J Eldbridge 1996 Code-switching in a Turkish secondary school.pdf

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Code-switching in a Turkishsecondary schoolJohn EldridgeEnglish language teachers who teach in monolingual environments havefor a very long time been concerned about reducing or even abolishingstudent use of the mother tongue in the language classroom. The reasonfor this is presum ably to maxim ize the amount of time spent using thetarget code, and thus improve learning efficiency. This study w ill describeand analyse the code-switching of young learners in a Turkish secondaryschool. It will show that there is no empirical evidence to su pport thenotion that restricting mother tongue use would necessarily improvelearning efficiency, and that the majority of code-switching in the class-room is highly purposeful, and related to pedagogical goals. The issue ofhow we treat language alternation in the classroom is of central metho-dological importance, and one, it will be argued, that has enormous im-plications for practising language teachers. It is therefore vital that weunderstand precise ly its causes, motivations, an d effects, and that untilthat point we avoid m aking rash, censorial judgements on its classroommanifestations.

Introduction Code-switching, which may be briefly defined as the alternation betweentwo (or more) languages, has been receiving growing attention in recentyears. Far from being viewed as a random phenomenon, it has come to beseen as a highly purposeful activity. However, the majority of extantstudies have been conducted in authentic bilingual speech communities,rather than in the language classroom, which will be the focus of this study.Language attitudes Teachers and researchers in English as a second language have, on thewhole, been concerned to minimize code-switching in the classroom,

taking it that the switching either indicates a failure to learn the targetlanguage or an unwillingness to do so. Willis (1981: xiv), for instance,suggests that 'If the students start speaking in their own languagewithout your permission . . . i t generally means that something is wrongwith the lesson.' Cummins and Swain (1986: 105) similarly contend thatprogress in the second language is facilitated if only one code is used inthe classroom, asserting that the teacher's exclusive use of the targetcode will counteract the 'pull ' towards the native code.There also seems to be a feeling that languages should be kept strictlydemarcatedthis despite the fact that code-switching is employed 'inthe repertoires of most bilingual people and in most bilingualcommunities' (Romaine: 1989: 2). In the case of monolingual nativespeakers, the concern is perhaps compounded by the fact that they areoften unable to determine why the switching is taking place.ELT Journal Volume 50/4 October 1996 Oxford University Press 1996 303

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Not to put too fine a point on it, then, it would appear that one of thebasic operating principles of our profession has largely escaped criticalor empirical examination. It had been assumed that code-switching inthe classroom was a counter-productive phenomenon, and the wholefocus of discussion centred around ways of preventing it, with almost noconsideration of what caused it in the first place. This paper will arguethat language alternation in the classroom is not self-evidently counter-productive, that there is a paramount need for the subject to beresearched further, and that the issue is alive with serious pedagogicalimplications for the practising language teacher.The study This study took place in Deniz High School, a small Turkish secondaryschool where English is taught as a second language. It focused onlearners aged 11-13 at an elementary and lower intermediate level.Using a tape recorder and notepad, one hundred instances of code-

switching were transcribed onto a database for analysis. The learnerswere also asked to provide instances of when they code-switched, and tocomment briefly on why they felt they did so.Aims I hoped to find answers to the following questions:

1 What is the relationship between the level of the student and his orher use of code-switching strategies?2 What are the general purposes and specific functions of code-switching?3 How do the code-switchers themselves view the phenomenon?4 Are there certain types of speech event in which code-switching doesnot take place, and if so, with what consequences?In the light of the results, I will discuss possible pedagogical implications,and the directions in which further research might profitably proceed.

