On Shifting Languages and Moving Ideologies in Migrant Code-Switching
On Shifting Languages and Moving Ideologies in Migrant Code-Switching

Author(s): Mustapha Aabi, Lalla Asmae Karama
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: Migrant Code-Switching
Summary/Abstract: As a form of social behaviour, migrant code-switching (MCS) accommodates a variety of discourses that are imbued with the ideology of the social, cultural and institutional systems. The argument goes that MCS is a socio-ideologically determined process of cross-cultural encounter of different languages, cultures, social, political, and moral systems. We will argue that the prospect of a culturally determined view of language is considerably useful to the understanding of this contact phenomenon. It enables us to relate the mass of knowledge we possess under the heading of cultural studies to the MCS occurrence itself. This study aims to trace the socio-ideological manifestations of this type of language negotiation, particularly in the act of greeting, whereby switching occurs between Moroccan Arabic (MA) and English among the Moroccan migrant community in London. In the process, we will describe and explain how greetings are constituted in the MCS context.

• Details
• Contents