English vietnamese code switching in conversations of vietnamese engineers reasons and attitudes of community

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST –
GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

NGUYỄN THỊ THU PHÚC

ENGLISH - VIETNAMESE CODE-SWITCHING IN
CONVERSATIONS OF VIETNAMESE ENGINEERS REASONS AND ATTITUDES OF COMMUNITY
(Hiện tượng chuyển ngữ tiếng Anh trong giao tiếp của các kỹ
sư người Việt - nguyên nhân và thái độ của cộng đồng )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis
English Linguistics
Major code: 60220201

Hanoi - 2017


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST –
GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

NGUYỄN THỊ THU PHÚC

ENGLISH - VIETNAMESE CODE-SWITCHING IN
CONVERSATIONS OF VIETNAMESE ENGINEERS REASONS AND ATTITUDES OF COMMUNITY
(Hiện tượng chuyển ngữ tiếng Anh trong giao tiếp của các kỹ
sư người Việt - nguyên nhân và thái độ của cộng đồng )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis
English Linguistics

Major code: 60220201
Supervisor: Dr. Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà

Hanoi - 2017


DECLARATION
I hereby certify that this thesis entitled: ―English-Vietnamese Code-switching

in conversations of Vietnamese engineers - reasons and attitudes of community”
for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own work. I have provided fully
documented references to the work of others. The material in this paper has not been
submitted for assessment in any other formal courses of study.
Signature: ………………………...
Date: …………………….………..

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thesis was completed with the valuable assistance and encouragement of
many people to whom I wish to extend my sincere thanks.
First of all, I would like to send my deepest thank to my supervisor, Dr. Đỗ Thị
Thanh Hà, who has given me precious advice and tremendous supports.
Besides, my grateful thanks go to the lecturers and professors at the department
of Post – graduate studies of ULIS for their guiding lectures, which give much
contribution to the achievements of the thesis.
Finally, I would also love to give my heartfelt gratitude to my family, my husband,
colleagues and friends, especially the leaders and staff of the companies PVC-PT, PVCMS, PTSC Marine, for their endless encouragement and unconditional help without
which the graduation paper could not have been fulfilled.

Thanks to all of you.

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ABSTRACT
The aims of this thesis is to find out the reasons why a group of engineers in a
company use English-Vietnamese code-switching in conversations at work and the
attitudes of their colleagues to this phenomenon. A combination of qualitative and
quantitative research methods was employed to collect and analyze the data with a
system of two questionnaires based on the audio-recorded conversations of those
engineers in the meeting and the theoretical frameworks of Malik (1994), Eagley &
Chaiken (1993), Myers-Scotton (1993), Hidalgo (1998). It is found that most of the
respondents use code-switching to emphasize a point at work, to show identity of a
group, for habitual expression, lack of register and lack of facility. Besides, they
states four other reasons useful for their work, namely to work in the international
contexts, to clarify the specification, to take for granted from internet or Facebook
and to save time. The attitudes towards code-switching are open and positive. Most
of the respondents can understand the conversations with code-switching, feel
comfortable and prefer them. In their opinion, age, occupation, proficiency and
frequency of English do not much affect favor, understanding and using of codeswitching in general, but in detail there are still some influences like experience,
work fields, proficiency of English and specification, and frequency of using
English. Although code-switching may a little bit destroy the impurity of
Vietnamese, the positive impact of it on English acquisition is not denied. Codeswitching needs to be used while teaching and learning English, especially
vocabulary and terms of specification.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION.................................................................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................... iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................vii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES.................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.........................................................................1
1.1. Rationale of the study.........................................................................................1
1.2. Aims and scopes of the study.............................................................................2
1.3. Research questions.............................................................................................2
1.4. Methods of the study..........................................................................................2
1.5. Significance of the study....................................................................................3
1.6. Outline of the report...........................................................................................3
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................4
2.1. Bilingualism.......................................................................................................4
2.1.1. Bilinguals and bilingualism.............................................................................4
2.1.2. Types of bilingualism.......................................................................................5
2.1.3. Language choice of bilinguals.........................................................................6
2.2. Code-switching, code-mixing and borrowing.....................................................7
2.2.1. Code................................................................................................................7
2.2.2. Code-switching and code-mixing....................................................................7
2.2.3. Code-switching and borrowing.......................................................................9