Aspects ofcode-switchingCode-switching andlevel

General purposes ofcode-switching

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Analysis of the corpus revealed that there appeared to be norelationship between level of achievement in the target language anduse of code-switching strategies: high achieving students code-switchedjust as regularly as other students. To assume, therefore, that the g reaterthe competence in the target code, the less the learner will switch to thenative code, may not be correct. It seems more likely that there is acode-switching curve, and that at some point the switches will start todecrease in frequency, no longer being required. Further research isneeded to establish more precisely when this decrease might beexpected to occur.The significant point that emerged from the corpus was that 77 per centof all instances of code-switching were orienta ted to classroom tasks. Ofthe remainder, 16 per cent were comments directed by the learnertowards the teacher concerning procedural matters, or questions aboutEnglish which were not actually related to the task in hand. ActualJohn Eldridge

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reversion, then, in the sense that students switched to their mothertongue to talk about something else entirely, as an avoidance strategy,was extremely rarethe majority of code-switches in the classroomwere related to learning objectives. This is not to say that the switchesconstituted in all cases the most desirable way of attaining thoseobjectives, but it does show that the presence of code-switching in thelanguage classroom does not in itself indicate any kind of breakdown inpedagogical purpose.

Specific functions of The main problem in analysing code-switching in functional terms is thatcode-switching many switches may be either multi-functional, or open to different

functional interpretations. A number of different functional taxonomiesof code-switching have been proposed. What they share is the view thatcode-switching is a 'discourse phenomenon in which speakers rely onjuxtaposition of grammatically distinct subsystems to generate conversa-tional inferences' (Gumperz 1982: 97). Gumperz distinguishes betweensituational switches, and metaphorical switches, where the switches arebasically a symbol of the relationships being acted out between theparticipants, regardless of the situation they are in. Common code-switching functions isolated by Gumperz include: message qualification,reiteration, addressee specification, and personalization versus objecti-vization. For the purposes of this project, it was decided to labelfunctional terms according to the analysis of the data to hand, it beingunclear whether taxonomies derived from bilingual speech communitieswould be appropriate to the second language classroom.Summarizing the results of the analysis, we may say that students code-switch in the classroom from one or more of the following motivations:a. EquivalenceThis is the use of or elicitation of an equivalent item in the other code, asin:

Teacher, cave it means in Turkish magarai (cave)Twenty-four per cent of the examples on the corpus were of this type.When the students were asked to explain why they code-switched, themost common reply was that the required item in the target code wassimply unknown:

Because when I speak English sometimes I don't know the word and Iuse a Turkish word.

b . Floor-holdingAlso extremely common is the importation of Turkish floor-holdingdevices into English discourse, as in:

Where did Robert? ... ondan sonra (after that)? ... neydP. (what wasit)?It is not the intention here to embark on a detailed discussion of what it

means to 'know' a language, but it does need to be pointed out that oneproblem for the learner of a second language is actually accessingCode-switching in a Turkish secondary school 305


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' learned' information. If at this level the speed of retrieval is slower forcertain items in the target code than in the native code, then the use ofthe latter may be said to function as a kind of stopgap, while the formeris being retrieved. This may account for the interlingual repetition in thisexample:T: Was this done on your own?L: Tek baginda (on my own) . . . on my own.

c. MetalanguageThere seems to be a natural perception amongst learners that whilsttasks themselves should be performed in the target code, comment,evaluation, and talk about the task may legitimately take place in themother tongue:L I : Where did Gary go?L2: Ben sorucagim (I will ask). Where did Gary go?

d. ReiterationHere messages are reinforced, emphasized, or clarified where themessage has already been transmitted in one code, but not understood,as in:

L I : Flowers ... he? ... flowers.T: Flowers.L2: Flowers ... p/fefc.(flowers)

e. Group membershipSwitches in this category function as in-group identity markers. This isoften realised through 'wordplay', where switches and mixes arecreatively manufactured for comic effect. As one student puts it:

'I like speak half Turkish half English. For example, 'My best friend'im'.' (my)

Again, it may be that part of the reason for the frequent use of discoursemarkers relates to this social function:I like being corrected yani (that is) because I learn yani.

