Gendered Code-Switching and Ethnic-Cultural Identity in Bilingual Communication: Evidence from Uzbek–English, Russian–English, and Spanish–English Communities

This study analyzes gendered code-switching as a culturally situated communicative practice used by bilingual speakers to negotiate identity, belonging, authority, solidarity, and power. It examines how male and female speakers switch languages in spoken, institutional, and digital interactions across three bilingual communities—Uzbek–English, Russian–English, and Spanish–English—adopting a sociolinguistic, intercultural, gendered discourse analysis and cultural-linguistics approach that treats code-switching as socially meaningful and reflective of cultural norms and gendered expectations. Data consist of 18 h of recorded dialogue, interviews with 36 bilingual participants, and 120 written discourse samples. Results reveal that code-switching is more common in female speakers’ utterances for affiliation and identity-marking purposes, whereas male speakers more often use it for authority, prestige, humor, and resistance. Across all groups, heritage-language use is strongly linked to family, memory, and cultural intimacy, while English use is linked to education, professionalism, and global identity, underscoring the intersection of gender, culture, ethnicity, and power in multilingual communication.