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By A S BISHTAWI
The persistent
question confronting students of sociolinguistics is whether
code-switching is governed by rule or constrained by convention.
This essay addresses itself to this problem by looking into certain
aspects of the communicative behaviour of a group of Lebanese
bilinguals in a London environment before discussing the impact left
by a continuing civil war on certain speech characteristics of
Christian and Muslim communities who sought in linguistic
distinctiveness a natural extension of their divergent political
views.
Throughout this essay both "bilingual" and "multilingual" are used
indiscriminately to mean individuals with more than one speech code
at their disposal. "Community", unless specified, is used to
encompass all Lebanese, while "neutral" is proposed to mean any
environment unaffected directly by the Lebanese conflict such as an
office in London where a large number of Lebanese are employed.
Certain aspects of bilingualism involving Arabic are dealt with by
Ferguson (1959, 1970), Andrzejewski (1963) and others. Studies of
special interest include those discussed by Fishman (1965), Sankoff
(1971), Hymes (1971), Bell (1976), Lambert (1967), Lyons (1970), and
Pride (1970).
The Open Question
Analyzing multilingual settings, Fishman found it clear "that
habitual language choice in multilingual speech communities or
speech networks is far from being a random matter of momentary
inclination... 'Proper' usage dictates that only one of the
theoretically co-available languages or varieties will be
chosen by particular classes of interlocutors on particular
kinds of occasions to discuss particular kinds of topics."1
Sankoff, on the other hand, arrives at the conclusion that
"multi-code situations often appear to be marked by extremely
frequent and rapid switching which, to put it bluntly, defies
explanation, if by explanation one means accounting for every
switch."2
The dilemma here is obvious. If one were to assert that
code-switching is rule-governed, one must be in possession of the
necessary data to define every rule and account for every switch.
If, on the other hand, one were able to account for certain switches
and not others, the moot question is whether incomplete data
gathering and methods of analysis are responsible for such partial
interpretation, or whether answers to all questions are impossible
because the subject dealt with, i.e. human behaviour, is impossible
to interpret fully under any circumstances, and will remain so until
means of interpretation reach a degree of sophistication and
precision unavailable as yet.
Pride observes that "the large-scale sociolinguistics survey might
appear bound to accept the possibility and importance of
predictability, in order to present objectively verifiable results
valid for a wide community; but this is an open question."3
Other sociolinguists, conscious, like Pride, of the inconclusiveness
of the situation, found it necessary to suggest an "assertion which
emphasized probability with such words as 'normally, and 'usually',
or phrases such as 'tends to' and 'the majority of speakers'.4
Code-switching
Qualified emphasis is particularity useful in attempting to
interpret certain aspects of the communicative behaviour of any
speech-community, but more so of complex social and linguistic
structures such are the ones in Lebanon where over 4 million people
form intricate societies with highly complex repertoires. Many speak
Arabic, English and French, but there are other minorities who
control additional codes like Armenians, Jews, Kurds and Assyrians.
Consider the following transcription of a communicative encounter in
a London newspaper office between a young Lebanese Sunni (B)
travelling to Paris the following morning, and a young Lebanese Shia
woman (A) trying to find out if she will have enough time to buy a
personal organizer called "Filofax" for him to take to a woman
friend she knows in Paris. The conversation is conducted in the
presence of (C) who does not interfere:5
01 A: Ai sa'a tayyartak? (What time is your plane?)
02 B: Ma fi tayyara, train. (No plane )
03 A: Sahih btakhid ittrain? (Is it true you'll take a train?)
04 B: Aeh. (Yes)
05 A: Leih? (Why?)
06 B: Leih? Bkhaf min attyarah, maleish. (Why? I'm afraid of planes,
it is so.)
07 A: La, hueh arkhas 'ala kul hal, mahek? (No, it is cheaper
anyway, is it not?)
08 B: Arkhas, aeh. (Yes, cheaper.)
09 A: Tayyeb hallaq bjareb iza l'shieh- inteh mttawel hown? (All
right, I'll try if until the evening. will you be late here?)
10 B: Al yom heyitni mttawel. (Today it appears I'll be late).
11 A: Iza bilha' ba'd addhr jiba. (If I'll manage to get it in the
afternoon.)