What is noticeable here is that a yani appears in final position, and thuscannot easily said to be fulfilling a floor-holding function. Althoughgenerally translated as ' that is ' or 'namely' , i t may perhaps be better tosee yani as being roughly equivalent to the Liverpudlian 'like' ( 'So likehe gives me a look like? . . . ' ) . Again, given that this final yani neitherholds the floor nor adds anything to message content, we seem to haveno alternative but to conclude that such items, whether or not they areconcurrently serving a floor-holding function, are indeed acting as kindsof lexical symbols of group identity. This would fit in with Heller's studyof code-switching in a Toronto school where French is the medium ofeducation:

It seems that code-switching here is a refusal to commit oneself to allthe obligations of being French, while maintaining one's right to be at306 John Eldridge


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this school. It is a way of mediating the conflicting pressures felt bythese students from different parts of their social network, and ofmaintaining access to both .' (1988: 92).What is interesting is that the code-switching is neither one way, norrestricted to the classroom. The strategy is not used purely to assertTurkishness' as against 'Englishness', but to construct a composite age-related group identity. Complaints by English language teachers aboutuse of Turkish are mirrored exactly by those of Turkish teacherscomplaining both about use of English, and sloppy use of Turkish (e.g.yani). As Auer puts it:

It seems that members of the same network adapt to each other anddevelop a common style of linguistic behaviour which may or may notbe characterised by code-switching and transfer. (1988: 207)In these instances, then, code-switching is performing a social function.It is worth considering what the effects on motivation and attitud e mightbe if teachers attempt to proscribe such behaviour.f. Conflict controlAccording to Heller (1988: 81-93), one of the main purposes of code-switching is to create ambiguity in order to deal with situations in whichthere is a potential conflict. Although there were no unambiguousinstances of this in the corpus, one informant did claim to code-switchwith the purpose of mitigating a face-threatening act:

'I say 'liar' (in English) to my friends, because I don't want to sayyalanci (liar) because I'm not sure. I say 'no' to my cousin because Idon't want to say bad things to her or disagree with her.'The learner's knowledge of the target code, even at this comparativelyearly stage in its development, thus becomes an additional linguisticresource performing quite surprisingly subtle discoursal functions.g. Alignment and disalignmentOne feature of conversation is the way in which participants adoptcertain temporary social roles. Given that conversation is a negotiatedenterprise, participants may either try to sustain a particular role, or,alternatively, they may feel the need to adopt different roles as aconversation proceeds, for example, in a particular speech event onemight assume the roles, successively, of colleague, superior, andfriend. What may also occur are overt attempts to change both theroles of fellow participants and the type of talk taking place. Onetheme that unfolds through a particular stretch of discourse is themarking out of the conversational territory and the roles, rights, andobligations of the participants within it. Basically, the speaker/listenerhas two choices: to align him or herself to the conversation as it is, orto seek to shift the alignment in some way. It would appear that in thelanguage classroom code-switches constitute a strategy for this kind ofnegotiation.

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L2: Neden siz . . . Why are you . . . ( indecipherable) (This creates aslight commotion, with general reversion to Turkish for a fewseconds).L3: Be quiet .L4: Please be quiet, friends.

The first code-switch into Turkish constitutes what we might call a'disalignment ' . The convention of ' language learners practising Englishin the langu age classroom ,' which learner 1 was conform ing to , appe arsto have been b reac hed by learn er 2. Th e slight com mo tion that followsseems to indicate that he has succeeded in his attempt to shiftconversational content, roles, and, indeed, language. The switch backto English by learners 3 and 4 is an overt attempt to realign the groupback to the initial footing. Not only do they demand a restoration ofcalm, but they do so in English, presumably to convey their feeling thatthe language of the discussion is inappropriate to the setting.It is presumably one of the major concerns about mother tongue use inthe language classroom that i t is used to disalign, or to put i t anotherway, to shift the focus of talk away from the pedagogical concerns of theclassroom. W heth er this is or is not the case will obviously vary betw eenindividuals, classes, and institutions. What this survey revealed was thatit was less common than I had supposed, and the comment below wasnoticeable for the fact that it was the only one of its kind:

I talk Turkish because I don't know some of the meanings of words.Also I don't want to speak English.

