Code-switching and code-mixing in Welsh bilinguals' talk: confirming or refuting the maintenance of language boundaries?

This article closely examines the bilingual talk emerging from informal discussions among young people attending a bilingual school in Wales. In contrast to the common focus on issues of bilinguals' linguistic competence in the literature, this paper advocates a speaker's perspective and considers bilingualism to be the sedimentation of social and linguistic practices of bilinguals, where code-alternation is often prevalent. Using a conversation analytic approach to code-switching, I distinguish between two different kinds of code-alternation: unmarked code-mixing and marked code-switching on the basis of speakers' own orientations. When these bilinguals speak Welsh, for most of the time the language boundary between Welsh and English is only loosely maintained. However, on occasion code-switching is used as a meaning-making resource, e.g. for the purpose of quoting others. It is this marked code-switching that requires bilinguals to separate and distinguish between the two language mediums, and thereby also maintain the language boundary. At the same time, these findings disclose a gap between informal language practices and the ideological insistence on maintaining strict language boundaries, for example, in educational contexts. Keywords: code-switchingcode-mixingbilingualismlanguage practiceslanguage ideologyconversation analysisWelsh Notes For 2008/2009 the criteria for calculating this have changed and are therefore not directly comparable with previous years. Now it is based on whether Welsh is the language of the day-to-day business of the school. The exact details of how their taxonomy has been revised and why is elaborated on in Musk (Citation2006, pp. 47–52). These names (and the names of members of the other focus group) are pseudonyms that have been chosen by the pupils themselves. In formally correct Welsh the numeral should be in the feminine form dwy 'two' before the feminine noun ysgol 'school'. Ma' ysgol(Gymraeg)sy'n hanner maint o rhan disgyblion â[ysgol x] 'it's a (Welsh) school that's half the size of [school x] as regards pupils'. The group of boys discuss at length the matter of both their lack of vocabulary in Welsh as well as what Batman claims is a general lack of vocabulary in specialist areas such as in Business Studies and Physical Education (Musk, Citation2006, pp. 372–375). Conversely, one member of the focus group who chose to speak English complains that she does not know geographical terms in English because she has only studied the subject in Welsh. In other words, a lack of vocabulary can only be a partial explanation for their Welsh being a code-mixed medium. The full list of Ferguson's criteria comprises function, prestige, literary heritage, acquisition, standardisation, stability, grammar, lexicon and phonology (Ferguson, 2000/1959). For a full elaboration of this claim see Musk (Citation2006, pp. 360–381, 406–410).