Language Mixing and Code-Switching in Writing: Approaches to Mixed-Language Written Discourse. Routledge Critical Studies in Multilingualism

"Code-switching," or the alternation of languages by bilinguals, has attracted an enormous amount of attention from researchers. However, most research has focused on spoken language, and the resultant theoretical frameworks have been based on spoken code-switching. This volume presents a collection of new work on the alternation of languages in written form. Written language alternation has existed since ancient times. It is present today in a great deal of traditional media, and also exists in newer, less regulated forms such as email, SMS messages, and blogs. Chapters in this volume cover both historical and contemporary language-mixing practices in a large range of language pairs and multilingual communities. The research collected here explores diverse approaches, including corpus linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, literacy studies, ethnography, and analyses of the visual/textual aspects of written data. Each chapter, based on empirical research of multilingual writing, presents methodological approaches as models for other researchers. New perspectives developed in this book include: analysis specific to written, rather than spoken, discourse; approaches from the new literacy studies, treating mixed-language literacy from a practice perspective; a focus on both "traditional" and "new" media types; and the semiotics of both text and the visual environment. Contents of this book include: (1) Researching and Theorising Multilingual Texts (Mark Sebba); (2) Literacy, Multilingualism and Code-Switching in Early English Written Texts (Herbert Schendl); (3) Multilingual Practices in Women's English Correspondence 1400-1800 (Paivi Pahta and Arja Nurm); (4) Code-Switching in U.S Latino Novels (Cecilia Montes-Alcala); (5) Writing Switching in British (Creole Mark Sebba); (6) Multilingual Web Discussion Forums: Theoretical, Practical and Methodological Issues (Samu Kytola); (7) Multilingual Texts on Web 2.0: The Case of Flickr.com (Carmen Lee and David Barton); (8) Analyzing Multilingual Text-Messaging in Senegal--An Approach for the Study of Mixed Language SMS (Kristin Vold Lexander); (9) Vernacular Literacy Practices in Present-Day Mali: Combining Ethnography and Textual Analysis to Understand Multilingual Texts (Aissatou Mbodj-Pouye and Cecile Van Den Avenne); (10) Repertoires and Resources: Accounting for Code Mixing in the Media (Shahrzad Mahootian); (11) Making Silenced Voices Heard: Code-Switching in Multilingual Literary Texts in Sweden (Carla Jonsson); (12) Linguistic and Generic Hybridity in Web Writing: The Case of Fan Fiction (Sirpa Leppanen); and (13) Bilingualism Meets Digraphia: Script Alternation and Hybridity in Russian-American Writing and Beyond (Philipp Angermeyer).