Code switching in The fact that code-switching at this level generally takes place as aoral examinations communicative strategy rather than as an avoidance strategy is alsostrongly suggested by an analysis of oral examinations, where bothexaminer and examinee seem to agree that switching is not a permissiblestrategy. Analysis of such examinations reveals that they are quite unlikeother speech events. The code-switching disappears, but is replaced bylong pauses: 5-10 seconds is common with first year students, but theycan be up to 20 seconds. There are complete breakdowns incommunication, when examinees give up on the transmission of certainmessages midway, and begin totally new ones. 'And' and 'er ' come intoplace as fillers or floor-holders, re placing the Tu rkish floor-holdersreferred to earlier, and examples of miscommunication abound. Topicswitches occur without any initial topicalization. Students 'echo'continually, and there are a lot of interjections ( 'aii i ' , 'eh') of Turkishorigin which do not appear to be viewed by the learners as code-switching.We mentioned earl ier that there was no evidence that good studentscode-switched less than their weaker counterparts within the confines ofthe classroom. However, once they were deprived of the strategy, theirhigher level of achievement and speed of comprehension and retrievalenabled them to compensate for the loss, suggesting that their classroomcode-switching was a s trategy of preference. W eak er s tu dents , however,

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foundered, suggesting that their code-switching was due to competenceproblems. In the following example, where the length of the pauses inseconds is shown in brackets, the teacher is interviewing a weak studentat the end of his first year in English:T: Now I just want you to tell me what you're going to do in your

summer holiday.S: (3.0) er (5.0) In the summer I went to Karaburun (1.0) er (2.0) inKaraburun I er (4.0) swim in the sea (1.0) erm (4.0) erm (5.0) er Ieat fish er (2.0) and er potato er chips.T: And have you got a summer house in Karaburun?S: No (4.0) er one day erT: Hmm?S: (4.0) er (2.0) and I er we went to Kusadai, Kuadai in Kuadai(3.0) er (1.0) in Kuadai we (3.0) summer house (7.0).It should not be assumed that code-switching inevitably decreases theamount of target code use in any given discourse. Well over half of theshort exchange above is composed of silence! If the key to secondlanguage acquisition is maximizing comprehensible input and output, itremains to be proven that code-switching reduces the chances of thisoccurring.

Pedagogical It must, of course, remain the aim of the language teacher that the targetimplications code will ultimately be used in isolation, for the simple reason that onceoutside the classroom, the learners can have no guarantee that theiraudience will share a knowledge of their mother tongue. However, itwould seem wise at this point for the practising teacher to adopt aflexible attitud e tow ards classroom code-switching. M any of theinstances of code-switching we have examined have as their source alinguistic deficit of one kind or another. There are two extremelycommon types of this. The first is lexical deficit. Classroom researchmight go some way to establishing what lexical items studentsthemselves feel they need to know in the early years of learningEnglish. Corpus analysis is helping establish what the most commonwords in English are, it is true, yet the communicative needs and desiresof a group of young learners in a foreign coun try might reveal a differentset of lexical priorities unaccounted for by syllabus designers.The second major deficit concerns floor-holding mechanisms. Anexamination of course books at the beginners and pre-intermediatelevel shows that these are given little or no attention. Yet it is preciselyduring these early stages that the learner is most liable to break downand need such stalling devices. To put this another way, the less thelinguistic competence, the more urgent becomes the need for strategiccompetence. One can only conclude that floor-holding techniquesshould be introduced as early as possible into the language teachingprocess, even though the same may not be possible with relativelysophisticated functions, such as conflict control.The main difference between the child acquiring its first language andCode-switching in a Turkish secondary school 30 9


