Codeswitching among first-year English majored students at Hanoi National University of education and their views on this linguistic phenomenon

gn traits. Poplack believes that:
‘Codeswitching is the juxtaposition of sentences or sentence fragments, each of
which is internally consistent with the morphological and syntactic (and optionally,
phonological) rules of the language of its provenance’ [6].
Poplack proposes morphosyntactic and phonological integration into the main
language in a codeswitched utterance which makes up the majority of phonological
and morphological features of the discourse. She establishes a table to differentiate two
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phenomena in terms of integration as below.
Although the criteria are clear and work well for borrowings and codeswitching in
some cases, they are not always applicable. It is not possible to draw a distinct line between
codeswitching and borrowing based on syntactic, phonological, and morphological
integration [7], [8].
Type Levels of integration into main language Codeswitching?
Phonological Morphological Syntactic
1 γ γ γ No
2 X X γ Yes
3 γ X X Yes
4 X X X Yes
Quite a few examples of integration distinction failure are recorded in literature.
For example, Poplack demonstrates the failure of using phonological integration criteria
to distinguish the two using the example of a native speaker of Spanish who pronounces
all his English words with a Spanish accent when he codeswitches, but exactly as
in standard English when he borrows [9]. Even though many criteria have been
proposed to distinguish codeswitching from borrowing, they are slippery. In a nutshell,
codeswitching and borrowing are two inter-related phenomena/acts that are difficult
to distinguish. Borrowings could have once been codeswitching and codeswitching is
potential borrowing. Hence, the general distinction of linguistic competence seems to
be more feasible; that is, bilinguals can use both codeswitching and borrowing whereas
monolinguals are normally limited to the latter.
2.3. Data collection method
This study employs online questionnaire, classroom observation and in-depth
interview for data collection. The survey questions are adapted from [10-13] studies.
The questionnaire includes three parts. Part one deals with the background information
of participants and includes five questions, four out of which are multiple choices and
one is open-ended. Part two focuses on the types of codeswitching, the frequency and
the opinions of participants on codeswitching. Part three aims at getting data about the
effects of codeswitching in classroom context. In order to collect more qualitative data
for analysis, two Speaking classes are observed and ethical clearance is provided. The
participants are unaware of the real intention of this study so that they can switch codes as
naturally as usual. The conversations carried out during Speaking classes are recorded
and transcribed, and instances of codeswitching are highlighted for detailed analysis.
During the observation, 20 students who codeswitch the most frequently are invited to
the in-depth interview section later.
2.4. Findings
2.4.1. The frequency of codeswitching
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Codeswitching among first-year English majored students at Hanoi National University...
When asked how often students codeswitch, the majority of freshmen (32.3%)
at English Faculty believed that they frequently switched back and forth between two
languages during their Speaking lessons while the percentage of ‘always’ and ‘sometimes’
were somewhat similar with 22.6% and 25.8% respectively. It can also be seen that only
4.8% of the respondents stated that they never related their Vietnamese to English (see
Figure 1).
Figure 1. The frequency of codeswitching during Speaking lessons
During the class observation, 46 students were noticed to employ codeswitching
during their group activities with 102 cases recorded. On average, each student switched
from English to Vietnamese at least twice. It is intriguing to note that codeswitching took
place most of the time during groupwork/pairwork activities with 81 times out of 102.
Interestingly, only 21 cases (1/5) of codeswitching was recorded, when students spoke
in front of the class. The reason for this difference was revealed in the interview session
that they felt comfortable codeswitching because they were surrounded by their close
group members. They felt free to joke and make mistakes or even show their weaknesses.
However, being a centre of attention when speaking in front of the whole class, students
grew tense and became more cautious about what they were going to speak; especially
when their talk might be commented and marked by both the teacher and counterparts.
Therefore, a process of careful word choices and structures was stimulated leading to the
fact that fewer cases of codeswitching occured.
It was also noticed that there was a link between groups’ competence and the
frequency of codeswitching, groups with lower competence involve Vietnamese in their
English speaking lessons more often than those of highly-competent ones. Specifically, of
81 groupwork codewitching cases, there were 7 switches of higher competent groups, 43
to low competent and 31 to mixed-level ones.
