In a globalized age, the influence of other languages and cultures can sometimes be inescapable in Arab societies, especially to the youth who are being heavily exposed to intercultural/interlinguistic popular culture and educational settings. The ensuing kaleidoscope of linguistic creativity, as exemplified in the use of so-called code switching, is a definitely thought-provoking topic that arouses my curious instinct. As a sample of such a phenomenon, a conversation on race that takes place between two bilingual Arab students studying in the U.S. will be examined in this post, which would hopefully help in understanding the implications of both the internal and external perspectives on code-switching, terms for which are inspired from García et al.’s “Clarifying Translanguaging and Deconstructing Named Languages” (p. 289, 2015), with the context of bilingual speakers of Arabic as an example.
Transcription
- متى أول مرة شعرت إنك بلاك؟
في أولى ابتدائي الأستاذ الفلسطيني الله يسامحه بس كان يضربني يضربني عشان أتكلم عربي لأني كنت أتكلم صومالي بس ما حسيت مرة إني مختلف لأنو كنا عايشين وإحنا صغار في حي كله من نفس الطبقة الاجتماعية يمنيين وصوماليين وبخاريين وسعوديين مخلطين ما حسينا بفرق عن بعض حتى المدرسة في نفس الحي مفصولين عن الباقين فما حسيت إلا في الجامعة بديت اسمع كلمات
- مين كان يقلك كلمات ؟
في الجامعة القبليين بدؤوا يقولوا هادا حضري هادا بدوي هادا ايش يرجع
- في الكلاس في لغة مارجناليازيشن؟
دايما كنت اسمع كلمة يا خال في الجامعة يا خال ياخال ياخال مرة ماااااأانسى موقف صار لي مع مدرس الله يرحمه كنا نوضي بعض صب عليا الموية عشان أتوضا قام قال: "الله يرحم فيصل" يحسبني ما اعرف بعدين قال امزح امزح انتي عارفة فيصل اللي حرر العبيد كمان الطلاب كانو يقولو عبد
- هاو دو يو فيل من الكلمات هاذي؟
اتوجع زي يمدحو ابوباما بس يقولو الخال أوباما اقوللهم لوسمحت لااااااا تستعمل الكلمة هاد يتذكرني بأشياء مو حلوة زي صح قلتلك السيكيوريتي اللي يسألني في المطار يحسبني مو درجة اولى لأني عنده خاااال
- هل تشعر اللي يقولك هذي الكلمات متعلم؟
في مو متعلمين بس كتير متعلمين اللي يقولها اكثر شي احسه اللي يقولها بيكون شي كدا قبلي
- طيب تستعمل هاذي الكلمت بينك وبين اللي مثلك؟
ايوا عادي اشوف واحد خال أقله هادي الكلمات ويقولي لأنه مافي بيننا باور من أول
- طيب والمزحات بهذي الكلمات من اللي الكلتشراللي وايت؟
شوفي هي حسب الكونتكس بس ستيل مو مفضلة عندي
- طيب ممكن احنا لو كلتشراللي وايت نغير معناها ونهدم المعنى السلبي باستعمالها ككلمات عادية وصفية أو مزحات؟
ممكن لكن بس اذا كانت العلاقة مرة مرة قوية واقدر امزح معاه نفس الشي لكن مو أي احد صعب
The External Perspective
The more external approach to “code switching” in this conversation can be based off Bot et al.’s “Sources of Triggering in Code Switching.” The externality of the viewpoint adopted in this approach is not attributed to its lack of explicating the mental/cognitive process that is possibly involved in triggering code switching (actually the authors provide a thorough breakdown of that). It is rather attributed to the fact that it draws on an external view of language throughout these analyses. That is, it treats language--not as the individual’s unique repertoire or as their own independent psychological and mental construct--but rather as a social construct of two different named languages (in this case, Arabic and English). This external view that draws on socially constructed perceptions of language is, thus, where the term code switching comes from.
In this chapter, the writers explain the possible cognitive triggers of so-called code switching, considering the socially constructed named languages as well-defined systems that a code switcher alternates between. They enumerate the different levels at which code switching might be triggered (e.g., the lexical level, the conceptual level, etc.). Moreover, they implement the theory of Self-organization Criticality to illustrate that the languages one speaks can be easily triggered in situations of code switching, yet predicting what the trigger--or the “switch”--is and the level(s) or way(s) in which the following code switching will take place is not quite predictable. Furthermore, they highlight aspects that might play a role in in the process, such as the co-activation between production and perception, and how languages with shared elements can raise the odds of code switching (p. 85-100, 2009).
