Constructing Multilayered Identity Through Code-Switching: Differences Between Girls and Boys.

Abstract

This study explores the social meanings and functions of code choices between English and Korean by young Korean children in a Korean community in the U.S. It examines the ways code-switching contributes to the children’s co-construction of their social identities in their social groups. The major data consist of 42 hours of ethnographically collected videotaped interaction among Korean children over the course of four academic semesters in a Korean community in the U.S. Data analysis is qualitative and focuses on the macro and micro analysis of videotaped interactions including code-switching in situated activity types. The selected scenes for data analysis were transcribed to examine whether and how the specific sequences exhibit the roles that codes and code-switching play in constructing social identities. The findings of this study suggest some theoretical implications of code-switching research. First, code-switching contributes to the dynamic construction of local identities associated with different codes. Second, code-switching has a social indexing function that signals particular features of social identities and contexts. Third, social meanings of code-switching are always (re)constructed based on the relationships between local contexts, multiple intentional meanings, and characteristics of different people, so the social meanings of code-switching can be creative and emergent.