12 B: Min wain biddik tjibiya? (Where will you get it from?)
13 A: Ma ba'ref ma bidi rouh 'and Harrods. (I don't know, I have to
go to Harrods)
14 B: Fi bi Leicester Square mahalat. (There are shops in Leicester
Square.)
15 A: La bas hiyi li anno it's the latest model. (No, but it is
because etc.)
16 B: Shoo latest model yani? (What does latest model mean)?
17 A: Ma hini kul sana fdtalaoo shi jdeed wa hiyeh baa'titli very
specific 18 details. Iza idirit anti hoon la shi assaa'
saba'?
(Every year they produce something new and she has sent me etc. If I
can. Are you here until 7 o'clock?)
19 B: Ayeh. Ba'dain hadiki issit assa'udi Investment Company ma sar
shi. 20 abadan le anou azzalami al mafrood ybiani al maalomat
inshahat. 21 Tallatelik bi references ali anna ma fi shi.
(It is so. And about the story of the Saudi Investment Company-
nothing happened at all because the man who was supposed to sell me
the information was fired. I have looked at the references we have
but there's nothing.)
22 B: Ma hini it's very small. (They- etc.)
23 A: Fiki titalaii bel Who's Who in the Arab World. I think
they're
24 registered in Jersey. This is why it's very tough to get
information 25 about them.
(You can look it up etc.)
26 A: Jersey America?
27 B: Jersey hhad Guernsey. C'est un paradis fiscal.
(The Jersey near Guernsey. It's a tax haven.)
28 A: C'est un paradis fiscal comment?
(A tax haven, in what sense?)
29 B: Comme le Luxembourg, comme Antigua. bitsajli sharekeh
ma fi hada 30 fi yaref a'na shi la el profits la el
capital. Innas behitto fiha 31 hsabat pour l'evasion fiscale.
(Like Luxembourg, like Antigua. You register a company and nobody
can know anything about its profits or capital. People open there
accounts to avoid paying taxes.)
32 A: Evasion fiscale! Tayyeb, merci.
(Tax evasion! O.K. then, thank you).
The above is a communicative event6
whose basic parameters are already known. A and B are in their
mid-twenties; both are university graduates, and both are
journalists with Arabic as their mother tongue. The topic is
informal, and it is evident that both have an appropriate level of
competence7
of the three languages involved.
SPEECH AND SITUATIONAL CONSTRAINTS
8
Participants ------- Interact with Interact with
Topics --------- Interact with ---------- Settings
English sandwich words and English code switching are mostly
dictated by setting (London), and topic. A phrase like "very
specific details" (lines 17, 18) is "handier" in this context than
labouring for the Arabic equivalent. The "triggering" of French
(line 27) is significant because the available data on participants,
topic and setting are not enough to provide an explanation.
Questioning A about its likely reasons proved equally unfruitful.
We suggest three possibilities:
a) Assistance: Having discovered that A is not exactly
sure where Jersey is, B tries to illustrate one important function
of the Island by trying to draw her attention to the fact that it is
a tax heaven. Just before doing so, he decides switching to French
may be more appropriate because she stands a better chance of
understanding the term.
b) Rivalry: B, as a member of the Sunni
Community, the second most important politically and economically in
Lebanon after the Christians and therefore an equal challenge by the
Shia who are trying to gain more influence from both, decides to
drive the point that he is better educated not simply by using a
specialised term she most probably does not know, by also by using
it in a code (French) she claims to know extremely well.
c) Resentment: Although B explains he is taking
the train because he fears flying, A, nevertheless, suggests he is
doing so because the train is cheaper (line 7). B becomes resentful
at the implied accusation of misery, particularly in front of C, and
seeking to protect his interests as a Sunni, and possibly as a male,
he initiates verbal planning to respond to the insult by employing a
financial term he pre-judged she would not understand, thus exposing
her limited education.
