Code-switching in a Turkish secondary school John Eldridge

English language teachers who teach in monolingual environments have for a very long time been concerned about reducing or even abolishing student use of the mother tongue in the language classroom. The reason for this is presumably to maximize the amount of time spent using the target code, and thus improve learning efficiency. This study will describe and analyse the code-switching of young learners in a Turkish secondary school. It will show that there is no empirical evidence to support the notion that restricting mother tongue use would necessarily improve learning efficiency, and that the majority of code-switching in the classroom is highly purposeful, and related to pedagogical goals. The issue of how we treat language alternation in the classroom is of central methodological importance, and one, it will be argued, that has enormous implications for practising language teachers. It is therefore vital that we understand precisely its causes, motivations, and effects, and that until that point we avoid making rash, censorial judgements on its classroom manifestations. Introduction Code-switching, which may be briefly defined as the alternation between two (or more) languages, has been receiving growing attention in recent years. Far from being viewed as a random phenomenon, it has come to be seen as a highly purposeful activity. However, the majority of extant studies have been conducted in authentic bilingual speech communities, rather than in the language classroom, which will be the focus of this study. Teachers and researchers in English as a second language have, on the whole, been concerned to minimize code-switching in the classroom, taking it that the switching either indicates a failure to learn the target language or an unwillingness to do so. Willis (1981: xiv), for instance, suggests that 'If the students start speaking in their own language without your permission . . . it generally means that something is wrong with the lesson.' Cummins and Swain (1986: 105) similarly contend that progress in the second language is facilitated if only one code is used in the classroom, asserting that the teacher's exclusive use of the target code will counteract the 'pull' towards the native code. There also seems to be a feeling that languages should be kept strictly demarcatedthis despite the fact that code-switching is employed 'in the repertoires of most bilingual people and in most bilingual communities' (Romaine: 1989: 2). In the case of monolingual native speakers, the concern is perhaps compounded by the fact that they are often unable to determine why the switching is taking place.
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Language attitudes

Not to put too fine a point on it, then, it would appear that one of the basic operating principles of our profession has largely escaped critical or empirical examination. It had been assumed that code-switching in the classroom was a counter-productive phenomenon, and the whole focus of discussion centred around ways of preventing it, with almost no consideration of what caused it in the first place. This paper will argue that language alternation in the classroom is not self-evidently counterproductive, that there is a paramount need for the subject to be researched further, and that the issue is alive with serious pedagogical implications for the practising language teacher. The study This study took place in Deniz High School, a small Turkish secondary school where English is taught as a second language. It focused on learners aged 11-13 at an elementary and lower intermediate level. Using a tape recorder and notepad, one hundred instances of codeswitching were transcribed onto a database for analysis. The learners were also asked to provide instances of when they code-switched, and to comment briefly on why they felt they did so. I hoped to find answers to the following questions: 1 What is the relationship between the level of the student and his or her use of code-switching strategies? 2 What are the general purposes and specific functions of codeswitching? 3 How do the code-switchers themselves view the phenomenon? 4 Are there certain types of speech event in which code-switching does not 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 of code-switching Code-switching and level Analysis of the corpus revealed that there appeared to be no relationship between level of achievement in the target language and use of code-switching strategies: high achieving students code-switched just as regularly as other students. To assume, therefore, that the greater the competence in the target code, the less the learner will switch to the native code, may not be correct. It seems more likely that there is a code-switching curve, and that at some point the switches will start to decrease in frequency, no longer being required. Further research is needed to establish more precisely when this decrease might be expected to occur.