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2.3. Reasons for code-switching.............................................................................. 10
2.4. Attitudes about code-switching......................................................................... 13

2.5. Previous studies on English-Vietnamese code-switching.................................14
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY................................................................188
3.1. Context and Participants:................................................................................188
3.2. Methods of the study........................................................................................ 18
3.3. Mehthods for data collection:.........................................................................189
3.3.1. Instruments:.................................................................................................199
3.3.2. Procedures:
.............................................................................................................................
2121
3.3.3. Data analysis:
.................................................................................................................................
22
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS................................................ 24
4.1. Research question 1: What are the reasons for code-switching used in
conversations of Vietnamese engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas?................24
4.1.1.Lack of facility................................................................................................ 26
4.1.2. Lack of register.............................................................................................. 26
4.1.3. To amplify and emphasize a point.................................................................. 27
4.1.4. Habitual expression.....................................................................................277
4.1.5. To show identity of a group..........................................................................288
4.1.6. To work in international contexts................................................................300
4.1.7. To clarify the specification...........................................................................300
4.1.8. To take for granted......................................................................................... 31
4.1.9. To save time................................................................................................... 31
4.2. Research question 2: What are the attitudes of their colleagues towards this
phenomenon?.......................................................................................................... 32
4.2.1. Part 1: Frequency of code-switching in everyday conversations.................322


v

4.2.2. Part 2: Attitudes of respondents towards code-switching in conversations at
workplace................................................................................................................ 33
4.2.3. Part 3: Further findings about the impacts of age, occupation, proficiency of
English and frequency of English using on code-switching...................................355
4.2.4. Part 4: Positive or negative impacts of code-switching on English
acquisition............................................................................................................................................ 39
4.4. Summary.......................................................................................................... 40
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS........................................................................... 42
5.1. Recapitulation................................................................................................... 43
5.2. Limitations........................................................................................................ 44
REFERENCES....................................................................................................466
APPENDIX 1: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTS........................................................50
APPENDIX 2: PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA....................................................................588
APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW..................................................................................................... 65

vi


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CS

: Code-switching

CV

: Curriculum Vitae

ESP

: English for special purposes

ESL

: English as second language

ELT

: English Language Teaching

EFL

: English as a Foreign Language

L1

: The first language

L2

: The second language

PDF

: Portable Document Format

PVC-PT

: Petroleum Pipeline & Tank Construction Co, Ltd

PVC-MS

: Petroleum Equipment Assembly & Metal Structure Co., Ltd

PTSC

: PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation

TESOL

: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

ULIS

: University of Languages and International Studies

Q

: Question

vii


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Reasons for code-switching (proposed by Malik, 1994)............................25
Table 2: Other reasons for code-switching (proposed by the respondents ).............29
Table 3: Attitudes to code-switching in conversations at workplace.......................34
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Frequency of codes-switching in everyday conversations........................33
Figure 2: Impact of age on understanding and using of code-switching (Breakdown of

of Q7 in Part 2 and Q1 in Part 3)............................................................................. 36
Figure 3: Impact of occupation on understanding and using of code-switching
(Breakdown of Q8 in Part 2 and Q2, 3 in Part 3)..................................................... 37
Figure 4: Impact of proficiency of English on understanding and using of
code-switching (Breakdown of Q6 in Part 2 and Q4 in Part 3)................................38
Figure 5: Impact of frequency of using English at work on favor and disfavor of
code-switching (Breakdown of Q3 in Part 2 and Q5 in Part 3)................................39
Figure 6: Impacts of code-switching on English acquisition.................................... 40

