Code mixing and code switching of Romanian-Hungarian bilingual
communities in Transylvania
Abstract
The following paper will highlight the linguistic peculiarities of bilingual communities of
Transylvania, namely the Hungarian minorities. Focus will be assigned to the phenomena of
code mixing and code switching. Given the number of distinct opinions in the linguistic
community on the phenomena, an all agreed upon definition is not yet available; thus, the
different points of view will be discussed and analyzed based on examples. The examples
given are abstracted from recorded conversations of bilingual speakers. Based on these
observations the reader of this paper should be able to construct a global image on the
phenomena.
Introduction
In linguistic settings, the usage of the term ‘bilingualism’ is starting to gain exhaustion.
Speaking more than one language has proved to be a global phenomenon. In all corners of the
world the English language has gained an impressive amount of speakers. The emergence of
the English language as a global language had a few social and linguistic consequences, one
of these being bilingualism. Automatically, in order to maintain a connection to the
industrialized and modern global system, speakers were required to be proficient in the use of
English. Such a setting instantly creates a situation in which bilingualism will emerge.
To give an example, in her book: Multiple Voices. An Introduction to bilingualism (2006),
Carol Myers-Scotton provides the reader the following portrait of a bilingual speaker: “Zhao
Min speaks two dialects of Chinese as well as English. He’s a commodity trader for a joint
venture of the government of the People’s Republic of China and an international
conglomerate. He comes from Nanjin, China, but divides his time between Beijing and Hong
Kong in China, with extended stays in Europe. He studied English as a part of his secondary
schooling and university education. Today his job demands a great deal of English; he writes
emails and has long-distance phone conversations – always in English- with his customers,
from whom English is usually a second language, too (e.g. Serbs in former Yugoslavia, now
Serbia). When he visits his family in Nanjin, he speaks his home dialect, but when he deals
with Chinese colleagues, he speaks the standard dialect of the People’s Republic of China
(formerly called Mandarin, a name some still use, but called Putonghua in the PRC). This is
the variety he speaks with his wife, who was raised in Beijing. Zhao Min has little spare time
from his job, but when he does, he often watches films, and has a huge collection of Englishlanguage movies on DVD.” (Scotton, 2006: 1)
Based on this portrait, a few observations can be made on the nature of bilingualism. First of
all, bilingualism highly depends on social and industrial requirements: social setting (his
business associates also speak English as a second language), job requirements (a trader and
international conglomerate needs to share a language with customers, international associates,
in this case English), education (Zhao Min studied English, an institutionalized variety of the
language, in a formal setting), family (due to his wife’s influence he uses a variety of the
Chinese language next to the formal one).
Secondly, the geographical area is also important: in his native area he learned a dialect of
Chinese language, due to his marriage and job he also needed to acquire fluency in Mandarin
Chinese. It can be stated that the English language has the ability to connect people for
various reasons in spite of physical distance and social background.
The last observation that can be made is the type of self-education of the bilingual in question:
watching movies in English helps develop and improve his pronunciation and vocabulary.
This type of education is different from a language learning experience in school or college,
because it takes place in an informal setting, thus, the language acquirement process is
natural.
Bilingual in Transylvania
Taken into account the above detailed portrait of a bilingual, the following generalizations can
be made when describing the portrait of a Transylvanian bilingual. Usually, the major
minority in Transylvania are Hungarians. These Hungarians are different from the Hungarians
living in Hungary, their name is ‘Szekely’ with regards to ‘Magyar’ as being the name for
Hungarians living in Hungary. Due to historical occurrences the two nations developed
different characteristics. In what follows, the description will refer to Hungarians living in
Transylvania.
Based on the famous controversy with the region of Transylvania, the social characteristics of
the people living here changed. In a relatively short period of time, the affiliation of
Transylvania to the two countries changed; this lead to changes in legislation and governing
policies. In the current case what is of importance is the change of the national language:
when Transylvania belonged to Hungary, the national language was Hungarian, when the
region belonged to Romania, the national language was Romanian. As a consequence to this
governing change, the people of Transylvania developed a highly bilingual linguistic
behavior. Currently, Transylvania belongs to Romania and the national language is
Romanian. The history of the region influenced the development of bilingual families, who
due to mixed minorities used both Romanian and Hungarian languages. The development of
these bilingual families took place in a rather natural manner, setting a road for natural
bilingualism to emerge. Speakers that originate from such naturally bilingual families usually
have the ability to code switch between their native languages. Both languages enjoy the same
level of prestige. Due to their native bilingualism, such speakers have the ability to use both
languages fluently in formal and informal settings.
