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We, they and us: A note on code-switching and stratification in North India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Rajendra Singh
Rajendra Singh
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Montréal
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Extract

Gumperz (1976) claims that the direction of a code-switch provides important clues regarding the intended illocutionary force of an utterance and that oppositions like warning/personal appeal and casual remark/personal statement can be seen as metaphoric extensions of the we/they code opposition. “What at the societal level,” he observes, “are seen as norms of language usage or symbolic affirmations of ethnic boundaries are transformed here and built upon in conversation to affect the interpretation of speakers' intent and determine effectiveness in communication” (39–40). His hypothesis was corroborated by his Hindi-English bilingual speakers who felt that whereas a shift to the “they” code (English) suggested more of a threat, a shift to the “we” code (Hindi) signified more of a personal appeal. Code choice, according to Gumperz, is a device that determines the interpretation of an utterance (at least as far as its illocutionary force is concerned).

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 71 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

REFERENCE

Gumperz, J. J. (1976). The sociolinguistic significance of conversational code-switching. In Cook-Gumperz, J. & Gumperz, J. J., (eds.), Papers on language and context (University of California Language Behavior Research Laboratory Working Paper No. 46) 1–46.Google Scholar