But while one, a combination, or none of the above suggestions may
or may not be applicable in this case, it is not always guaranteed
that a more detailed analysis of the parameters and variables
involved will alone produce more accurate results since some of the
clues must to be provided by the participants who may be either
unaware of any "true" reasons or have an interest in providing
misleading information. The task may be further complicated by extra
social and psychological influences absorbed during the process of
learning a foreign language. This is explained by Lambert when he
points out that "the whole process of becoming bilingual can be
expected to involve major conflicts of values and allegiances, and
bilinguals could make various types of adjustments to the bicultural
demands made on them."9
Psychological constraints are treated by Bell (1976) as the second
type of rule for code-switching. The first are "sociolinguistics
rules which would match linguistic choices with social constraints,
at the micro level of individual use or the macro level of national
language choice and psycholinguistic rules which would relate
choice to psychological constraints, inherent in the verbal planning
which precedes speech."10
The communicative encounter cited above is an example of
code-switching involving different languages. An Arab newspaper
editor who starts an editorial meeting using formal Arabic; switches
to "semiformal"11
code to warn heads of sections against causing the newspaper to be
banned for no good reason, and tells a joke in informal code to
diffuse the mounting tension created by his warning, is an example
of monolingual code-switching, and so would be the constrained
selection of variations of particular dialects and styles. Such
selections are a "matter of degree rather than of kind; monolingual
style-switching and bilingual language-switching are quantitatively
rather qualitatively different."12
Code-shifting
One important feature of the above conversation is the consistency
by both participants to use what may be generally described as
"Arabic Beiruti dialect" despite the fact that both produce
materials in standard Arabic.13
Should A and B have been joined by a third participants, say a
Maronite from East Beirut, more French would have been used, but the
"base" code will most probably remain the same type of dialect. If
the same topic were to have been discussed by two Maronites the base
code would be French (judging by conversations frequently overheard
between members of the same community) with the "appropriate"
switching to Beiruti dialect and English, depending on the
particular constraints that may be in play.
French has been second language to a majority of Christians since
the early 1920s. The civil war that began in 1974 set Muslims
against Christians in a vicious conflict over the re-allocation of
national wealth and political power, in addition to several other
local, inter-Arab and international factors. Loyalty and closer
political and cultural identification with France, the Christians'
staunch supporter, were instrumental in the progressive selection of
French in social, informal and certain educational domains where
textbooks, originally in Arabic, have been rewritten in French. It
must be stated, however, that such code-shifting has affected
sections of the Christian community more than others, depending on
variables of locality, age, education, involvement in the conflict
and how they feel towards France14.
But if this code-shift was born out of loyalty and
identification to France, it may seem natural that disloyalty and
resentment of their Muslim, and therefore Arabic speaking, opponents
were instrumental in precipitating the simultaneous gradual
de-selection of Arabic.
At he same time the Shia, the majority of Muslims, were increasing
the selection of Arabic to emphasize an opposing distinctiveness,
and to express closer religious and linguistic identification with
their Syrian and Iranian supporters, while decreasing the selection
of the code of their Christian and French adversaries. This,
however, was not the only reason. Prior to the eruption of the civil
war speaking French was necessary to work for and conduct business
with the Christians who dominated the economic scene. When this base
was largely destroyed, French ceased to be that important.
Meanwhile, job opportunities were sought in the Gulf countries that
were embarking on massive infrastructure projects. The need for
increased acceptability by the new employers did not just involve
increased code-shifting to Arabic by the vast numbers of Lebanese
Muslims who went there, but also the progressive selection of
English, spoken widely in the Gulf. A combination of these and other
factors caused the Muslim dominated West Beirut to adopt English as
a second language.15
We have looked at aspects of Lebanese communicative behaviour and
sought to specify, through the examples discussed, some of the
dynamic situational constraints that may influence code-switching
and code-shifting. In doing so only "assertion which emphasizes
probability" was possible. The absence of total predictability of
verbal behaviour appear to reflect, in all but the most artificial
or structured ones, not just the deficiency of the available data
and the methods of analysis but also the unpredictability of human
behaviour at large.
Footnotes
1-Fishman,
J. A. (1965) The Relationship between Micro-and
Macro-Sociolinguistics in the Study of Who Speaks What Language to
Whom and When. In Pride, J.B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.)
Sociolinguistics, Penguin. p 15.