Other types of bilingualism emerged also. If the prestige of the languages is taken into
consideration, two types of speakers are to be discussed. There are speakers that refuse to
speak the Romanian language because they consider it to have lower prestige than the
Hungarian language they use. This type of attitude is also an attempt to conserve national
identity and traditions through the language they speak. It is important to mention that this
identity is motivated historically.
It should be made clear that there are those speakers that refuse to speak Romanian due to the
lower prestige they associate to the language but still, they have competence in using
Romanian; and there are those speakers that even refuse to learn the language or have any
contact with it, thus not having any competence at all in the Romanian language. These types
of speakers are not bilinguals due to refusal, but because they are not isolated from the world
and because social requirements are driving more and more speakers in urban settings, their
children encounter difficulties. The national language being Romanian, these ‘children’ must
acquire competence in the language at a relatively late age for language acquisition. For these
speakers, the Romanian language is truly a foreign language that they must learn. Due to
isolation and limited contact, such speakers must become bilinguals as a social requirement.
Examples of such cases are students that move in urban areas for the purpose of higher
education. Some maintain the idea of language prestige, thus creating an attitude towards the
Romanian language; others make great efforts in acquiring competences in the use of
Romanian. Some might say that formal education needs to cover these issues, but the case
was up until recently that the Romanian language was taught in such linguistically isolated
areas, as described above, as a native language. Only recently a legislative project was put
together that suggested that the Romanian language should be taught as a foreign language to
such speakers. Even though the attempt is a step towards evolution of our civilized society,
there is still the case of an entire generation that uses currently the Romanian language with
great efforts.
Code mixing and code switching
In such cases of effort phenomena like code mixing can appear. Code switching requires a
somewhat proficiency and fluency in both languages.
Code switching enjoys a great deal of attention from sociolinguists. As opposed to code
mixing, code switching has been agreed upon as being a real linguistic phenomenon. In what
regards code mixing some might discuss its existence. Also, there has been linguistic work
that considers the use of the terms code switching and code mixing as synonymous.
In what follows, these theories, opinions will be discussed.
It is obvious that the phenomena of code switching, respectively, code mixing occurs due to
language contact. In the case discussed in the present paper, the Transylvanian RomanianHungarian language varieties spoken are of issue. As stated before, the catalyzing factors
evolve around historical and social areas. This particular phenomenon is highly governed by
geographical constraints. In other words, code mixing and code switching require a certain
historical/social solidarity.
Language contact implies the fact that two or more languages influence each other due to
social, political or historic changes. The languages in question can be different dialects of one
language that later evolve into distinct languages due to intelligibility. Thus, these contacts
can take place between different languages, different varieties of languages or between
varieties and languages.
According to Hock (1991) the natural languages will always be in some sort of contact with
each other based on different constraints: “There is always at least some contact with other
languages or dialects” (1991:380).
These contacts can be manifested on a lexical level in the form of the following phenomena:
lexical borrowing, dialect borrowing, and foreign borrowing. In what follows these
phenomena can be associated with the concept of code mixing.
Lexical borrowing is defined as “(…) the adoption of individual words or even of large sets of
vocabulary items from another language or dialect” (Hock, 1991: 380). Hock’s definition
captures the fact that borrowings could be performed between different languages and he also
introduces the idea of borrowings from different dialects. It must be mentioned that he makes
a description of dialects as being “varieties of speech which are relatively similar to each
other, whose divergences are relatively minor” (1991: 381). Language is described as being
an “ensemble of such dialects- whether they are standard or vernacular, urban or rural,
regional or supra-regional.”(1991: 381). Different languages are being defined as varieties
that “differ from each other more noticeably, whose divergences are minor.”(1991: 381).
Based on these categorizations and the cultural information available to each inhabitant of
Transylvania, a distinction can be made between the Transylvanian variety of the Romanian
language, the so called “Ardelenesc” variety and the standard institutionalized one, which is
the national language. Even though intelligibility cannot be stated as being impossible, there
are differences in the basic lexicon and accent which are to be accounted for as the result of
contact with the Hungarian language.
In the other pole of linguistic contact there is the case of the Hungarian language spoken in
Transylvania, which is greatly different from the Hungarian language spoken in Hungary.