viii


CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

This chapter comprises background to the study that are the rationale, aims and
scope, research questions, methods, significance and design of the study.
1.1. Rationale of the study
Nowadays, together with the rapid globalization in many fields of life, an
international language for communication, technology and business is required and
English with about 1,500 million speakers worldwide has been chosen to apply for
this purpose (Crystal, 2003). He also emphasized ― English is a global language‖
with World Englishes all over the world. In Vietnam, English has also widely been
taught at school or used in the daily life. As a result, the number of bilinguals
speaking both English and Vietnamese is increasing. They like mixing languages
and switching them back and forth in everyday conversations. This sociolinguistic
phenomenon is defined as ―code-switching‖ or ―code-mixing‖ that is very popular
in ‗bilingual communities where speakers use their native tongue (L1) and their

second language (L2) in different domain‖ (Kim, 2006).
Moreover, the demand of being high qualified to find a good job in the
globalization age and the open-door policy of the government approved throughout
Vietnam has encouraged many people in using English as the second language
(ESL), especially the engineers who may carry on their study abroad or may have to
gain knowledge on the new hi-technology at workplace and do business with
foreign companies. Since then they have sooner become the members of bilingual
community in Vietnam. In spite of living in their first language environment, they
usually use code-switching of English in speech at work as the bilinguals of
Vietnamese and English. Being a teacher of English as second language and a
bilingual, the author is very keen on this problem and decided to set out an
investigation on it.
Although there are a number of studies of foreign linguists written on this
phenomenon, which concentrate on linguistic aspects of code-switching (Gumperz,
1976; Poplack, 1980), attitudes towards code-switching, (Gibbons, 1983 ), reasons
1


and motivations of code-switching (Kim, 2006), only a few studies of Vietnamese
linguists related to code-switching such as Ho Dac Tuc (2003) and Tran & Do (2015).
(2015). Ho Dac Tuc (2003) is considered as one of the pioneers, who had given a view
on patterns of Vietnamese-English code-switching in conversions of the Vietnamese
community in Australia. Besides, Tran & Do (2015) proposed a point of of view on
patterns and features of English terms mixed in the corpus on ―Hoa Học Trò‖ - a
magazine for teenagers published weekly and has great influence in Vietnam. Vietnam.
Obviously, there are still many gaps left for the further studies. In this paper, the author
tries to find out the reasons for code-switching in conversations of a a group of
Vietnamese engineers in a company of Oil and Gas in the South of Vietnam and the
attitudes towards this phenomenon of the other colleagues.

1.2. Aims and scopes of the study
In this study, a survey is carried out to explore the factors that cause the codeswitching phenomenon in conversations of the engineers in a company of oil and
gas in the South of Vietnam and the reaction of the other people when meeting this
case. In general, the study focuses on the reasons of the use code-switching found in
daily speech at workplace of the engineers in a company of oil and gas in the South
of Vietnam who are not linguists or teachers of English but most of them quite good
at English and the attitudes of their colleagues while facing this phenomenon.
1.3. Research questions
In order to reach this aim, the research has to answer two questions as follows:
1) What are the reasons for code-switching used in conversations of Vietnamese

engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas
2) What are the attitudes of their colleagues towards this phenomenon?

