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 Beat Siebenhaar

 

'Plurilingualism and code-switching in SMS communication'

Part of the Sinergia project 'SMS communication in Switzerland: Facets of linguistic variation in a multilingual country'

Simona Pekarek Doehler, University of Neuchâtel – responsible for the SMS with French base language
Beat Siebenhaar, University of Leipzig, Germany – responsible for the SMS with (Swiss)German base language

Purpose of the project

SMS has become a central tool of communication and socialization around the globe. The nature of SMS communication is diverse, ranging from private to professional, from unilingual to plurilingual practices. The use of more than one language for composing a message is wide spread, however this is still not in the focus of research. This practice cross-cuts what has classically been defined as uni- vs. bi/plurilingal communities and uni- vs. bi/plurilingual speakers and manifests itself in a large variety of forms of which the following excerpts may give a flavor (S.G. = Swiss German; G = German; E=English; F= French):

(1) Hallo! Voulez vous luncher avec moi hüt?
((S.G./G)) ((F: do you want)) ((E.-F: to have lunch)) ((F: with me)) ((S.G.:today))

(2) mon chouchou, comment ça va? tu as bien dormi? je t'aime très très fort. hesch hüt mol en freii minute für mi? ILY
((F : my sweety, how are you ? did you sleep well ? I love you very very much)) ((S.G.: do you have a free minute for me today)) ((E: I love you))

(3) Ça va bien et toi? :-o jap das isch guud! Wänd ja das du au öbis chasch trinke :-) grüeßli CU 2morrow
((F: I’m fine and you?)) ((S.G.: that’s)) ((E: good (with G spelling)) ((S.G.: after all, we wish that you can drink something as well greetings)) ((E: see you tomorrow))

The present subproject explores the plurilingual nature of SMS communication by means of qualitative and quantitative analyses of the Swiss SMS corpus. Focusing on messages the base language of which is (Swiss-)German , the project pursues three mayor aims:

(1) The project is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the plurilingual nature and practice of SMS communication, which, to this day, has been very little explored in research. It provides new insights that allow us to better understand the linguistic and social dimensions of SMS communication as part of a larger set of technically mediated communicative practices that pervade our everyday lives.

(2) By exploring code-switching within such a new means of communication, the project also aims at completing current understandings of the forms and functions of code-switching, which so far have been mostly explored on the basis of data stemming from face-to-face and quasi-synchronous online-communication, among bilingual speakers within bilingual communities. Thereby, it raises critical questions as to how definitions of what a bilingual speaker or a bilingual community is may be shifted in the light of new forms of communication. It also raises questions about the very definition of code-switching: do the same criteria apply for identifying and understanding code-switching once it is no more embedded in synchronous face-to-face communication?

(3) Through the analysis of what has become a central communicative tool for large parts of the population, the project provides empirically based information on how plurilingualism is concretely enacted in Switzerland. Thereby, it completes our understanding of the Swiss linguistic landscape in a way that goes far beyond classical divides subsumed under the notion of ‘Röstigraben’, and beyond classical division of labor referred to by the notion of diglossia.

The project draws from the sms4science Swiss corpus, from which two sub-corpora will be extracted. FRENCH: messages whose base language is French (n=4’505); GERMAN: messages whose base language is (Swiss)German (n=13’434) or Standard German (n=4’734). A part of the messages is linked with a socio-biographic questionnaire of the authors of the messages.

Further information on the whole project can be found at: http://www.sms4science.ch