First of all of great importance is the contact with the Romanian language which influenced
the basic lexicon and the accent of the variety. Some speakers that migrate to Hungary might
say that the Transylvanian variety of the language has developed to an extent that is has
become unintelligible with the language in Hungary, which at its own turn was in contact
historically with neighboring languages like German. With these perspectives in mind one
could state the fact that the Transylvanian variety of the institutionalized Hungarian language
has started developing into a language on its own. The variety of the Romanian language on
the other hand remains greatly intelligible with the institutionalized variety of the Romanian
language.
It could be the case that the existence of the phenomena of linguistic contact, namely code
switching and code mixing can prove to be a landmark in the development of the
Transylvanian variety of the Hungarian language as a language on its own. For now, this
remains only a speculation of a fictional scenario, only the passing of time will confirm or
infirm this statement. As for now, the following generalizations can be made in what concerns
the linguistic type of the two varieties. These generalizations use Sapir’s (Croft, 1990: 40-41)
classification of languages based on the number of morphemes, degree of alteration of
morphemes and types of dominant concepts. The Transylvanian variety of the Hungarian
language could be accounted for as being synthetic (small number of morphemes per word),
agglutinative (simple affixation as the degree of alteration of morphemes), and of the Type I
and IV (concrete and pure relational concepts). The Transylvanian variety of the Romanian
language on the other hand could be polysynthetic (large number of morphemes per word),
fusional and symbolic (considerable morphophonemic alteration and suppletion) and is of
Type I and IV (concrete and pure relational concepts). The above generalizations should be
taken with a pinch of salt because they are highly intuitive and due to considerable lack of
research on the typology of the two varieties, there is a possibility for error. Such
generalizations should require a larger amount of research data than the ones existing, but
nevertheless, these generalizations can prove to be a starting point for further typological
research. It could be the case that due to the fact that the two languages share the same type I
and IV concepts, code mixing and code switching are possible.
Also, Hock refers to borrowing as being an ‘adoption’ process which will be detailed further
on as having different stages.
Another definition of borrowing that focuses on language contact: “The borrowing of words is
the most common type of structural change that results when people speaking different
languages are in contact and some of them become bilingual” (Scotton, 2006: 231). This
defines borrowing by means of structural change. This term is not made clear by the author,
but it can be accounted for as a change that has to do with a grammatical perspective on
languages. Also, the idea must be noted that borrowings are to be one of the causes for
bilingualism. An attempt is made from the author to make a connection between structural
change and bilingualism. Further on, she does not make a difference between borrowing
lexical, grammatical structures as whole and incorporating them into speech and between
borrowing words or concepts which by some means which will be later on discussed have
been integrated into the receiving language. A suggestion could be made at this point, namely
that based on this difference in borrowing, the term code switching could be associated with
that of borrowing lexical and grammatical structures without altering them and the term code
mixing could be associated with borrowing lexical structures or concepts and altering them.
Thus, in the case of linguistic contact the manifestation of borrowings can be accounted for as
code switching and code mixing, the difference between the two terms being the degree of
integration that ranges from integrating lexical structures without altering them to integrating
lexical structures, concepts by different means. Thus, there can be made a difference between
‘unmodified adoption’ and adaptation. This difference was surprised by Hock in the following
statement: “In the various nativization processes one can recognize two recurrent routines.
One of these consists in the unmodified adoption of foreign words and their morphology
and/or phonology. In such cases nativization results only slowly and most grudgingly. The
other approach, with different sub-routines, can be more properly called nativization, in that it
attempts to integrate borrowed words, their morphology, and their phonology into the
structure of the borrowing language: adaptation.”(1991: 408).
As a final observation it could be stated that the implication of the terms ‘linguistic contact’
include the manifestation of the terms code switching and code mixing, and the implication of
the terms code switching includes the manifestation of the terms lexical borrowing, the
implication of the term code mixing includes the implication of the terms lexical borrowing
which in its turn includes the processes of nativization.
In what follows the processes of nativization the following differentiations can be made:
phonological nativization and lexical nativization.