1.4. Methods of the study
A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is employed in order to find
answers to the research questions in the study. Some conversations of a group of of
engineers in the meeting were naturally recorded and transcribed, based on which two
questionnaires were designed and launched out to get the data. In the paper, the

2


theoretical frameworks of Malik (1994) concerning the reasons of code-switching
and of Eagley & Chaiken (1993), Myers-Scotton (1993), Hidalgo (1998) related to
the attitudes on code-switching of the community had been applied for data analysis
to find the results of investigations.
1.5. Significance of the study
Willing to understand the reasons why this phenomenon enters the daily
working life of the high qualified people in Vietnam, especially the people who can

use English fluently at work and the reaction of other people about it, the researcher
hopes to get some points of views on code-switching - a widespread sociolinguistic
phenomenon - and give some contributions to studies of speech community of
bilinguals using code-switching.
1.6. Outline of the report
The thesis is presented with 5 chapters:
Chapter 1 is the introduction of the thesis that deals with rationale, aims, specific
objectives, scope and significance of the study.
Chapter 2 is the literature review that being in charge of reviewing previous studies
on code switching in conversations of bilinguals. At the same time, theoretical
background, which describes the theories used in the study, would be provided.
Chapter 3 is the methodology that indicates methods which are used in the study to
analyze data.
Chapter 4 is the findings and discussions that shows the result of the study. The
analysis of data and the findings are both indicated in this chapter. Chapter 5 is the
conclusion that summarizes all the above chapters.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter introduces the main concepts and definitions related to Codeswitching like bilinguals, bilingualism, code, code-switching, code-mixing,
borrowing, and the frameworks that are used for analyzing the data in the study to
clarify the reasons of code-switching in conversations of a group of engineers at
workplace, not in other contexts such as advertising, chatting room or classrooms,
Facebook or online chatting, and attitudes towards this phenomenon.
2.1. Bilingualism
2.1.1. Bilinguals and bilingualism
Sociolinguistics is the field that studies the relation between language and
society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of

language live. Bilingualism is considered as a field concerning sociolinguistics and
a bilingual speaker is a person who can communicate in more than one language.
(Spolsky, 1998).
Many scholars and linguists have attempted to describe and fully understand the
concept of bilingualism. From maximalist views, Bloomfield (1935) defined
bilingualism as the ―native-like control of two languages that raised some questions
on the degree of mastery of competence of a speaker in the languages in order to be
considered to have native-like control. Haugen (1953) from minimalist views explained
that bilingualism only exists when a speaker of one language ―has the ability to
produce complete meaningful utterance in another language‖. According to Mackey
(1962), bilingualism is ‗the ability to use more than one language‘ (p.52) and
Macnamara (1966) stated that bilinguals are those who possess at least one of the
language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in a second language, even if
such skills are minimally developed. Weinreich (1968) with the intermediate views
thought bilingualism involves ‗alternately using two languages‘ (p.5).
Spolsky (1998, p97) defined ―Bilingualism, therefore, simply as having two
languages”. He stated that ―The simplest definition of a bilingual is a person who has
has some functional ability in a second language. This may vary from a limited ability

4


ability in one or more domain, to very strong command of both languages, which is
sometimes called balanced bilingualism‖. (Spolsky, 1998, p45). Besides, Grosjean
(1982) considered bilingualism as a phenomenon involving ―the regular use of two
or or more languages‖ and he furthermore defined a bilingual speaker as more than
the sum of two monolinguals in the sense that the bilingual has also developed some
unique language behavior (Grosjean, 1985a). Through this view, he pointed out the
role of the frequency and proficiency in the language use and language relatedbehavior. The theory of Spolsky is easy to understand, but the theory of Grosjean is
overall and better accepted.

According to Weinreich (1953), bilingualism can be further divided into
compound bilingualism, coordinate bilingualism and subordinate bilingualism by
looking at bilinguals‘ cognitive process of representation and organization of
concepts and words.
2.1.2. Types of bilingualism
As mentioned above, Weinreich (1953) suggested a famous typology that
distinguishes three types of bilingualism based on the conceptual representations
and cognitive organization of words in a bilingual‘s mind. They are compound
bilingualism, coordinate bilingualism and subordinate bilingualism.
Compound bilingualism refers to the type of bilingualism where both first and
second languages are acquired by a speaker concurrently under the same
environment in early childhood. The speaker assigns identical meanings for
equivalent words as the two languages merge at the conceptual level of the brain.
Hence, two language systems are developed and maintained by the speaker, both
similarly available in speaker‘s linguistic repertoire (Nomura, 2003). This can be
seen in speakers with bilingual parents or those growing up with different linguistic
backgrounds.
Coordinate bilingualism occurs when a speaker learns two languages under
separate environments. This results in speaker having distinctive conceptual
representations for translation equivalents in the languages (Archibald, 2000). In
5


