Code-Switching Practices in ESC Performances

The quantitative analyses of language choice practices in Chap. 4 were based on the premise that languages are clearly separable and, therefore, countable codes. Such a procedure builds on traditional and still dominant discourses that construct “languages” as self-evident and clearly delineable linguistic systems, often associated with particular nations. This conceptualisation has for a long time affected not just linguistics but also language policies , foreign language education, discussions of linguistic human rights and language preservation, as well as popular notions of linguistic diversity . However, as has been pointed out by Pennycook (2007: 136), such a conceptualisation of languages as countable is the result of a highly entrenched, monolingually biased metadiscursive regime (see also Makoni and Pennycook 2007).