Socializing role of codes and code-switching among Korean children in the U. S.

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: This study examines the code-switching habits of Korean children in a Korean speech community in the United States in order to understand the socializing role of codes and code-switching. The primary research question is: How do participants' code choices in the midst of ongoing interaction index and facilitate the co-construction of multiple layers of social identities?

This study combines ethnographic and micro-analytic methods. The major data consist of 42 hours of videotaped interactions among Korean children over the course of four academic semesters. Additional data include observations, interviews, and collected artifacts. The primary research sites were a Korean Christian church and a university-sponsored club for kindergarteners in the U.S. Informal interviews were also conducted with participants to supplement the videotaped data. Data analysis is qualitative, focusing primarily on micro-analysis of videotaped interactions which include code-switching in situated activity types. For data analysis, the selected scenes were transcribed to examine whether and how the specific sequences exhibit the socializing roles of codes and code-switching in constructing social identities. In addition, macro-analytic techniques are incorporated to understand language use within the larger community of practice.

Findings and Conclusions: a) There are unmarked code preferences which contribute to the construction of typical participation frameworks and thus to the construction of identities within those frameworks: boys mainly prefer to use Korean to construct their identities, whereas girls mostly prefer to use English; and b) Despite the unmarked code-preferences by gender, the Korean children often code-switch to a marked code, signaling their reconstruction of identities. The code-switching practices provide evidence that code choices index multilayered identities including complex gender roles, Korean vs. American identities, and power relationships rooted in age and English proficiency. This study suggests: a) that code-switching contributes to the dynamic construction of local identities through emergent contexts, rather than revealing fixed identities associated with different codes, and b) that code-switching has a social indexing function that signals particular features of social identities and contexts.