other words, equivalent forms refer to different concepts in both languages with
slightly different meanings assigned to each word. The speaker may establish a first
language in early age followed by a second language much later such as through
formal education or in adulthood.
Subordinate bilingualism is a type of mediated bilingualism where the lexical
and conceptual representations of a speaker‘s first language play a role in
facilitating the lexical representations of the speaker‘s second language. Dominant

in the first language, meanings and concepts in the second language are understood
with the help of words from the first language. Hence, one of the characteristics of
subordinate bilingualism is low level proficiency in the second language .
In this study, the participants are Vietnamese who are still living and working in
Vietnam, they use Vietnamese as mother tongue and English as second language at
work, so they can have coordinate bilingualism.
2.1.3. Language choice of bilinguals
Members of the community have to decide on what language to use in certain
contexts to certain interlocutors. Holmes (2008) states that ―Certain social factors
– who are talking to, the social context of the talk, the function and topic of the
discussion – turn out to be important in accounting for language choice in many
different kinds of speech community‖. This claim can be exemplified by the factor
of participants in a conversation. If two monolinguals are talking, they both tend to
use monolingual language. However, if this is a conversation between bilinguals,
who share the same linguistic background, the phenomenon becomes far more
complex and involves more than one choice only; it may involve aspects like codeswitching and borrowing (Grosjean, 1982).
Whether in family life, social interactions, or business negotiations, half the
people in the world speak more than one language every day. Yet many myths
persist about bilingualism and bilinguals. Crystal (2003) and Grosjean (2010) both
agree that bilingualism is a tendency nowadays due to many factors of geography,
immigration, international business and trade, and government‘s policy on language
6


in the globalization time. For instance, English is spoken in most of the countries
throughout the world and that creates a concept of ―World Englishes‖ with
―colorful nicknames attached - Franglais, Tex-Mex, Chinglish, Japlish, Singlish,
Spanglish, Denglish or Angleutsch‖.
Bilinguals do not usually translate from the weaker language to the stronger one
and codes-witching is most often used when a word does not ―come‖. Code

switching is not a language interference based on the fact that it supplements
speech. It provides continuity in speech rather than presenting an interference when
used because of an inability of expression. Code-switching can be used in a variety
of degrees, whether it is used at home with family or friends, or used with superiors
at the workplace. (Lipski, 1985, p23).
Bilingualism is a concept often associated with code-switching as a speaker
must be able to preform more than a language in order to code-switch.
2.2. Code-switching, code-mixing and borrowing
2.2.1. Code
Human beings use ―code‖ for communication between them. The term ―code‖
is defined by sociolinguists as a less popular name for ―variety of language‖ or just
as ‗a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution‖ (Hudson, 1996, p.22).
The notion ―variety‖ includes languages, dialects and registers (Hudson, 1996,
Holmes, 2008). In the other words, the function of code is ―a system of words,
letters, numbers or symbols that represent a message or record information secretly
th

or in a shorter form‖(Oxford Advanced Learners, 8 ed, OUP). While talking, the
speakers switch codes, so codes here are known as the languages used in the
conversation that may be words, phrases, clauses or sentences switching back and
forth in two languages or more. Code-switching is the alternation between two
codes (languages and/or dialects), between people who share those particular codes.
2.2.2. Code-switching and code-mixing
Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon where two or more varieties are
used alternatively by bilinguals in a conversation. This phenomenon is considered
7