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Aims

General purposes of The significant point that emerged from the corpus was that 77 per cent code-switching of all instances of code-switching were orientated to classroom tasks. Of the remainder, 16 per cent were comments directed by the learner towards the teacher concerning procedural matters, or questions about English which were not actually related to the task in hand. Actual
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reversion, then, in the sense that students switched to their mother tongue to talk about something else entirely, as an avoidance strategy, was extremely rarethe majority of code-switches in the classroom were related to learning objectives. This is not to say that the switches constituted in all cases the most desirable way of attaining those objectives, but it does show that the presence of code-switching in the language classroom does not in itself indicate any kind of breakdown in pedagogical purpose. Specific functions of code-switching The main problem in analysing code-switching in functional terms is that many switches may be either multi-functional, or open to different functional interpretations. A number of different functional taxonomies of code-switching have been proposed. What they share is the view that code-switching is a 'discourse phenomenon in which speakers rely on juxtaposition of grammatically distinct subsystems to generate conversational inferences' (Gumperz 1982: 97). Gumperz distinguishes between situational switches, and metaphorical switches, where the switches are basically a symbol of the relationships being acted out between the participants, regardless of the situation they are in. Common codeswitching functions isolated by Gumperz include: message qualification, reiteration, addressee specification, and personalization versus objectivization. For the purposes of this project, it was decided to label functional terms according to the analysis of the data to hand, it being unclear whether taxonomies derived from bilingual speech communities would be appropriate to the second language classroom. Summarizing the results of the analysis, we may say that students codeswitch in the classroom from one or more of the following motivations: a. Equivalence This is the use of or elicitation of an equivalent item in the other code, as in: 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, the most common reply was that the required item in the target code was simply unknown: Because when I speak English sometimes I don't know the word and I use a Turkish word. b. Floor-holding Also extremely common is the importation of Turkish floor-holding devices into English discourse, as in: Where did Robert? ... ondan sonra (after that)? ... neydP. (what was it)? 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 one problem for the learner of a second language is actually accessing
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'learned' information. If at this level the speed of retrieval is slower for certain items in the target code than in the native code, then the use of the latter may be said to function as a kind of stopgap, while the former is being retrieved. This may account for the interlingual repetition in this example: T: Was this done on your own? L: Tek baginda (on my own) ... on my own. c. Metalanguage There seems to be a natural perception amongst learners that whilst tasks themselves should be performed in the target code, comment, evaluation, and talk about the task may legitimately take place in the mother tongue: LI: Where did Gary go? L2: Ben sorucagim (I will ask). Where did Gary go? d. Reiteration Here messages are reinforced, emphasized, or clarified where the message has already been transmitted in one code, but not understood, as in: LI: Flowers ... he? ... flowers. T: Flowers. L2: Flowers ... p/fefc.(flowers) e. Group membership Switches in this category function as in-group identity markers. This is often realised through 'wordplay', where switches and mixes are creatively 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 discourse markers 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 thus cannot easily said to be fulfilling a floor-holding function. Although generally translated as 'that is' or 'namely', it may perhaps be better to see yani as being roughly equivalent to the Liverpudlian 'like' ('So like he gives me a look like? ...'). Again, given that this final yani neither holds the floor nor adds anything to message content, we seem to have no alternative but to conclude that such items, whether or not they are concurrently serving a floor-holding function, are indeed acting as kinds of lexical symbols of group identity. This would fit in with Heller's study of code-switching in a Toronto school where French is the medium of education: It seems that code-switching here is a refusal to commit oneself to all the obligations of being French, while maintaining one's right to be at 306 John Eldridge

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this school. It is a way of mediating the conflicting pressures felt by these students from different parts of their social network, and of maintaining access to both.' (1988: 92). What is interesting is that the code-switching is neither one way, nor restricted to the classroom. The strategy is not used purely to assert Turkishness' as against 'Englishness', but to construct a composite agerelated group identity. Complaints by English language teachers about use of Turkish are mirrored exactly by those of Turkish teachers complaining 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 and develop a common style of linguistic behaviour which may or may not be 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 attitude might be if teachers attempt to proscribe such behaviour. f. Conflict control According to Heller (1988: 81-93), one of the main purposes of codeswitching is to create ambiguity in order to deal with situations in which there is a potential conflict. Although there were no unambiguous instances of this in the corpus, one informant did claim to code-switch with the purpose of mitigating a face-threatening act: 'I say 'liar' (in English) to my friends, because I don't want to say yalanci (liar) because I'm not sure. I say 'no' to my cousin because I don't want to say bad things to her or disagree with her.' The learner's knowledge of the target code, even at this comparatively early stage in its development, thus becomes an additional linguistic resource performing quite surprisingly subtle discoursal functions. g. Alignment and disalignment One feature of conversation is the way in which participants adopt certain temporary social roles. Given that conversation is a negotiated enterprise, participants may either try to sustain a particular role, or, alternatively, they may feel the need to adopt different roles as a conversation proceeds, for example, in a particular speech event one might assume the roles, successively, of colleague, superior, and friend. What may also occur are overt attempts to change both the roles of fellow participants and the type of talk taking place. One theme that unfolds through a particular stretch of discourse is the marking out of the conversational territory and the roles, rights, and obligations of the participants within it. Basically, the speaker/listener has two choices: to align him or herself to the conversation as it is, or to seek to shift the alignment in some way. It would appear that in the language classroom code-switches constitute a strategy for this kind of negotiation. LI: What did you do yesterday?