In this conversation, code switching appears in lexical choices such as مارجناليازيشن , بلاك, and اللي الكلتشراللي وايت. When attempting to speculate what triggered it, it does not seem as if these English words were preceded or triggered by some other Arabic words that semantically or phonetically overlap with them. Therefore, it would be palpable in this case to refer to Bot et al.’s statement that while conceptual, lexical, or structural triggers “play a role” in inciting code switching, other factors contribute more directly to this phenomena. For instance, “there maybe code switching due to the recollection of an event that was encoded in a specific language.” For these students, perceptions of racism, its complexities, and its implications were fundamentally encoded during their study in the U.S. That, indeed, might have been a great trigger for switching to English to express concepts like مارجناليازيشن and social categories like للي الكلتشراللي وايت, which can be essential to the discussion of race. This shift to another language system might not be only a result of the fact that their consciousness of these concepts matured mostly in English; it might also be because English in general--throughout their academic experience in the U.S--has been grounded in their memories as the language of challenging pre-imposed intellectual structures, which is not as encouraged in Arab-speaking countries and educational systems.
If they were not to discuss the topic by means of such English terms, the speakers might very well have veered into a discussion that bears bits and pieces of the tone of religious discourse, which is a very common way to discuss race for speakers of Arabic, as evident in the reflections on racism by Arab users of Twitter in the survey included in my previous blog post. However, the speakers in this conversation still chose to stick with the perspective afforded by English, which--with its evocation of the power to challenge--might have helped them in a sense to move forward beyond the well-beaten track of religious discourse, which is another social construct whose challenge or dismissal is typically forbidden in the everyday talk of Arabic speakers.
A closer look at the conversation also calls for another possible analysis of the trigger of code switching involved. The code switching in this conversation is mostly initiated by the interviewer, a culturally-white speaker of Arabic, as evident in questions 1, 3, and 4, rather than by the interviewee, a black speaker of Arabic. Considering the positionality of the two speakers and the rhetorical situation that entails a sensitive exposure of the interviewee’s intimate experiences with racism, one can contend that the interviewee shift to a system other than their mother tongue is a face-saving strategy that tones down the power and the offensive connotations of race-based labels, such as بلاك and اللي الكلتشراللي وايت. We acquire our mother tongues as children and we learn at an early stage to describe our feelings in that language, which can in turn tie that language more closely to our emotions. The interviewer’s code switching to a second language, English, is potentially a fascinatingly natural way of indirectness and of tactfully handling the interviewee's feelings: هاو دو يو فيل من الكلمات هاذي؟
ِِِAn Internal Perspective
The more internal perspective stems from García et al.’s “Clarifying Translanguaging and Deconstructing Named Languages.” The writers in this article prefer the term “translanguaging,” which they define as “deploying all of the speaker’s lexical and structural resources freely. To repeat, translanguaging refers to using one’s idiolect, that is, one’s linguistic repertoire, without regard for socially and politically defined language labels or boundaries.” In other words, the writers would refrain from analyzing a conversation like the one above in terms of the socially constructed demarcations of named languages (i.e., Arabic vs. English). Rather, they think of it only in terms of idiolects, the individual linguistic repertoires of the interviewee and the interviewers, considering that those speakers make choices from these repertoires to accommodate each other and adapt to the demands of the social situation (279, 2015).
I think that this perspective focuses more on the concept of freedom. It weaves different conceptual arguments to call for linguistic equality and a speaker’s right to be unrestricted in utilizing their linguistic repertoire--regardless of whether their speech strictly follows a named language or not. Therefore, such a perspective would lead us to consider the interviewee and the interviewer’s right to mix Arabic and English in this conversation since--at the end of the day--these categories are socially constructed and lexical items from either named language are an equally acknowledgeable aspects of the participants' individual linguistic repertoires as bilingual speakers of Arabic and English. Their speech, thus, is not shameful “broken Arabic” but a respect-worthy form of communication.
Indeed, Arab students who end up--like these interviewer and interviewee--spending 4 to 10 years getting their degrees abroad sometimes have to cope up with an unforgiving social stigma once they get back home if a foreign word slips out of their mouths in a conversation. They might be very well accused of being boastful and ungrateful for their Arab community.
