Technology has transformed how we communicate. Research from the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts shows that code-switching — the practice of switching between languages, dialects, accents, tones, or cultures in conversation — is changing with it.
Faculty members in the School of Modern Languages and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs have published three studies examining how language and cultural code-switching have adapted to the digital age, revealing speakers’ fluency, promoting self-expression, and making messaging more effective. Their research is relevant, as the population of bilingual and bicultural people increases in the United States.
By better understanding code-switching in digital spaces, “we can reveal insights into language dynamics and cultural identity among young bilingual speakers,” says Hongchen Wu, an assistant professor in the School of Modern Languages. “Annotated code-switching datasets are also a valuable resource for training and testing language technologies tailored to bilingual speakers — allowing, for example, an AI-assistant that can understand their code-switching with no struggles.”
Fluency and Self-Expression
While code-switching is often perceived as a sign that someone can’t speak either language well, it actually reveals the opposite, says Cecilia Montes-Alcalá, an associate professor in the School of Modern Languages.
“Digital spaces tend to feel safe and open to express ourselves. Technology allows bilinguals the freedom to use both languages without the stigma it often carries in real life,” she said.
Montes-Alcalá studied text messages between young English-Spanish speakers in New York City. Although only 6.4% of the texts in her dataset included code-switching, she notes that “language mixing in SMS, akin to real-life scenarios, emerges as a nuanced strategy that can be perceived not as a limitation or lack of language skills but rather as a sophisticated, expressive repertoire.”
Wu reports similar findings in texts between Gen Z Japanese-English speakers. By examining pronoun patterns in the data — something native Japanese speakers use differently than non-native speakers — she and co-author Ema Goh confirm that “code-switching among the Japanese-English bilinguals is a result of their full mastery of both Japanese and English,” rather than a lack of it, challenging “commonly cited motivations and reasons for code-switching.”
Participants in Wu’s study developed an innovative texting style to suit the medium, writing and elongating Japanese words with Roman letters, writing English words in Japanese characters, and mixing writing scripts. They also texted the way they spoke at home — those who spoke Japanese more used it more in texts, while those who code-switched more between the two languages did the same.
“Such high engagement in switching between Japanese and English suggests that these Gen Z Japanese Americans actively use both languages to construct their bilingual and bicultural identity,” Wu writes.
More Effective Messaging
If code-switching is a way to express oneself more authentically, it follows that it can make online messaging more effective. Therefore, using it in online spaces can aid critical public messaging campaigns — like promoting vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Professor Michael Best, Ph.D. student Amy Chen, and their co-authors examined the role of cultural code-switching among peer health champions — Black and Latino young adults tasked with combatting Covid-19 misinformation in their communities. They found that harnessing cultural code-switching online led to more effective messaging by “addressing vaccine hesitancy in a culturally responsive manner.”
“Today, health misinformation, especially on social media, is only increasing along with a surge of mistrust in public health institutions,” Best said.
“This creates new risks to our health and safety and underlines the critical role played by these peer health champions as they translate between public health professionals and their own communities. Our research aims to better understand these cultural code-switchers and to build methods and tools that support their important work.”