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L2: Neden siz ... Why are you ... (indecipherable) (This creates a slight commotion, with general reversion to Turkish for a few seconds). 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 English in the language classroom,' which learner 1 was conforming to, appears to have been breached by learner 2. The slight commotion that follows seems to indicate that he has succeeded in his attempt to shift conversational content, roles, and, indeed, language. The switch back to English by learners 3 and 4 is an overt attempt to realign the group back to the initial footing. Not only do they demand a restoration of calm, but they do so in English, presumably to convey their feeling that the language of the discussion is inappropriate to the setting. It is presumably one of the major concerns about mother tongue use in the language classroom that it is used to disalign, or to put it another way, to shift the focus of talk away from the pedagogical concerns of the classroom. Whether this is or is not the case will obviously vary between individuals, classes, and institutions. What this survey revealed was that it was less common than I had supposed, and the comment below was noticeable 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 oral examinations The fact that code-switching at this level generally takes place as a communicative strategy rather than as an avoidance strategy is also strongly suggested by an analysis of oral examinations, where both examiner and examinee seem to agree that switching is not a permissible strategy. Analysis of such examinations reveals that they are quite unlike other speech events. The code-switching disappears, but is replaced by long pauses: 5-10 seconds is common with first year students, but they can be up to 20 seconds. There are complete breakdowns in communication, when examinees give up on the transmission of certain messages midway, and begin totally new ones. 'And' and 'er' come into place as fillers or floor-holders, replacing the Turkish floor-holders referred to earlier, and examples of miscommunication abound. Topic switches occur without any initial topicalization. Students 'echo' continually, and there are a lot of interjections ('aiii', 'eh') of Turkish origin which do not appear to be viewed by the learners as codeswitching. We mentioned earlier that there was no evidence that good students code-switched less than their weaker counterparts within the confines of the classroom. However, once they were deprived of the strategy, their higher level of achievement and speed of comprehension and retrieval enabled them to compensate for the loss, suggesting that their classroom code-switching was a strategy of preference. Weaker students, however, 308 John Eldridge

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foundered, suggesting that their code-switching was due to competence problems. In the following example, where the length of the pauses in seconds is shown in brackets, the teacher is interviewing a weak student at 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) in Karaburun I er (4.0) swim in the sea (1.0) erm (4.0) erm (5.0) er I eat 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 er T: 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 the amount of target code use in any given discourse. Well over half of the short exchange above is composed of silence! If the key to second language acquisition is maximizing comprehensible input and output, it remains to be proven that code-switching reduces the chances of this occurring. Pedagogical implications It must, of course, remain the aim of the language teacher that the target code will ultimately be used in isolation, for the simple reason that once outside the classroom, the learners can have no guarantee that their audience will share a knowledge of their mother tongue. However, it would seem wise at this point for the practising teacher to adopt a flexible attitude towards classroom code-switching. Many of the instances of code-switching we have examined have as their source a linguistic deficit of one kind or another. There are two extremely common types of this. The first is lexical deficit. Classroom research might go some way to establishing what lexical items students themselves feel they need to know in the early years of learning English. Corpus analysis is helping establish what the most common words in English are, it is true, yet the communicative needs and desires of a group of young learners in a foreign country might reveal a different set of lexical priorities unaccounted for by syllabus designers. The second major deficit concerns floor-holding mechanisms. An examination of course books at the beginners and pre-intermediate level shows that these are given little or no attention. Yet it is precisely during these early stages that the learner is most liable to break down and need such stalling devices. To put this another way, the less the linguistic competence, the more urgent becomes the need for strategic competence. One can only conclude that floor-holding techniques should be introduced as early as possible into the language teaching process, even though the same may not be possible with relatively sophisticated functions, such as conflict control. The main difference between the child acquiring its first language and
