Kay González-Vilbazo Laura Bartlett

Kay González-Vilbazo Laura BartlettSarah Downey Shane EbertJeanne Heil Bradley HootBryan Koronkiewicz Sergio Ramos

Methods in Code-switching Research

In/Between Conference

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Introduction

Code-switching (CS)The simultaneous use of two languages within a discourse by bilingual speakersLinguistic TheoryAims to understand the properties of speakers’ competence to access fundamental principles of the human language facultyStudies I-language (Chomsky 1986), which is reflected in every speaker’s competence

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Introduction

CS and Linguistic TheoryBilingual speakers have competenceThey have clear intuitions about the acceptability of code-switched sentences (Toribio 2001)CS falls within the range of possible human languagesCS can give us access to combinations of linguistic elements that we may not otherwise be able to observe in monolingual data (González-Vilbazo & López 2012)How do we access this competence?

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Introduction

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Introduction

GoalsFocus on methodological issues specific to CS researchProvide illustrative examples and/or potential solutions to unique problemsNot intended to take into account the breadth of issues related to linguistic methodologyIntended to foment discussion, start a conversation, and build towards best practices

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Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Example: Sluicing

(1) John threatened someone, but I don’t know who <

John threatened>. Accounting for the deleted TP has been the subject of significant researchTwo main theories:Semantic identity (Merchant 2001, van Craenenbroeck 2010)Beyond semantics (Sag 1976, Chung 2006)

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Example: Sluicing

How can we bring empirical evidence to bear on this theoretical question?Morphosyntactic feature to investigate: CaseLanguage pair: Spanish/German CS study (González-Vilbazo & Ramos forthcoming)Case is overtly marked on the wh-word remnant in both languagesThe verb threaten assigns accusative in Spanish, but dative in German

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Monolingual Spanish and German

Example: Sluicing

(2)

Juan amenazó a alguien, pero no sé a quién. Juan threatened acc someone but not know.1sing acc who ‘Juan threatened someone, but I don’t know who.’(3) Juan hat jemandem gedroht, aber ich weiß nicht wem. Juan has someone.dat threatened but I know not who.dat ‘Juan threatened someone, but I don’t know who.’

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Example: Sluicing

Code-switching the sentences allows us to investigate if

morphosyntax is in play(4) Juan amenazó a alguien, aber ich weiß nicht wen. Juan threatened acc someone, but I know not who.acc ‘Juan threatened someone, but I don’t know who.’(5) * Juan amenazó a alguien, aber ich weiß nicht wem. Juan threatened acc someone, but I know not who.dat ‘Juan threatened someone, but I don’t know who.’Supports the “beyond semantics” account (Sag 1976, Chung 2006)

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Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Monolingual

Participant Selection

Maximum degree of overlap between bilinguals and their monolingual counterpartsNeed not be globalAt least with respect to relevant feature(s)

Bilingual

amenazaracc

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Participant

Selection

How can we verify this?In addition to code-switched stimuli, test monolingual items to assess LA (and/or LB features)Example: Spanish/German CS study (González-Vilbazo & Ramos forthcoming)Monolingual Spanish dative vs. accusative assignmentExample: Spanish/English CS study (Hoot in preparation)Monolingual English that-trace effect differences(6) Whoi do you believe ti saw Edgar?(7) * Whoi do you believe that ti saw Edgar?

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Participant Selection

Who did John say

que compró el libro?

Who did John say that compró el libro?

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Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Stimuli Design

Naturalness of CSGrammaticality judgments are constrained by performance issues, including real-world plausibility (Bader & Häussler 2010)Lexical itemsExample: Spanish/Taiwanese CS study (González-Vilbazo, Bartlett, Ebert & Vergara in preparation)

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Stimuli Design

Code-switched

Spanish and Taiwanese(8) Mirta compró hia-e tue-chit riab bat-zang? Mirta bought those which cl rice-dumpling ‘Which of those rice dumplings did Mirta buy?’(9) Mirta compró hia-e tue-chit pun ttse? Mirta bought those which cl book ‘Which of those books did Mirta buy?’A bat-zang is a rice dumpling specific to Taiwanese cultureTo paraphrase our consultant: If you are talking about books, why switch?

