Code switching discussion - Printable Version

Code switching discussion - Printable Version

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Code switching discussion - synewave - 2007-09-02

Started because we were taking the Culture, fact, or feeling? thread off topic.

wrightak Wrote:I'm going to have to start that thread about mixing Japanese and English in your learning

Thought I'd get the ball rolling on this one. I agree that it's kind of interesting.

JimmySeal Wrote:I make it a point to pidginize my English and Japanese as little as I can. You won't see me referring to my cell phone as a "keitai" or referring to a rice ball as an "onigiri" while speaking English.

But I'm sure I have inserted Japanese words into my speech once in a blue moon when it seemed more apt than any English I could have provided. At the moment, I can't think of a word that could have conveyed the sense of "偉い" any better, but maybe that's just because I've been here for too long and can't speak English anymore.

My understanding is that code switching and pigin are not the same thing.

resolve Wrote:It is quite common to use Japanese words in an English conversation in Japan if they are more efficient and one knows that the listening party will understand.

I reckon it really comes down to personal preference. Neither myself or my foreign friends (in Japan) refer to おにぎり as "rice balls". To me that's like calling 天ぷら "battered vegetables". I quite like using 携帯 too as it brings Yanks and Brits together. As opposed to talking of cells and mobiles respectively.

At work it (code switching) happens all the time. One of my standard questions when I'm walking with kids in the corridors is "Where are you going?" - sometimes they reply in English, but more often than not they say 「職員室」 or whatever.

Code switching discussion - Jarvik7 - 2007-09-02

I agree on the onigiri point. Saying "riceball" just seems so unappetizing. I suppose it's better for non-Japanese speakers at large to use the latter term though. We could end up with more disasters like "carry okey" and "harry carry"

Code switching discussion - wrightak - 2007-09-02

When you're speaking, I think that a lot depends on how you actually say the word. For instance, in English, if I were to say that I was going to karaoke then I would pronounce karaoke as "carry okey" and not カラオケ. Similarly, when talking in Japanese, if I want to say an English word, I always make a point of converting it into katakana. So in essence, what I try to do when using words from another language, is convert them into the language I'm speaking. What some of my bilingual friends do is talk in natural Japanese and then when they want to say an English word, they suddenly slip it in with perfect English pronunciation before switching back to Japanese again. I find that really off putting to listen to. Do other people feel the same way?

Code switching discussion - dilandau23 - 2007-09-03

wrightak Wrote:What some of my bilingual friends do is talk in natural Japanese and then when they want to say an English word, they suddenly slip it in with perfect English pronunciation before switching back to Japanese again. I find that really off putting to listen to. Do other people feel the same way?

I never noticed till you pointed it out, but I actually don't mind if Japanese people do this with English. It's the times when a foreigner who speaks Japanese does the exact same thing with English that it rubs me the wrong way. That is an odd double standard...

Back to the code switching, I think code switching nouns is almost necessary at times here in Japan. What I do sometimes is replace other parts of speech with things I just learned. たとえば、 when I learned "for example". Most of my friends are pretty serious about learning Japanese, but not so keen on bringing our conversations to a crawl by trying to go all Japanese. I find the replacements to be a nice middle ground. The worst thing that happens is my friend may ask "What's that? I don't know that."

Is there some pitfall I don't know about involved in this?

Code switching discussion - synewave - 2007-09-03

wrightak Wrote:What some of my bilingual friends do is talk in natural Japanese and then when they want to say an English word, they suddenly slip it in with perfect English pronunciation before switching back to Japanese again. I find that really off putting to listen to. Do other people feel the same way?

My preference would be the same as your friends. But I suppose it really depends who you're talking to. I often say I'm from エジンバラ because I make an assumption that the person I'm speaking to won't understand where I'm talking about if I say 'Edinburgh' in my usual Scottish accent. At the same time, I may well be insulting their intelligence by making this kind of assumption.

Keeping to the cities, even when I'm speaking to my friends back home who have no real interest in Japan, I can't bring myself to say 'Toe-key-oh'. None of them seem to have a problem with my (attempted) Japanese pronunciation of 東京。

Code switching discussion - dingomick - 2007-09-03

I don't think it's "code switching" at all to use words and phrases which have no proper equivalent outside their mother language, or those that express nuances not available in English. English itself is loaded with many thousands of them! The beauty of English is exactly how flexible it is, borrowing and assimilating from other languages. It is indeed bizarre to call おにぎり "rice balls", as the example that has been given. There are hundreds of Japanese words that should be used just this way. The reverse is also true. Japanese often ask me what some word is in Japanese, and I often simply admit we use the same word.

The key is knowing your audience, and adjusting word choice and pronunciation accordingly. I suppose you just have to know which of your friends can't stand it when you say "ganbatte" or "keitai"...

wrightak Wrote:What some of my bilingual friends do is talk in natural Japanese and then when they want to say an English word, they suddenly slip it in with perfect English pronunciation before switching back to Japanese again. I find that really off putting to listen to. Do other people feel the same way?

I personally can't stand katakanized words, but I realize their necessity because of limited phonics, and also recognize that they actually are no longer English but Japanese (though why the hell use katakana for words that already exist in better form in Japanese?!). I think it's fantastic when other languages pepper their speech with perfectly pronounced English. And if they're able, I prefer those Japanese to do the same. A great example is listening to the radio in Japan. The good DJs pronounce, say, "Red Hot Chili Peppers" instead of "Reddo Hotto Chiri Peppazu" (or what ever bastardized abbreviation they may possibly use).