as one that involves ―the regular use of two or more languages‖ (Grosjean, 1982, p.
1) within a certain speech community. Shana Poplack (1980), simply defines code-

switching as ―the alternation of two languages within a single discourse, sentence
or constituents‖, often with no change of interlocutor or topic. This view is shared
by many other linguists, such as Hudson (1996), Spolsky (1998), Ho-Dac-Tuc
(2003) and Holmes (2008). Crystal (2003) states that ―in the form of codeswitching, the process in which people rely simultaneously on two or more
languages to communicate with each other‖.
The views on code-switching and code-mixing seems quite different. The first
view is the approach of Clyne (1991) who argues that code-switching is similar to
code-mixing and both refer to the same phenomenon in which ― speaker stops
using language ‗A‘ and employs language ‗B‘‖. The second approach belongs to
Bentahila and Davies (1983) and some other linguists such as Wei (1998), Bhatia &
Ritchie (2004). They share the view that if code occurs below at or above clause
level, it is called code switching, but if it occurs below clause level it is codemixing. The last approach is from Poplack (1980) in which she suggests code
mixing is a sub-type of code switching. This is also agreed by Holmes (1992) and
Liu, P. (2008) who states that: ―Very often the expression code-mixing is used
synonymously with code-switching and means basically intra-sentential codeswitching‖ (p.4)
Poplack (1980:1:589) also classifies the occurrence of code-switching into tagswitching, inter-sentential switching and intra-sentential switching.
Tag- switching involves a tag or short phrase in one language into an utterance
that is otherwise entirely in another language (E.g. I mean, I wish, you know, ok,
right…etc). This type of code- switching occurs the most easily for the reason being
that tags typically contain minimal syntactic restriction that not violating syntactic
rules when being inserted into monolingual sentence. Poplack describes this type by
an example in Portuguese - English as following:
Example 1: I look like Lilica, you know, nunca paro! (I look like Lilica, you
know, I never stop).
8


Inter-sentential switching occurs at clausal or sentential level where each clause
or sentence is in one language or another. Happening within the same sentence or

between speaker turns, this type of code-switching requires its speaker to be fluent
in both languages in order to conform to the rules of the languages.
Example 2: Sometimes I‟ll start a sentence in English y termino en espanol.
(Sometimes I‟ll start a sentence in English and finish in Spanish).(p1).
Intra-sentential switching is possibly the most complex type among the three.,
can take place at clausal, sentential or even word level.
Example 3: Why make Carol sentaser atraspa‟que everybody has to move
pa‟quese salga (Why make Carol sit in the back so, everybody has to move for her
to get out) (p.589)
According to Poplack, code-switching refers to both inter-sentential and intrasentential code- alternation occurring when a bilingual uses more than one
language, and code-mixing refers to intra-sentential type.
Actually, the difference between code-switching and code-mixing is not so
much that only scholars or linguists can clarify it. For the common bilinguals, they
usually use both concepts alternatively or interchangeably.
2.2.3. Code-switching and borrowing
One of the important outcomes of language contact is borrowing: this
phenomenon is always confused with code-switching in the literature. Many
scholars tried to make a distinction between them. Hudson (1996:55) says that ―
Whereas code-switching and code-mixing involved mixing languages in speech,
borrowing involved mixing the systems themselves, because an item is ―borrowed‖
from one language to become part of the other language‖. Here Hudson means that
the borrowed words become totally assimilated to the recipient language and be part
of its repertoire.
Holmes (2008, p. 43) gives a fact that ―People may also borrow words from
another language to express a concept or describe an object for which there is no

9


obvious word available in the language they are using.‖ According to Spolsky

(1998) ―the switching of words is the beginning of borrowing‖.
―One bilingual individual using a word from language A in a language B is a case of
switching, but when many people do, even speakers of B who don‘t know A are likely to
pick it up. At this stage, especially if the pronunciation and morphology have been adapted,
we can say the word has been borrowed‖. (Spolsky, 1998.p49)