2-Sankoff, G
(1971) Language Use in Multilingual Societies: Some Alternative
Approaches. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.) (1972).
Sociolinguistics. Penguin. p 36.
3-Pride, J.B.
(1970) Sociolinguistics. In Lyons, John (ed.) (1970). New
Horizons in Linguistics (1). Penguin. p 292.
4-Bell, R
Lecture on Code Switching (1); Constraints on speech-communities,
choice, switch and shift.
5-Several
Lebanese, including the two interlocutors, were informed two months
earlier that there was a possibility of recording selected
conversations limited research purposes. A tape-recorder at the desk
where this particular conversation took place is used most of the
day to take copy from correspondents.
6-speech
situation has been illustrated as a party, while conversation at
the party is a speech event, and a joke with the conversation
a speech act. See Lyons, John, Coates, Richard, Deuchar,
Margaret, Gazdar, Gerald (eds.) (1970). New Horizons in
Linguistics (2). Penguin. p 280.
7-"Linguistic
competence," Hymes says, "is understood as concerned with the tacit
knowledge of language structure, that is, knowledge that is commonly
not conscious or available for spontaneous report, but necessarily
implicit in what the (ideal) speaker-listener can say." Hymes, D. H.
On Communicative Competence (1971). In Pride, J. B. & Holmes,
Janet (eds.) Sociolinguistics. Penguin. p 271.
8-After Bell, R
topic 8. Other factors suggested by Jakobson (1960) and Hymes (1962)
include channel, message form, mood or tone and intentions and
effects. See Pride, J. B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.) (1972).
Sociolinguistics. Penguin. p 35.
9-Lambert, W. E
(1967) A Social Psychology of Bilingualism. In Pride, J.B. &
Holmes, Janet (eds.) Sociolinguistics, Penguin, p 336.
10-Bell, R. T
(1976), Sociolinguistics; goals, approaches and problems, B.T.
Batsford Ltd, London 1976. p 141.
11-Used in this context to meant "a highly classical vocabulary with
few or no inflectional endings, with certain features of classical
syntax, but with a fundamentally colloquial base in morphology and
syntax, and a general admixture of colloquial vocabulary". See
Giglioli, Pier Paolo (ed.) (1972). Language and Social Context.
Penguin. p 240.
12-Bell, R,
Lecture on Code Switching (Topic 8).
13-The term is
used here in a narrow sense to mean the type of Arabic used by
newspapers and other media as opposed to classical Arabic texts.
14-Many Lebanese
Christians have felt betrayed by France and the West generally for
not providing sufficient military and political assistance that
would have tilted the balance in their favour.
15-The war left
a marked impact on the speech of most Lebanese. An argument, for
example, would be "blown to smithereens", extra work would bring
"complete destruction". Moreover, 17 Lebanese were asked what would
they understand by the utterance "I saw her duck," and they all
thought of "duck" as a verb.
Bibliography
Bell, R. T (1976) Sociolinguistics; goals, approaches and
problems, B.T. Batsford Ltd, London 1976.
P 141. Also Lectures On Sociolinguistics (1989)
Fishman, J. A. (1965) The Relationship between Micro-and
Macro-Sociolinguistics in the Study of Who Speaks What Language to
Whom and When. In Pride, J.B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.)
Sociolinguistics. Penguin. P 15.
Hymes, D. H. (1971) On Communicative Competence. In Pride, J.
B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.) Sociolinguistics. Penguin. P 271.
Lambert, W. E (1967) A Social Psychology of Bilingualism. In
Pride, J.B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.) Sociolinguistics, Penguin.
P 336.
Lyons, J, et al (1970). New Horizons in Linguistics (2).
Penguin. P 280.
Pride, J.B. (1970) Sociolinguistics. In Lyons, John (ed.)
(1970). New Horizons in Linguistics (1).Penguin. P 292.
Sankoff, G (1971) Language Use in Multilingual Societies: Some
Alternative Approaches. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.)
(1972). Sociolinguistics. Penguin. P 36.
Polytechnic of
Central London, Faculty of Languages. SOCIOLINGUISTICS
February 1990 (2941 words) |