Phonological nativization accounts for this process with the following statement made by
Hock (1991: 390): “in order to be usable in the borrowing language, loans must first and
foremost be ‘pronounceable’ “. This denotes the fact that due to different sound systems
borrowings must succumb to a phonological nativization change which will allow the
speakers of the borrowing language to use the borrowings with ease. An example of the sort is
the name of the famous Transylvanian drink which in Romanian is named ‘pălincă’ and in
Hungarian ‘pálinka’. These examples are not taken from the institutionalized variety of the
two languages. They are taken from the varieties spoken in Transylvania. The term in the
phonology of the Romanian language succumbs to the specific Romanian sounds, more
specifically ‘ă’. In the Hungarian phonological system it denotes specific Hungarian sounds
like ‘á’. As a consequence at a first glance it can be observed that one of the terms has been
borrowed. As to which language is the donor language and which one is the borrowing
language a broader discussion needs to be started which requires diachronic evidence on the
phenomena. Synchronically, the existence of these terms cannot be accounted for. In this
example it is obvious that phonological nativization took place through spelling. Also, an
observation needs to be made of the fact that the number of syllables in the two terms is the
same. This observation would be in concordance with Hock’s following statement: “(…)
many languages nativize foreign borrowings such that they conform to native restrictions on
word or syllable structure” (1991: 394).
Another example is phonetical nativization is the borrowing from English to Hungarian of the
word ‘quiz’. This term is spelled in the following manner ‘kviz’. This borrowing exists in the
institutionalized variety of the Hungarian language. Another borrowing from the area of
computer science is the English term ‘mouse’ which is nativized with the following spelling:
‘mauz’. Interestingly, Romanian borrowings from English have a tendency to maintain the
spelling and pronunciation of the term in the donor language: mouse, management, leasing,
computer, etc.
Lexical nativization is a process which implies changes in the lexicon of a language. The
following processes can engage in lexical nativization: loan shifts, calques. Loan shifts are
defined by Hock (1991: 397) with the following definition: “These arise from a shift in
meaning of an established native word, so as to accommodate the meaning of a foreign word.
(…) That is, a foreign concept is borrowed without its corresponding linguistic form and
without the introduction of a new word into the borrowing language”.
Calque is defined by Hock (1991: 399) as: “This process consists in translating
morphologically complex foreign expressions by means of novel combinations of native
elements which match the meanings and structure of the foreign expressions and their
component parts.” An example is the term borrowed from English ‘skyscraper’. In Romanian
the term was calqued as ‘zgârie-nori’ – ‘cloud scratcher’; in Hungarian it was calqued as
‘felhőkarcoló’ – ‘cloud scraper’.
These processes will further on be useful in differentiating code mixing from code switching.
According to Hock (1991:408) there are several motivations for borrowings: need and
prestige. Scotton (2006: 210) also agrees on prestige as being a motivation for lexical
borrowing, but she defines prestige as “there is something more ‘attractive’ about that
language”. There is another motivation given by Scotton: “innately based language universals
push speakers in certain directions”. She motivates this statement by claiming that in most
languages nouns are the ones that are being borrowed, and thus, this denotes a common
‘universal basis’ for languages. Even though this could very much be the case, it implies the
fact that languages borrow from each other based on a universal basis, whereas the existence
of such universals would imply the fact that every natural language has them in common.
From this perspective Scotton’s motivation is somewhat invalid, from another perspective it
could be the case that borrowings themselves are universal processes which every natural
language uses to enrich their vocabulary according to social, industrial needs. Thus, what is to
be regarded as a certain motivation for borrowing is the need for it. Prestige, on the other hand
is somewhat of a different type of motivation, because it implies a unified opinion of speakers
on what regards the status of a language. It is a sociolinguistic feature, whereas need does not
imply a subjective involvement of speakers, but an objective linguistic, social need.
Hock makes a difference between the two phenomena: code switching and code mixing.
According to him, code switching is a response of language contact: “One common response,
found especially in persons who are fluently bilingual, consists in switching back and forth
between the coexisting languages, such that portions of a given sentence or utterance are in
one language, other parts in another language.” (1991: 479). Hock also details the fact that
code switching tends to be limited by syntax and morphology, and it will take place at ‘major
syntactic boundaries’. This assertion implies the fact that code switching is highly dependent
on phrase structure and word order. This would explain why often Hungarian language
natives fail to use proper word order when using the Romanian language. The Romanian
language has a Noun Adjective order, while the Hungarian language has an Adjective Noun
order. Thus, the order of the terms in Romanian will succumb to the word order from
Hungarian. This would explain why terms like the following do not seem to be ‘natural’ even
though they are grammatical: ‘roşu (adj.) gard(n.), muraţi (adj.) castraveţi (n.), negru (adj.)
gard (n.). etc. This phenomenon was believed to be a wrong instinctual use of language, but as
the above explanation shows, it has to do with the use of word order. As a consequence, it can
be stated that word order will highly influence speaker’s fluency and grammaticality.
