Naslov
Code-switching in a trilingual child

Autori
Krasić, Marija

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Ocjenski radovi, diplomski rad, diplomski

Fakultet
Učiteljski fakultet

Mjesto
Zagreb

Datum
11.07

Godina
2017

Stranica
32

Mentor
Cergol Kovačević, Kristina

Ključne riječi
multilingualism, code-switching, five-year-old child, Croatian, Ukrainian, German

Sažetak
Multilingual speakers, when faced with communication difficulties, employ different communication strategies, a common one being code-switching if they believe that their collocutors are able to follow such a conversation. This case study investigates the most frequent communication strategies used by a young trilingual girl, who speaks Croatian and Ukrainian as hereditary languages while German is the language of her environment. The focus of this study is on her conversations with her father, who uses Croatian (his mother tongue) with the child. As Croatian is the Participant’s weakest language, communication difficulties are expected to occur when her father addresses her, providing the author of the study with an opportunity to investigate the strategies she uses to overcome communication problems in the mentioned circumstances. It was expected that the Participant would use the code-switching communication strategy, so a further aim of the study was set to investigate which type of code-switching (inter-sentential, intra-sentiential or intra-word) most commonly occurs in the Participant’s speech and which parts of speech the Participant most commonly produces when she code-switches. The study was divided into two parts. First, a semi-structured interview was carried out with the participant’s parents in order to learn about the Participant's personality, the usage of her languages and code-switching which occurs in her speech. In the second part of the study the Participant’s naturally occurring speech was audio-recorded, transcribed and analyzed to meet the study’s aims. The results of the case study confirm that the most commonly used communication strategy the Participant uses in interacting with the father (in Croatian) is indeed code-switching, followed by miming and control of emotions. The most frequently occurred type of code-switching is intra-sentential followed by the inter- sentential code-switching, while inter-word code-switching was found only once. Nouns are the most common part of speech produced when code-switching occurred. Although the Participant’s dominant language is German, she, rather impressively, and with her parents’ strong support, keeps all three of her languages active.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

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