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the second language learner lies in their vastly different levels ofcognitive dev elopm ent. Every code-sw itched utteran ce is thus pote n-tially indicative of a target code need, and therefore a covert appeal forreadjustment of the syllabus. This suggests a need for more negotiationwith learners over the content of lessons, courses, and syllabuses.Imposing pre-structured linguistic syllabuses on them, based on theoriesof some kind of natural order of first language acquisition, or resortingto intuitive judgements about which structures are 'easiest ' and shouldtherefore be taught first, does not indicate respect for their level ofcognitive development, and may even frustrate rather than facili tatelearning.Next, while i t may be that certain code-switching strategies aredevelopmental and therefore transient, i t would be wise not to takethis for granted. In a largely monolingual language learning environ-ment, if the target code strategies and functions referred to above arenot attended to at a relatively early stage, fossilization may well occur.That is to say that the switches will cease to be developmental and comeinstead to serve an explicit avoidance strategy. The language acquiredwould then become a hybrid variety, and the learners would findthemselves severely linguistically deprived in contact with target codemonolinguals .In conclusion it should be reiterated that this was a small-scale classroomstudy. As such it inevitably raises more questions than it can conclusivelyanswer. Further, and more detailed studies of different levels, ages, andtypes of educational setting will certainly be needed if we are to assessmore fully the causes and the effects of code-switching in the languageclassroom. Only when we are in full possession of this information willwe be able to make more informed judgements as to what kind ofpedagogical adjustments may be necessary.

Conclusion Code-switching appears to be a natural and purposeful phenomenonwhich facili tates both communication and learning, and for which Iwould pro pos e th ree simple ex plana tions: the first is that code-switchingis a strategy that yields short-term benefits to the second languagelearner, but with a risk of hampering long-term acquisition. The secondis that i ts manifestations can be analysed in terms of interlanguage. Inother words, i t i s developmental , and premature at tempts to reduce i tsuse would thus impede second language acquisition. Thirdly, andperhaps more likely, there may be a strong relationship between learnerstyles and abili t ies and code-sw itching. We have seen tha t, when they areforced to, some learners can function quite comfortably in the targetlanguag e without code-switching, even at a relatively early stage. Othe rs,however, cannot. It might be argued that the removal of the code-switching option might accelerate their l inguistic development. On theother hand, such an approach might have quite a negative effect onmotivat ion and confidence, and therefore decelerate that development .It is to be hoped that further studies may go some way to answeringthese questions.

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Finally, it is worth emphasizing once more that decreasing mothertongue use in the classroom does not automatically increase the qualityand quantity of target language use, any more than decreasing one'sconsumption of meat automatically increases one's consumption ofcheese. To prescribe the former under the assumption that the latter willbe achieved thus betrays a logic that is entirely spurious. If we wantstudents to speak more English in the classroom, we should concentrateon that issue, with all the precision and energy at our disposal. Debateabout how to stop or decrease mother tongue use is in the last instancesterile, simply because it does not actually address the problem.Received November 1995

ReferencesAuer, J. A. 1988. 'Conversation analytic approachto code-switching and transfer' in Heller (ed).Cummins, J. and M. Swain. 1986. Bilingualism inEducation. Harlow: Longman.Gumperz, J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.Heller, M. 1988. 'Strategic ambiguity: code-switch-ing in the management of conflict' in Heller(ed.).Heller, M. (ed.) 1988. Codeswitching: Anthropo-logical and Sociological Perspectives. Berlin: DeGruyter.

Romaine, S. 1989. Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.Willis, J. 1981. Teaching English Through English.Harlow: Longman.

The authorJohn Eldridge has spent most of the last twelveyears working in Turkish secondary schools. In1994 he finished the Aston University MSc. inTEFL (distance learning), and started work at theEastern Mediterranean University, an English-medium university in Northern Cyprus, where heis mainly involved in teacher training.

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J Eldbridge 1996 Code-switching in a Turkish secondary school.pdf