To test the extent of such monitoring on bilinguals in Arab societies, I conducted the following experiment: I took a look at a Twitter account of a widely acclaimed full-professor of languages and translation at King Saud University. In most of her tweets, she would offer Arabic alternatives to common English words, aiming to preserve Arabic, the holy language. In one tweet, she rhetorically asked--in Arabic--why Arabic speakers would use English words that already have alternatives in their mother tongue, and she encouraged responses that parroted her views on the necessity of shaming those who do that. In the convenience of Twitter's 140-character limit, I tried to respond to that thread--suggesting that a language is nothing but a social construct that we can mold and expand; that bilinguals use words, regardless of their language of origin, as a way to express identity and fulfill rhetorical purposes in a conversation as Peter Auer suggests in his book, Code-switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity; and that it is thought-provoking to look at such a phenomenon beyond a didactic, prescriptive attitude towards language. She ignored my Arabic comment. I repeated my response in English, and she immediately flooded me with fervent responses in English. That should have helped her see bilingual’s right to strategically utilize their linguistic resources, as she unconsciously did. However, as Eastern societies discourage students from challenging the authorial voice no matter how uninformed it is, it was hard to propose new ideas to a supposedly highly intellectual Arab professor specialized in language (you might want to refer to my “Articles on Arabic Sociolinguistics: Discovering the Unusual in the So Usual” blog post for more details on the obstacles posed by such an issue). Here’s her response:
This indignant response to mere suggestions of deconstructing socially constructed linguistic restrictions was not only elicited by the taboo of challenging the traditional authorial voice of the professor that represents a large academic and governmental institution but also by the collective nature of Arab societies. The internal perspective exudes an individualistic ideology, which might not make it easily applicable in the Arab context. Nevertheless, the relatively long and common individualistic experience in the U.S. (which lasted for 8 years in the case of the interviewer and over 10 in the case of the interviewee) might have helped the two Arab friends feel free and safe to deploy their unique idiolects--without the fear of having the quality of their "Arabic” judged. An individualistic language ideology would, expectedly, be discouraged in a fully Arab, Muslim, and monarchical context--like that of the professor--since it could pose a threat to the collective, just-follow-the-crowd mentality that makes it easier for political and religious hegemonies to lead and prevail.
Conclusion
The internal and external perspectives provide different angles for looking at the situation of bilingualism among speakers of Arabic, as evident in the analysis above. I think that both these perspectives are valuable since they guide us to multi-faceted conclusions that compliment our understanding of the different linguistic moves in a particular conversation and their larger social implications. I would rather make the best of what each perspective can theoretically offer, rather than rely on one of them fully, for each of them is still questionable: for instance, the external approach still needs more experiments using naturally occurring data to answer further questions, such as: how far should shared lexical items, for example, overlap to trigger code switching? Similarly, the internal approach in Gracia’s et al.’s article makes one wonder: where’s the cognitive framework that proves that internally a speaker mentally and psychologically utilizes different languages, learned at different times and bound with different cultures and memories, as one repertoire rather than disparate socially constructed named languages? Does that always happen? Is there enough empirically supported literature shoring that claim up? Also, the writers claim that named languages are social constructs while idiolects are not: they are merely lexical and structural constructs (303, 2015). However, I think this point demands further revision and research since many bilingual speakers, myself included, think that their linguistic repertoires are almost equally a social construct: they went through social experiences at home and school that molded their idiolects by, for instance, adding certain words to them rather than others or by providing their tacit linguistic rules, e.g. when to say something and how, and when not to say it. These points of objection, nonetheless, should not blunt our appreciation for some of the valid concepts that these perspectives shed light on, such as the understanding of how--as far as proved in current literature--different languages can trigger certain discursive practices or the advocacy for bilinguals’ right not to have their benign unconventional linguistic practices demeaned.
References
Bot, Kees, Isurin, Ludmila, Donald, and Winford de, eds. “Sources of triggering in code switching.” Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 30 March 2016.
García, O., Otheguy, R. & Reid, W. (2015). “Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics.” Applied Linguistics
References
Bot, Kees, Isurin, Ludmila, Donald, and Winford de, eds. “Sources of triggering in code switching.” Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 30 March 2016.
García, O., Otheguy, R. & Reid, W. (2015). “Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics.” Applied Linguistics
Review 6(3): 281-307.