2.4.2. The attitude towards self and peer-codeswitching
The results show that when asked to choose the most relevant feeling with the
Likert scale (1-5), a majority of freshmen at English Faculty objected to the use of
codeswitching during Speaking classes. As Table 1 illustrates, none of the participants
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experienced complete satisfaction while 40.3% felt terrible for using Vietnamese in their
English speaking lessons. 32.3% of students, perceiving that codeswitching is a common
phenomenon for bilinguals, they felt neither good nor bad, and the last two groups, making
up 21% and 6.5% slightly inclined their opinions towards the two ends of the scale.
During the interview section, two main reasons for their negative feelings were
revealed. For those who went through dreadfulness, they believed codeswitching meant
they were not competent in English; therefore, they had to desperately seek for the help
from their mother tongue. Secondly, in some cases where the combination of Vietnamese
and English was overused by accident, students asserted that they had treated both
languages with disrespect, which in turn, might create an impression of a clumsy speaker.
Table 1. Participants’ feelings when they codeswitch
1 (Terrible) 2 3 4 5 (Good)
40.3% 21% 32.3% 6.5% 0%
Participants who stayed neutral stated that codeswitching was fun since it was like
a word play happening among bilinguals, or even some close-knit groups only.
Despite the dissenting opinions towards their own switching from English
to Vietnamese in the Speaking lessons, 62 freshmen students seemed not to take
codeswitching serious when it was utilized by their counterparts. The survey reveals
that a significant number of 48 students did not pay too much attention to their friends’
codeswitching during speaking time provided that the meaning was not disrupted. As the
matter of fact, they believed that the ultimate function of speaking was to convey their
thoughts and opinions; once the message was through, they succeeded at that stage and
their fluency or vocabulary could be improved with further practice. Surprisingly, even
two students supported their classmates in presenting a shift in their speech, they claimed
that it was impressive when their friends could swiftly alternate between English and
Vietnamese. By observing their audience’s facial expressions and constantly delivering
questions, their friends could deliberately switch to Vietnamese to clear any ambiguous
parts and confirmed that all listeners completely grasped what they had presented. This,
they believed, was an essential skill for English language teachers.
On being asked if they wish to make any attempt to correct themselves and their
friends when any unintentional codeswitching takes place, students gave responses as in
the Table 2 below:
Table 2. The percentage of participants’ wish to self-correct and peer-correct
Yes No
Correct themselves 74.2% (n=46) 25.8% (n=16)
Correct friends 40.3% (n=25) 59.7% (n=37)
According to the finding, 16 students (25.8%) said no to self-correction and 37
(59.7%) to peer-correction. Interestingly, it was revealed in the interview that those who
did not have an inclination towards self-correction intentionally switched back and forth
between two languages to achieve their own purposes. 74.2% of the respondents desired
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Codeswitching among first-year English majored students at Hanoi National University...
to adjust their speeches as a way to correct themselves; 40.3% of them interrupted
their friends during or after the conversation whenever they realized any unintentional
codeswitching.
In fact, out of 102 cases of codeswitching recorded in two Speaking lessons,
only in 4 cases (accounting for 0.3%) did students correct themselves. The number of
peer-corrections was even much lower with 0 case, which could be attributed to the same
reasons which students had on hearing their friends’codeswitching. The causes of poor
records of self-correction can be explained by Krashen’s monitor hypothesis in second
language acquisition. According to him, in order to make changes to their own speeches,
three requirements i.e. time, focus and knowledge must be met. In this situation, the fact
that students did not correct themselves could be ascribed to the above requirements.
In almost all cases of codeswitching recorded, students were speaking in front of the
whole class resulting in insufficient time for self-correction. Unsurprisingly, in group
discussions, students did show some signs of improvement. In fact, 3 out of 4 cases of
self-correction were noticed when students worked together. In addition, ‘what’ they were
going to speak seemed to be the central focus of their attention, rather than ‘how’ they
were going speak. Therefore, with the lack of focus on form, it is understandable that
students constantly switched between two languages without correcting themselves. Last
but not least, knowledge, especially lexical resources and complex grammar structures,
also hinders students from amending their own mistakes.