Besides, Crystal indicates that ―the increase in code-switching is evidently one
of the most noticeable features of the situations in which New Englishes are
emerging. Any loan-word could be viewed as a minimalist example of codeswitching‖.
The distinction of code switching and borrowing is clarified by Plaff (1979, as
cited in Ho-Dac-Tuc, 2003, p.8) in term of ―the speaker‘s degree of competence:
borrowing needs monolingual competence, whereas for a code-switch to occur, a
speaker should have bilingual competence.‖
Many words borrowed from other languages become quite familiar to
monolingual speakers in Vietnam such as giáo sư, ngành thương mại, món hủ tiếu
(Chinese-Vietnamese), cái gác ba ga, cái săm xe (French-Vietnamese), cái đầu
video, xem TV (English-Vietnamese), súng Kachiusa (Russian-Vietnamese).
In brief, the mentioned definitions give an overview and distinction of codeswitching and borrowing as well as clarify the close relation between them.
2.3. Reasons for code-switching.
Code-switching is very common among bilinguals, and Myers-Scottons (1993)
suggests that it serves important social functions. The motivations, functions and
reasons of code-switching have been studied extensively by a number of researchers
from various linguistic perspectives. There are the views of Halliday (1975),
Gumperz (1982), Malik‘s (1994), Appel and Muysken (2006) on this problem that
would be mentioned below.
Halliday (1975) views code switching as fulfilling the interpersonal function of
communication. Here the mixed language spoken plays the role of a mediator. In

10

other words, it is the use of language to act as a mediator between self and
participants in the communicative event.
On the other hand, Gumperz (1982) when discussing communicative functions,
mentions the discourse function of code-switching, also called the personalization
function of language. A speaker plays upon the connotation of the we-code to create
a conversational effect. Thus, code switching is seen as fulfilling the relational and
referential function of language that amounts to effective communication and
interlingual unity.
In fulfilling the relational and referential functions, code switching is seen as
the medium to convey both social and linguistic meanings. Gumperz (pg. 144,
1982) lists examples of situations created to convey meaning as given below:
1. To appeal to the literate
2. To appeal to the illiterate
3. To convey precise meaning
4. To ease communication, i.e., utilizing the shortest and the easiest route
5. To negotiate with greater authority
6. To capture attention, i.e. stylistic, emphatic, emotional
7. To emphasize a point
8. To communicate more effectively
9. To identify with a particular group
10. To close the status gap
11. To establish goodwill and support

Based on the concepts of functional specialization by Hallidays et al. (1964),
Appel and Muysken (2006) listed six main functions of code-switching (as cited in
Kim, 2006):
1. Referential function: Code-switching involves lack of knowledge or facility in a

language. Hence, bilingual speakers switch code when they do not know the word or

when a certain concept is not available in that language. Language is chosen also
because it is more appropriate or suitable to be used for a particular topic.

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2. Directive function: This function of code-switching aims to include or

exclude a person from a part of a conversation such as by using a familiar or foreign
language to that person.
3. Expressive function: Speakers use more than one language to stress their

self-identity of feelings to others in the conversation.
4. Phatic function: Code-switching is used to show a change in tone and

emphasize parts of a conversation that are of important.
5. Metalinguistic function: Speakers sometimes switch code in order to

comment on another language.
6. Poetic function: Words, puns and jokes in one language are switched to

another language for the purpose of amusement or entertainment.
Kim also quoted Malik‘s (1994) ideas in discussing the sociolinguistic view on
code-switching of the language situation in India explained ten reasons for speakers
to switch codes:
1. Lack of facility: When certain concepts in a variety are not available in the

other, bilingual speakers switch code to express themselves and at the same time
avoid unnecessary misunderstanding and loss of intended meaning.
2. Lack of register: Bilinguals may find difficulties in choosing appropriate

words in the target language for specific topics and choose to code-switch when
they are not equally competent in the two languages.
3. Mood of the speaker: Code-switching takes place when bilinguals are in

different moods such as angry, anxious or nervous. Although the intended words are
available in both languages, bilinguals may code-switch when the words in the other
language seem to take less effort and time to be used at that particular moment.
4. To amplify and emphasize a point: Bilinguals may code-switch on selected

parts of a speech to make sure that listeners know what to highlight and focus on in
situations such as argument.

