I found out that I learn languages by code-switching. Are you code-switching too?
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Back when I was growing up, I never understood the need to have a mother tongue, or a native language. People often told me that I had to pick only one language as a mother tongue. This was not the case for me. I grew up in a household that spoke more than two languages, or dialects, to be exact: Tagalog, English and Hokkien.
My language repertoire expanded when I started going to a Chinese school as I was also required to learn Mandarin Chinese, a language that is still not often spoken among the Filipino Chinese community. Mastering a language was a struggle – even more if it is not often practiced. This was the case for my experience with Mandarin Chinese.
While speaking, I often found myself mixing or going in and out of the different languages and dialect being used by my parents, grandparents, and other people in the community. In the linguistics world, what my brain was doing was called, code-switching, a bilingual’s way of dealing with more than one language.
Photo by Lad Hara Caingcoy on Unsplash
Mixing languages or dialects was frowned upon by my language teachers in school, but it was the only way for me to fully express myself when I was young. I did not know that I had to be fully proficient in one language after another. Rather than confining my brain in boxes, languages just flowed like a current, just like what Ofelia García had explained in this video on translanguaging.
Over the years, I began to grasp the rules behind each language and understand their diversity between each other. We were told that we had to be strict with our use of the different languages if we wanted to attain mastery, a key ingredient to success in the adults’ world of communication.
And so, I had to adapt and shift my language mindset. Rather than understanding why my brain works the way it is, I conformed with the linear approach taught in school if I was not talking to my family. Little did I know that this “fluid” mindset might come in handy when I was learning more languages.
Ten years have passed since I left my home country. I’ve gone to several places in Europe to pursue my master’s education and along the way, I was curious again on how different languages co-existed in one continent. When it was time for me to pursue a longer career commitment such as a doctorate, I chose to settle in Italy. After all, I was able to find love at the same time frame.
Learning the basics of a foreign language was easy. What I found harder was to overcome the language barrier to communicate my needs with the locals other than purchasing food and tickets from a supermarket or an edicola. Unlike the other languages I was exposed to while I was young, Italian had more rigid grammar rules and used a different train of thought when it comes to constructing sentences.
I was dumbfounded on how I would proceed in mastering the language. Like any student, I was afraid that people judged me for my proficiency outside the classroom. How would people understand me? It would have been too easy to stick to English, yet I also wanted to communicate with my then-boyfriend-turned husband’s family then. English was not a universal language here in Italy and will never be for some time.
And so, I asked myself, how will I proceed while being less scared and frustrated for being misunderstood? While my partner’s language repertoire was mainly Italian, he had a good grasp of English.
To understand one another and make our relationship work, we began code-switching between the languages. It was a bit tiring for both of us in the beginning, but sooner or later, we got the hang of it. This allowed me to confront the Italian language in a different way compared to the conventional “one-language only” rule reinforced in classrooms, while Gabriele got to see the more authentic version of me other than being the shy person that I am when speaking Italian.
It was with this technique, which allowed me to learn new words and understand specific grammar rules that I may fail to understand in the classroom. It helped me gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Italian language based on preliminary context I have with other languages. It also allowed me to advance my Italian proficiency to a level that lets me feel comfortable enough to speak Italian the entire time during the day.
Because of this unconventional experience, both Gabriele and I had an epiphany. We can use code-switching to create new Italian language learning materials for beginners and intermediate listeners who use English as their principal language. Would our method work for other people? We had to discover it ourselves, and thus, the idea of our podcast was born.
A couple of months have passed since we aired our first episode of the Italian Escape Podcast. Have you been listening to some of our episodes? Do send us your feedback on whether our format has helped you gain confidence and gain familiarity with the Italian language while learning about the Italian culture.
Extra reading material:
Kootstra, G.J., Dijkstra, T., & van Hell J.G. (2020) Interactive Alignment and Lexical Triggering of Code-Switching in Bilingual Dialogue. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(1747)
Hasibuan, A.A., Sari, R.R. (2018) The Functions of Code Switching in Second Language Learning Classroom. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5(4), 99-102
Kaushanskaya, M., Crespo, K. (2019) Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children? Child Dev. 90(3), 708-718
This journal entry was written by Angelique Lusuan.
