Italian dialects, a variety of Romance languages each spoken in distinct Italian regions (Giacalone Ramat, 1995;Maiden, 1995;Mioni & Arnuzzo Lansweert, 1979;Savoia, 1997). Written texts are predominantly in Italian, which is also the subject of formal linguistic education.…”

“…Comparable degrees of unintelligibility exist between dialects and Italian, historically based on the Florentine dialect. The structural differences between Italian and dialects have been regarded as similar in scale to those between Italian and other genetically related languages (e.g., Spanish), which led researchers to equate the experience of Italiandialect speakers to that of bilinguals (Berruto, 1997;Giacalone Ramat, 1995). Differences among dialects, as well as between dialects and Italian, are not limited to the lexicon, expanding to syntax and phonology.…”

“…Diachronically, this process of word borrowing and phonological adjustment has permitted a continuous enrichment of the Venetian lexicon. Crucially, it also enables individual speakers to carry out conversations on every topic entirely in Venetian, which in turn engenders an appreciable amount of overlap between Venetian and Italian (Berruto, 1997;Giacalone Ramat, 1995). Diglossia, which implies a dichotomization between high and low language registers (Ferguson, 1959), has been viewed as inadequate for fully describing this situation.…”

“…Asked how often they used dialect in a public office, in class or with lecturers, or when addressing a stranger ("never," "rarely," "sometimes," "often," or "regularly") 87% of them indicated "never." The demographics and characteristics of Italian-dialect use constrain the typology and frequency of language switching (Alfonzetti, 1998;Berruto, 1997;Giacalone Ramat, 1995). While Italian-to-dialect switching is virtually impossible in settings where only Italian is allowed (e.g., public contexts), it is further limited to circumstances in which interlocutors are dialect speakers, themselves forming a minority linguistic community.…”