Code-switching

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Sorry if this is nothing much to do with picowrimobut it is something I've been working with a LOT with my WIP - I'm holed up in an arts centre trying to finish the Eternal Second Draft. Don't know if I'll manage it, but I should hopefully finish before the end of May.

I've recently come across the interesting phenomenon of code-switching, a linguistic phenomenon where the characters converse using more than one language. There is often an unwritten rule in this practice where the duller, more official stuff is discussed in the "official" language e.g. English, while the more personal feelings prompt a switch into some language closer to the heart. I have heard that people do it a lot when they want to make a point to someone else in their "group" who will get the stuff that outsiders won't.



Lucia does it a lot, especially when she meets up with a Jamaican priest and they develop a friendship. (It is not generally known he is Jamaican, he is keeping his background quiet.) When they want to say really personal stuff to each other, they do it in patois, otherwise they converse in English. Father Dominic, the priest, first alerts Lucia to the fact that he is a friendly agent by saying to her:

"You? No sins?" He laughed out loud. "Now girl - Luk pon yuh. Nuh lie to mi."

I nearly fell off my pew.

Henceforth, they regularly switch back and forth, prompting much googling on my behalf trying to figure out how to say various things in their language. (I had made a rule that after leaving Jamaica, Lucia would make my life easy by sticking to the King's English, a rule which she began to break more and more as the narrative progressed.)

Now I'm at a stage where to my surprise, Eva is up to the same thing, this time with the injured POW Badura. But it's a zillion times more complicated, not to mention highly dangerous and dodgy, because not only they are codeswitching (from English to German and back, all the time) they are also at some points talking in code outright. But it's interesting how Eva can feel affronted because poor Badura, out of his head on morphine, could inadvertently address her as Du and then when recovering revert to the politer form. He is trying to show respect, but she wants his trust. So even code switching can't cover those mutual incomprehensions.



I know a lot of people are fan-ficcing fictional worlds, but I'm wondering if code-switching happens there too, between elves and dwarfs and the like? And as for the Man from Uncle crowd, there's rich pickings there, I imagine!

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I knew a family, husband Hungarian, wife Greek, who brought up their kids in Alexandria then moved out here. Their common language was French. My sister and I were best friends with the children and we spent a lot of time around at their place and they'd mix up English, French, and Arabic seemingly randomly in the same sentence. I suspect they just used the words which came most readily.

Not quite the same thing, but I lived in Germany for four years and thought and dreamed in it, and when I had to speak English, I often couldn't find the word I wanted and was also told my sentence structure was a little foreign.

I am so looking forward to reading this novel.

How does Eva know German?

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

That is interesting. Did you have different languages for personal and private revelations as opposed to official discussions, or did it vary depending on whom you were talking to?

How does Eva know German?

I back-filled that in draft 2 as I didn't have it in draft 1. When she goes to school, she insists, for some reason, in learning German even in the face of a anti-German feeling among her fellow pupils. There is a para or two where she is wrestling with the dative case with the verb "helfen". This is deliberate because the first thing Badura, who is in extreme pain, cries out to her is "Hilf mir!" and she has no problem understanding him :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They generally tried to use English outside the family, but alone--and with my sister and me who were pretty much adopted family, anything went.

I like this. I love languages and always enjoy when they're brought into a story. I've been reading old books written in the 20s and 30s and am interested in the assumption by the authors that all their readers would know French and translations were unnecessary. One story (a Peter Winsey one) turned on the use of a French pronoun.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

From what I understand of the construction of Wimsey's character he would have to be erudite. I don't believe most of the WWI crowd in France had much command of the language, but maybe the officers were better, I dunno.

Getting more info about the Jamaican patois was very interesting. Really I had to do it because if I were going to present Lucia as a fully rounded character I could not neglect context and background. And for Lucia it's a handy way to express extreme emotion of register that she trusts someone.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Wimsey also spent a lot of his youth in France, before and during WW1. What I meant was that Sayers assumed all her readers understood French. (Luckily I do.)

I'm impressed with your research on Jamaican patois. Was it hard to find? Has it changed much, did you have to look for information from that era?

Jamaican Patois

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I just hit google every time I wanted Lucia or the priest to code-switch ;-) There's one bit where Lucia's brother is writing a letter to Eva and I used a bit there too. I suspect that the core structure has changed little since 1937 when the book I read about Jamaica, Tell My Horse, was written, though the vocabulary would have. I avoided the cruder terms which are probably more modern and which Lucia would not have used in any case.

There was a girl who had a whole youtube series on speaking patois and hearing it spoken was quite intriguing.

Also, "bloodclot" and "clot" appear to have been swear words. But I just could not imagine her saying "Oh bloodclots!", it sounded too bizarre to me, so I haven't featured it. I want to err on the side of not sounding ridiculous since it's a culture I'm not familiar with.

And, as Lucia says to Mackenzie - "The difference between you and me, Robin, is that one of us speaks a dialect of incomprehensible gibberish - and the other is Jamaican."

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, I do love Lucia!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

In my vampire crossover universe - also known as "the AU that eats all fandoms" - I often have the French vampires, who generally speak English, as they've lived in Los Angeles for centuries, use short French phrases when they are emotionally involved, either the positive or the negative way. I even have a 500-year-one who's found his way back to faith - well, sort of - and I had him pray in French.

Of course, seeing that I don't actually speak French, it's quite a challenge sometimes. I have to hunt down the phrases from all over the place, and for the prayer I used short lines from religious songs. *g* But I generally find that insertions in a different language can add depth to a story, if used properly.

Edited cuz I apparently can't type.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's harder when you don't speak the language or don't have that much command over it. The Lucia and Badura sections have me hitting google with a vengeance for all the phrases I don't know.

That praying in French passage sounds sweet, tho :)