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the second language learner lies in their vastly different levels of cognitive development. Every code-switched utterance is thus potentially indicative of a target code need, and therefore a covert appeal for readjustment of the syllabus. This suggests a need for more negotiation with learners over the content of lessons, courses, and syllabuses. Imposing pre-structured linguistic syllabuses on them, based on theories of some kind of natural order of first language acquisition, or resorting to intuitive judgements about which structures are 'easiest' and should therefore be taught first, does not indicate respect for their level of cognitive development, and may even frustrate rather than facilitate learning. Next, while it may be that certain code-switching strategies are developmental and therefore transient, it would be wise not to take this for granted. In a largely monolingual language learning environment, if the target code strategies and functions referred to above are not attended to at a relatively early stage, fossilization may well occur. That is to say that the switches will cease to be developmental and come instead to serve an explicit avoidance strategy. The language acquired would then become a hybrid variety, and the learners would find themselves severely linguistically deprived in contact with target code monolinguals. In conclusion it should be reiterated that this was a small-scale classroom study. As such it inevitably raises more questions than it can conclusively answer. Further, and more detailed studies of different levels, ages, and types of educational setting will certainly be needed if we are to assess more fully the causes and the effects of code-switching in the language classroom. Only when we are in full possession of this information will we be able to make more informed judgements as to what kind of pedagogical adjustments may be necessary. Conclusion Code-switching appears to be a natural and purposeful phenomenon which facilitates both communication and learning, and for which I would propose three simple explanations: the first is that code-switching is a strategy that yields short-term benefits to the second language learner, but with a risk of hampering long-term acquisition. The second is that its manifestations can be analysed in terms of interlanguage. In other words, it is developmental, and premature attempts to reduce its use would thus impede second language acquisition. Thirdly, and perhaps more likely, there may be a strong relationship between learner styles and abilities and code-switching. We have seen that, when they are forced to, some learners can function quite comfortably in the target language without code-switching, even at a relatively early stage. Others, however, cannot. It might be argued that the removal of the codeswitching option might accelerate their linguistic development. On the other hand, such an approach might have quite a negative effect on motivation and confidence, and therefore decelerate that development. It is to be hoped that further studies may go some way to answering these questions. John Eldridge
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Finally, it is worth emphasizing once more that decreasing mother tongue use in the classroom does not automatically increase the quality and quantity of target language use, any more than decreasing one's consumption of meat automatically increases one's consumption of cheese. To prescribe the former under the assumption that the latter will be achieved thus betrays a logic that is entirely spurious. If we want students to speak more English in the classroom, we should concentrate on that issue, with all the precision and energy at our disposal. Debate about how to stop or decrease mother tongue use is in the last instance sterile, simply because it does not actually address the problem. Received November 1995
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References Auer, J. A. 1988. 'Conversation analytic approach to code-switching and transfer' in Heller (ed). Cummins, J. and M. Swain. 1986. Bilingualism in Education. Harlow: Longman. Gumperz, J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heller, M. 1988. 'Strategic ambiguity: code-switching in the management of conflict' in Heller (ed.). Heller, M. (ed.) 1988. Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Romaine, S. 1989. Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell. Willis, J. 1981. Teaching English Through English. Harlow: Longman. The author John Eldridge has spent most of the last twelve years working in Turkish secondary schools. In 1994 he finished the Aston University MSc. in TEFL (distance learning), and started work at the Eastern Mediterranean University, an Englishmedium university in Northern Cyprus, where he is mainly involved in teacher training.

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