Code-meshing, Code-switching & Code-mixing

Code-meshing, Code-switching & Code-mixing

What is Code-meshing?

 Suresh Canagarajah belives in“code meshing as a strategy for merging local varieties with Standard Written English in a move toward gradually pluralizing academic writing and developing multilingual competence for transnational relationships”

What is Code-switching?

Well, in 1977 Carol Myers-Scott and William Ury defined code switching as the use of different varieties of English in the same conversation. But others define it as the mixing of two or more languages in discourse.

What is Code-mixing?

 Code-mixing occurs when using the grammar patterns, intonation or vocabulary (bound and unbound morphemes) of one language when speaking another language.

Almost everyone that speaks two or more languages code-switches or code-mixes, and this change in the language style is done to fit the audience in terms of communicative purposes. My son code-switches all day. When he speaks with his friend or with an adult you can observe changes in the words he uses and even in intonation. This code-switching occurs when someone changes from one language to another or within the same language moving from informal to a more formal language or a standard variety.

A very important point embedded in code-switching is the ability to recognize when it is necessary to do it. I did not know that I was code-switching and teaching my son how to do it, until I came to this program. At first, it was more like this is the proper way to speak at home, in public places, with his friends and with our Cuban relatives.

It is very important for immigrant children whose parents do not speak English to be properly taught a standard variety of English and more importantly to know how and when to turn it on and off.

I would like to know your views about these questions.

Would I be code-switching if I speak English using gestures, motion (body language) commonly use in my native language?

If a speaker uses newly borrowed words, is he code-switching?

Monolingalism overshadowed by Multilingualism

Monolingualism  overshadowed by Multilingualism

There are estimated to be far more bilingual and multilingual speakers in the world than there are monolinguals. But are there nations really monolingual? If for example we take a look at the United Stated States, a nation that has forced others to speak their language, our first thought would be that Americans have no interest in learning another language because English is well-established as a lingua franca. Well, the United State Census Bureau  has reported that twenty percent of Americans speak other language than English. Moreover, research shows that close to eighty percent of the planet population speaks 1.69 languages.
 I go back now to my previous question:  Are there nations really monolingual?