Compared to the definitions given above, Hock restricts code switching to bilingualism and
fluency. Although, by no means is possible an objective measurement system for grading
fluency, usually and practically intelligibility and correct grammaticality has been used to
determine whether a person is fluent in a language. It would be somewhat safer to say that for
sure, code switching will emerge in specific social contexts in native bilinguals. Thus,
bilingualism would certainly be a sociolinguistic requirement for the manifestation of code
switching.
Scotton (2006: 234) defines code switching in the following manner: “The elements that make
a clause bilingual may be actual surface level words from two languages. This is called
codeswitching.” If the above given definitions are taken into consideration on what code
switching is, then what actually defines Scotton is not code switching, it is code mixing. In
what follows she associates the phenomenon of convergence with bilingual speech which has
two languages as the underlying structure of a clause. In other words, one language provides
abstract rules and not actual words. To shed some light on the phenomenon Hock gives the
following definition for convergence: “the increasing agreement of languages not only in
terms of vocabulary, but especially in regard to features of their overall structure.” (1991:
492). These definitions give the necessary amount of information to be able to differentiate
convergence from other phenomena.
In the case of code mixing the following definition is given by Hock (1991: 480): “while code
switching takes place on a syntactic level, code mixing appears to be a lexical phenomenon.
(…) Code mixing consists of the insertion of ‘content words’ from one language into the
grammatical structure of another.”
Scotton gives the Matrix Language Frame as a means to analyze the phenomenon. This
method of analysis consists of identifying one of the languages present in bilingual speech as
being the Matrix language which builds the frame of the speech, while the other language is
the Embedded Language - the other participating language (Scotton, 2006: 243). This
identification is based on separating the morphemes present in bilingual speech into two
distinct categories: content morphemes and system morphemes.
Scotton defines content morphemes by the following: “Content morphemes are those that
either assign or receive theta roles. (…) They are basically semantic roles. But they are
semantic in the sense that they refer to such relations within the sentence as whether a noun is
an Agent or a Patient of the verb.” (2006: 245) She provides the following example: the verb
‘give’ subcategorizes for three thematic roles, an Agent, a Patient, a Beneficiary. Discourse
markers are also considered content morphemes at “the discourse level”. Scotton motivates
this claim with the idea that discourse markers like ‘therefore’, ‘so’, ‘but’, limit the
constitution of what follows after them. She refers to this aspect as discourse level thematic
roles.
System morphemes do not assign or receive thematic roles. According to Scotton system
morphemes are all affixes and some functional words (e.g. determiners and clitics).
This analysis method can be used only in the case of bilingual speech where the two
languages do not participate equally in the production of speech, thus one of the languages
supplies the morphosyntactic frame. The other language is identified as the Embedded
Language. Thus content morphemes can be identified as the elements of the Matrix Language,
the system morphemes can be identified as the elements of the Embedded Language.
Also, Scotton gives the following principle to sustain the difference between the two types of
languages: “In mixed constituents of at least one Embedded Language word and any number
of Matrix Language morphemes, surface word (and morpheme) word order will be that of the
Matrix Language.” (2006: 244). Thus word order could also be explained by the identification
of the Matrix Language, respectively that of the Embedded Language.
An extension of the Matrix Language Frame analysis model is the 4-M model which does not
change anything to the MLF model but continues it in making a categorization into four
different types of morphemes.
System morphemes are splitted into three types. The morphemes categorized in this model are
defined as conceptually activated. This means that a speaker’s pre-linguistic intentions
activate them. This level is called the mental lexicon level. This level consists of elements
called ‘lemma’ which is the name for the abstract elements that underlie actual surface-level
morphemes. These lemmas contain necessary information to produce surface level forms.
These are called early system morphemes because their early activation in the language
production process e.g. plural markings, the definite article ‘the’, the indefinite article ‘a’,’an’.
Late system morphemes are activated at a later production level. At this level there is the
formulator which receives directions from lemmas in the mental lexicon. These are bridge
system morphemes, which occur between phrases that make up a larger constituent, e.g. the
possessive noun and the element that is possessed.