2.4.3. Reasons for codeswitching
Students gave several reasons for their codeswitching, they are: the ease of
transferring information, explaining grammar rules, understanding the lesson, and
keeping the conversation going.
a. The ease of understanding/transferring information
Most of the students participating in the study strongly agreed that codeswitching
made it easier to transfer the information. In our observation, there was an occurrence
of codeswitching when a student had to explain knowledge from Biology field, she
immediately switched to Vietnamese to ensure that her classmates could understand her
answer. Then, she received the help from the teacher, who translated the answer into
English.
T: (referring to a picture from students’ book) Which species does this animal
belong to?
S: Reptile.
T: What is the meaning of the term ‘reptile’ in Vietnamese? Why do they get such a
name?
S: Because. . . Tại vì khi mà nó bò cái bụng của nó chạm hẳn xuống đất luôn. . . Thế
nên mới gọi là bò sát ạ.
T: Ok, so when reptiles crawl, their bottom touches the ground, right?
Indeed, as most students claimed, academic knowledge, with its abstract nature
and certain sets of academic vocabulary for each field of study, should firstly be
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comprehended in their mother tongue. There is a possibility that students might
acquire some academic knowledge in Vietnamese; therefore, with the assistance of the
background knowledge, the process of acquisition in the second language will definitely
less time-consuming and more effective. As a result, many students confirmed that
codeswitching was a choice to transfer the knowledge/information more easily.
b. The ease of explaining/understanding grammar rules more precisely
With regard to grammar, all students agreed that Vietnamese played an important
role in making grammar points intelligible. They insisted that in speaking, grammar was
one of the marking criteria. For that reason, it was believed that one of the responsibilities
of teachers was to make sure that students could show an accurate and wide range of
grammar structures in any kinds of speaking tests. Furthermore, Vietnamese is also
utilized effectively to give examples and make comparison in grammar between two
languages as in the following example.
T: (checking students’ answer) You said ‘families of children’? Imagine we say ‘A
man with money’. . . It means this man has some money, right?. . . It is similar. . . There are
some children in the family, so we say ‘Families with children’, not ‘families of children’.
It is true that we have the phrase ‘family of children’, but not in this case.
S1: (turning to her friends to discuss) ‘with’ kiểu như ‘có’ trong Tiếng Việt mình ấy
hả?
In this case, student compared ‘with’ in English to ‘có’ in Vietnamese to deepen
her understanding in grammar. Students also revealed that codeswitching in such situation
could save a great amount of time so that they could focus more on other speaking skills.
c. The ease of understanding the lesson correctly
As students codeswitched to clear doubts and uncertainties, they agreed that
codeswitching helped them understand the lessons more easily. In many cases recorded
during observations, Vietnamese was used to clarify meaning. For example “short-sighted
là gì thế?” or “Cô nói cái gì đấy?”. On the other hand, codeswitching had compensated
for students’ lack of vocabulary; it was used to guarantee that everyone in class, even low
level ones, could keep pace with the whole class. In addition, many students assumed
that if words or phrases were repeated in Vietnamese after being presented in English,
they were important ones. By switching back and forth between two languages, students
expected to have key ideas highlighted and emphasized.
d. The ease of keeping the conversation going
The other benefit of codeswitching in speaking lessons that students claimed is
to avoid interruption caused by linguistic deficiency and keep the conversation going
smoothly. For example, when the teacher asked her students to talk about their father’s
job with the person next to them, one of them codeswitched to Vietnamese as following:
S: My father works on a farm. . . . And he raises. . . Raise đúng không hay là rise?
Nuôi là raise đúng không?
In the above example, as the student hesitated between ‘raise’ and ‘rise’, she
switched to Vietnamese to receive constructive suggestions from her friends in order to
make the correct choice of word. As a result, she successfully conveyed her intended
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