Today, NPR announced the launch of team Code Switch, which will be “covering race, ethnicity and culture at NPR.” Although the authors admit that they will be using the term code-switching rather broadly, I am excited to read/hear more from them in the coming weeks, as I think these kinds of projects help promote a more conscious, descriptive approach toward language(s) among non-linguists.
Also, the article included a link to this entertaining illustration of code-switching by Key & Peele.
Great video – my favourite personal experience of code-switching in action was some years ago when I went to an friend’s engagement party – he was originally from Glasgow in Scotland, but had moved to the East End of London at the age of 14 … both areas with very distinctive dialects. His parents were there, and he introduced them to me in his familiar East End accent (hard to transcribe, but something like : ‘ere, Jim, these are moi parents”) and then turned to them and in broad Glaswegian announced “Mam, Dad, thus uz mah mate Jum!” I don’t believe he even realised that he was doing it … Fascinating stuff.