Outsider system morphemes: the presence and form of an outsider depends on information
that is outside the element with which it occurs. These outsider morphemes must come from
the Matrix Language (Scotton, 2006: 267).
It must be noted that Scotton does not make a difference between the use of the terms code
switching and code mixing. Moreover, she does not use the term code mixing at all. If the
definition given above by Hock in what regards code switching and code mixing is concerned,
what Scotton refers to as code switching is in fact code mixing, thus the Language Matrix
Frame being a suitable tool for the analysis of code mixing and not code switching.
Case study
In what follows, proper cases of Romanian-Hungarian code switching and code mixing will
be analyzed. The recordings were made in Transylvania in the county of Harghita. The
population of this county is highly bilingual, thus frequent examples of language contact can
be noted. The participants in the conversations are natural bilinguals of Romanian and
Hungarian language. Some have acquired bilingualism due to marriage, thus, these mixed
families prove to be a suitable and productive setting for native bilingualism of the children
growing up in such bilingual settings. Usually the language acquiring mechanism is done in
an informal setting, but it is also encouraged by formal education.
The following section will focus in applying the above discussed issues to ‘real’ life
conversations. The examples given are clips from dialogues taking place in an informal
setting. The participants shared close relations with each other. The clippings were selected
according to the encounter of code switching and code mixing phenomenon. The
conversations were transcribed and the peculiarities of the oral discourse were not maintained
because in this case they are not relevant. A spelling was used which is common to
transcriptions, thus, there are no diacritics or punctuation marks.
The participants are kept in anonymity, thus their contribution is noted with a capital letter.
Words belonging to one language or the other are marked in brackets: (ro.), (hu.). Also,
longer periods of mixed language are noted with [ro.], respectively [hu.].The type of
morpheme will be mentioned below each word. Content morphemes will be noted with the
abbreviation cont., system morphemes with the abbreviation syst.
Clip 1:
B: <ma L.>
ma
orsisi une
[ro.] you(interj.) L
you(interj.)
any
dapoi asta-i
asta-i
coptsila
meri
where go-2SG
coptsila
asta
child(girl)
this
asa
lucra
well
this-3SGf. is this-3SGf. is child(girl)
like(comp. adj.)
worked
ca
un
baiet
meg
vele
a
kerteltem
en
like
a
boy
[hu.]and
with2SG
the
fenc(vb.)1SG I
vele
with2SG
This part of the clip is spoken in the Romanian language. The speaker gives a quote of
someone who spoke of her in Romanian. To note the fact that Romanian word order is used,
the noun, adjective, pronoun accords are expressed by inflections and they are used
grammatically. Main word order would appear to be VSO. Up to this point, there isn’t any
mixture of the two languages. From this point on, the speaker starts using the Hungarian
language. A probable reason for this is the fact that the narrator begins introducing personal
opinion and her own memories on the facts. At this point it is safe to say that the speaker’s
native language is Hungarian and that when faced with a familial informal setting this
language will be used.
hegyre
vele
kaszalni
vele
takarni
vele
mountain(on) with2SG
cut grass
with2SG
make hay
with2SG
szenaert
vele
mindenfelit
after hay
with2SG
everything
mindenfelit
na
aztan azutan votak
keresztanyamtol
everything
well
then
godmother-(from)pos.1SG
megvette
edesapam
bought-3SG
sweetfather-1SGpos. the
after
were3PL
a
tehent egy
tehent s
cow
cow
a
and
akkor a
tehen megbornyuzott
s
az
ket
evre
then
cow
and
that
two
years(past)
the
gave birth3SG
lett
egy
jo
tino
belole
s
akkor
become(future)
a
good
cow(masc.)
from-3SG
and
then
minja
volt
marhank
soon(fast)
was
cow-1PLpos. aaa
gestant
vett
szerelt
akkor edesapam
then
ize::: jarhas
sweetfather-1SGpos. bought
marhank
s
cow-1PLpos. and
managed to get
szekeret
meg
ize
csinalta
fata
lu
maria
cart
and
aaa
made(it)
(ro.)girl
of-3SGpos.m. maria
The speaker continues to narrate using the Hungarian language. Word order employed is that
of the Hungarian language: NG, AN, also the main word order is that of SVO. By the end of
the clip the speaker uses a sequence of words in Romanian to refer to a Romanian person.