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5. Habitual expression: Code-switching also happens commonly in fixed

phrases such as greetings, commands, requests, apologies and discourse markers.
This may suggest strength to a speech such as warning or threat.
6. Semantic significance: Used as a verbal strategy, code-switching can convey

important and meaningful linguistic and social information such as speaker‘s
attitudes, communicative intents or emotion.
7. To show identity with a group: Code-switching is used to signify shared

values and experiences by people of a same group or culture Hence, words and
phrases are retained in their original languages to represent a sense of belonging and
familiarity to the group.
8. To address different audience: Code-switching is also used when speakers

intend to address different listeners or recipients, who are coming from various
linguistic backgrounds.
9. Pragmatic reasons: Sometimes, code-switching is dependent on the context of

a conversation or the factors such as formality, participants and location where a
conversation is taking place. Therefore, code-switching may portray a varying
degree of speaker‘s involvement.
10. To attract attention: When two languages or more are used in media or

advertisements, audience are often attracted to the language that they are familiar
with first
For the purpose of this study, Malik‘s (1994) ten functions of code-switching
are then used to elaborate on the examples in detail to give a clearer view on why a
group of Vietnamese engineers using code-witching in conversations at work. These
classifications of functions and reasons will be the basic theoretical frameworks in
collecting and analyzing the collected data.
2.4. Attitudes about code-switching
The term ―attitude‖ is itself very difficult to comprehend. There are many
definitions of attitude proposed by different scholars. Gardner (1980) defines
attitude as the overall outlook, a person has for specific thing. Ajzen (1988) states
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attitude with respect to positive and negative attributes of a person. Besides, an
attitude can be defined as a ‗psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating
a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor‘ (Eagley & Chaiken, 1993:
1). This definition of an attitude as a ―psychological tendency‖ calls attention to the
fact that attitudes constitute a speaker-internal concept which consists of a speaker‘s
attribution of various degrees of goodness or badness to a given entity (Eagley &

Chaiken, 1993: 1-3). Evaluative responses to an entity include, for example,
approval or disapproval, favour or disfavour, liking or disliking, approach or
avoidance and attraction or aversion (Eagley & Chaiken, 1993: 3).
Although attitudes to code-switching have been described as the neglected area
within the phenomenon (Romain, 1995; Lawson and Sachdev, 2000), there are still
some studies looking for investigating factors that may influence attitudes to codeswitching. Myers-Scotton (1993) points out two factors believed to good
determinants of the code-switching behavior, which are age of respondents and
language proficiency. A study conducted by Hidalgo (1998) has shown that the
residents rated code-switching low in terms of understandability, attractiveness and
correctness.
In this study, to find out the attitudes to code-switching of the participants, the
items of questionnaire will be related to those aforementioned concepts such as
understanding or misunderstanding, favor or disfavor, liking or disliking, approval
or disapproval, attraction or aversion attractiveness and correctness, impacts of age,
occupation, proficiency and frequency of English on code-switching, positive or
negative impact of code-switching on English acquisition.
2.5. Previous studies on English-Vietnamese code-switching.
Ho Dac Tuc (2003) is one of pioneer in studying code-switching of English into
Vietnamese. The subject in his study named Vietnamese-English Bilingualism
(2003) is Vietnamese Community in Melbourne, Australia with the aims at the
patterns of Vietnamese- English code switching. A survey was carried out by
recording natural speeches of sixty people in the community of Vietnamese living
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