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Stimuli Design

Modality of Stimuli PresentationCS can be influenced by prosody, pauses, etc. (MacSwan 1999, Toribio 2001)Although sometimes written, CS is primarily a spoken phenomenonAural stimuli+ phonological control - harder to create/administer+ more naturalWritten stimuli+ easier to create/administer - no phonological control+ common theoretical practiceExample: Spanish/English CS study (Hoot in preparation)

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Stimuli Design

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Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Experimental Procedure

Potential confoundsCS is often subject to stigma (Poplack 1980)The results may be artificially depressedCS is influenced by situationParticipants should be comfortable producing or listening to mixed language (Grosjean 1998)Bilingual language mode continuum (Grosjean 1985, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2001)

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Potential solutionsInstructions in CSPrimingTrainingExample: Spanish/English CS study (González-Vilbazo & Koronkiewicz submitted)

Experimental Procedure

ConfoundsStigmaComfort LevelMode ContinuumSolutionsInstructions in CS(+)++Priming+Training+++

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Experimental Procedure

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Outline

IntroductionExample: SluicingMethodological ConcernsParticipant SelectionStimuli DesignExperimental ProcedureConclusions and Outlook

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Conclusions and Outlook

Participant SelectionOverlap between monolinguals and bilinguals with respect to relevant feature(s)Stimuli DesignChoose relevant features and language pairs, naturalness of CS, modality of stimuliExperimental ProcedureInstructions in CS, priming tasks, and training to help with possible stigmatization, situational influence and the mode continuum

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Conclusions and Outlook

One step forwardReport on these issues clearly in the literature Ultimate goalHave discipline-wide standards

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References

Bader, Markus, & Jana Häussler. 2010. Toward a model of grammaticality judgments. Journal of Linguistics 46. 273-330.Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger. Chung, Sandra. 2006. Sluicing and the lexicon: The point of no return. In Rebecca T. Cover & Yuni Kim (eds.) Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 31. 73–91. Berkeley, California: Berkeley Linguistics Society.van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen & Anikó Lipták. 2009. What sluicing can do, what it can’t and in which language: On the cross-linguistic syntax of ellipsis. Ms. HUB.González-Vilbazo, Kay, Laura Bartlett, Shane Ebert & Daniel Vergara. In preparation. Wh constructions in Taiwanese-Spanish code-switching.González-Vilbazo, Kay & Bryan Koronkiewicz. Submitted. Pronouns in Spanish-English code-switching.González-Vilbazo, Kay & Luis López. 2012. Little v and parametric variation. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 30(1). 33-77.González-Vilbazo, Kay & Sergio E. Ramos. Forthcoming. A Morphosyntactic condition on sluicing: Evidence from Spanish/German code-switching.Grosjean, Francois. 1985. The bilingual as a competent but specific speaker-hearer. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6. 467-477.

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References

Grosjean, Francois. 1994. Individual bilingualism. The encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 1656-1660. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Grosjean, Francois. 1997. Processing mixed language: Issues, findings, and models. In A. M. B. de Groot & J. F. Kroll (eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives. 225-254. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Grosjean, Francois. 2001. The bilingual’s language modes. In Janet L. Nicol (ed.) One Mind, Two Languages: Bilingual Language Processing. Oxford: Blackwell.Hoot, Bradley. In preparation. Complementizers in Spanish/English code-switching.MacSwan, Jeff. 1999. A Minimalist Approach to Intrasentential Code Switching. New York: Garland Pub.Merchant, Jason. 2001. The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands, and the theory of ellipsis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Poplack, Shana. 1980 Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPAÑOL: Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics 18(7/8). 581-618.Sag, Ivan. 1976. Deletion and logical form. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge, Massachusetts.Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline. 2001. On the emergence of code-switching competence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 4(3). 203-231.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and thank:Luis López, Lukasz Adamczyk, Christian Alvarado, Jesse Banwart, Blanca Bustos, Enas El-Khatib, Liz Remitz, Marlen Romero, Ivette Serrano, Jack Waas, Kara Morgan-Short and the members of the Cognition of Second Language Acquisition LaboratoryThis material is based upon work supported by:National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1146457UIC Provost’s Award for Graduate ResearchThank you!

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