This is in concordance with the above observations; the speaker uses Hungarian to refer to
close family relations and happenings and uses Romanian to refer to happenings outside the
family circle. Thus a conclusion can be drawn, that is, in family circles the Hungarian
language was used when growing up and later in life. This is the reason why memories of
close family relations, adventures will be related in Hungarian. It also must be noted that the
interlocutor of the speaker knew both the Hungarian and the Romanian language. At this
point, based on this example, a few generalizations can be made on what concerns the
phenomena of code switching.
This Clip is surely a manifestation of code switching because it is a bilingual speech, where
grammatically speaking elements from both languages appear with different purposes in
mind. The section in Romanian is not simply the use of the language grammatically or a
choice made because of a lack of alternatives. This section engraves an attitude that the
speaker has towards past happenings. Based on these observations, code switching can prove
to be a useful tool to create the profile of the speaker. Code switching also requires fluency in
both languages, fluency that for the sake of simplification will be reduced to grammaticality
and intelligibility.
Clip 2
B: pocsoja
volt
mlastina
ott
aje
a
fel
kellett
water pond
was
(ro.)swamp
there
(…)
the
up
must-past
ajjal
protapra
a
szekerre elol
ide
s
cart-on in front
here
and
a
stand the
a
(ro.)wood-on the
ugy
hajcsad
a
like
go(order)2SG the
izere
something-on the
marhakot
me
nem
tudtal menni
cow-PL
because
not
can
go
Clip 2 is a narration spoken mostly in Hungarian. It only has two mixtures of words from
Romanian. The speaker uses these probably for a lack of term in the Hungarian language.
This could be considered a case of code mixing because the words from Romanian are mixed
into the Hungarian grammatical structures. To note that these are nouns inserted after verbs.
They act like objects, thus the word order SVO is employed. The second term ‘protap’ is
given a location suffix, which integrates the word into the grammatical structure of the
sentence, thus the preposition from Romanian is dropped ‘pe’. There is an attempt to level the
mix with the use of the term ‘izere’ which is term referring to general things. The first
inserted term is not altered in any way; it acts as a description term for the setting. The use of
this term and not another could be motivated by native language use. Thus, the term
‘mlastina’ was internalized after the ability to construct an internal grammar of the native
language.
It should be safe to say that this Clip is an example of code mixing. If this is the case the
Language Matrix Frame analysis should be possible. As a consequence, to the analysis,
content morphemes and the system morphemes originate from the Hungarian language. Thus
it is safe to say that the Matrix language is the Hungarian language and the Embedded
Language is the Romanian language. Even though the contact is limited, it is somewhat
obvious that this should be the case.
Conclusions and further discussion
This paper was an attempt to define code mixing and code switching. The idea arouse because
there isn’t a univocal definition of these two phenomena that are obviously different from
each other. With the help of bilingualism, code switching was defined as the shift of
grammatical structures or sentences without their alteration. Code mixing was defined as a
mixture of grammatical elements of two languages. These phenomena are not institutionalized
and they usually take place in a small number of cases. In this case it could be stated that the
phenomena appeared due to social, historical, political changes, which lead mixed families to
assign the Hungarian and the Romanian language equal prestige.
Another important issue is the sociolinguistic considerations. As stated above, the phenomena
can prove to be an important resource for creating the linguistic behavior profile of a bilingual
speaker.
As a closing conclusion, it is possible that code mixing and code switching are used by
speakers to maintain and create their social, national identity. It can also prove to be a means
to maintain traditions specific to each nation.
As further discussion, it is important to state that speakers need to have the freedom to speak
and learn the language they desire. It is also important to understand that speakers who have a
single language as their native language will be influenced future on in acquiring a second
language by their native one. Thus, second language learning needs to be done in regards to
the native language and with the idea in mind that the second language due to more limited
contact will remain a foreign language. This influence is clearly visible in the case of code
mixing, and the dominating language which embeds the second language.
The phenomenon of code switching and code mixing is a truly interesting one, proving once
again that the human mind is capable of amazing performances.
References
Croft, W. (1990) Typology and Universals. The Bath Press, Avon.
Hock, H (1991) Principles of Historical Linguistics. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
Myers-Scotton, C (2006) Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism. Blackwell
Publishing, Cornwall.
Marton Eva-Carmen
PHD student
University “Babes-Bolyai”, Faculty of Letters
Cluj-Napoca, 2012