And for English speakers discussing Japanese topics, I prefer the same to hold true. I of course change pronunciation for those who haven't been exposed as I have, but I don't like it. I try to slowly introduce correct pronunciation into conversations with my relatives and friends at home. They usually feel enlightened to learn the correct pronunciations of common Japanese words.

Code switching discussion - synewave - 2007-09-03

dingomick Wrote:I don't think it's "code switching" at all to use words and phrases which have no proper equivalent outside their mother language, or those that express nuances not available in English.

Isn't that one of the reasons that people choose to dabble in a bit of code switching. resolve dropped "偉い teacher" into one of his posts. And those of us that commented agreed that code switching allowed him to get away with 2 words as opposed to a potentially more wordy English term, e.g. "a teacher who really knows what they're talking about".

dingomick Wrote:I think it's fantastic when other languages pepper their speech with perfectly pronounced English. And if they're able, I prefer those Japanese able to to do the same. A great example is listening to the radio in Japan. The good DJs pronounce, say, "Red Hot Chili Peppers" instead of "Reddo Hotto Chiri Peppazu" (or what ever bastardized abbreviation they may possibly use).

Agree completely with this!

Code switching discussion - JimmySeal - 2007-09-03

Quote:Is there some pitfall I don't know about involved in this?

None that I know of, but I guess I associate this with people who don't make the slightest effort to learn Japanese but insist on peppering their English with a few Japanese words simply because they live in Japan and think it makes them sound knowledgeable.
I also speak the way I do as a way of maintaining my cultural identity. I want to use vocabulary that an American in America would use if they knew nothing about the Japanese language. Of course, if I have to use three or more English words to express one concept that's innately Japanese, such as "代行," I will go with the Japanese, but when it's a roughly one-to-one correspondence, I stick to English.

dingomick Wrote:though why the hell use katakana for words that already exist in better form in Japanese?!

But aren't you doing the same thing if you insert ケイタイ into an English sentence?

Code switching discussion - Megaqwerty - 2007-09-03

JimmySeal Wrote:You won't see me referring to a rice ball as an "onigiri" while speaking English.

Do you also call croissants "the flaky crescent bread"? The name for the things is onigiri, as far as the dictionary is concerned. I, for one, hate vinegared rice with raw fish. (Now that I think about it, however, my dad does frequently refer to bagels as "that Jewish bread".)

I believe this is actually a light form of pidgin, not code switching, as the latter refers to a change of language, within the same language, as result of a different circumstance, like changing to polite speech when a superior enters the room or people switching to academic Arabic in order to be able to communicate (as the normal forms of Arabic are all regional). However, I could just be tired.

I would be against the whole keitai thing: there's a better and more concise way of saying it in English, by, well, using English. I'm the head of an anime club and quite a few of the members have the gall of using Japanese words at random in their English sentences, and it's borderline annoying.

Code switching discussion - synewave - 2007-09-03

Megaqwerty Wrote:I believe this is actually a light form of pidgin, not code switching, as the latter refers to a change of language, within the same language, as result of a different circumstance, like changing to polite speech when a superior enters the room or people switching to academic Arabic in order to be able to communicate (as the normal forms of Arabic are all regional). However, I could just be tired.

wikipedia Wrote:Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between two or more languages, dialects, or language registers in a single conversation, stretch of discourse, or utterance between people who have more than one language in common.

I suppose we could dispute the veracity of wikipedia but other sources seem to suggest the same definition.

EDIT: These guys in your anime club may well be acting like idiots. If some of the audience are unlikely to understand the Japanese words they are dropping into conversation, then that's not code switching, more like acting like an idiot!

As the wikipedia definition mentions, code switching can be said to occur between two or more people who share more than one language.

Obviously our tolerance to code switching may well vary as our posts seem to show.

Code switching discussion - dingomick - 2007-09-03

JimmySeal Wrote:
dingomick Wrote:though why the hell use katakana for words that already exist in better form in Japanese?!
But aren't you doing the same thing if you insert ケイタイ into an English sentence?

I didn't mention that one. But it's a great example of the handful of words that slip through on both sides. For whatever reason, けいたい is by far the most prominent word for cellphone amongst foreigners in Japan. But "バイバイ" is also the most common form of good-bye for my students (what's the opposite of あいさつ　挨拶?) And I hear "オーケーです" all day long in the office.

It all comes down to recognizing audience and tolerance.

An interesting extension of this is switching languages completely, and then how one replies. Depending on the situation, I occassionally get annoyed when Japanese fluent in English speak to me in Japanese. And I'm positive they are sometimes annoyed when I attempt to speak in Japanese instead of English. (^_^)

Code switching discussion - JimmySeal - 2007-09-03

Megaqwerty Wrote:
JimmySeal Wrote:You won't see me referring to a rice ball as an "onigiri" while speaking English.
Do you also call croissants "the flaky crescent bread"?

There's a difference. Firstly, you used three words and five syllables to express a two-syllable French word. There's no concise way of differentiating croissants from other pastries. On the other hand, "rice ball" has half as many syllables as おにぎり. But more importantly is my next point:

Quote:The name for the things is onigiri, as far as the dictionary is concerned.

I'm glad you mentioned dictionaries. What kind are you referring to?
If you look up the word "croissant" in a typical French-English dictionary, you will see:
croissant, crescent (moon), increasing, gathering, waxing.
It does not list, "flaky crescent bread." The English equivalent of "croissant" is "croissant."

Now look up おにぎり in a Japanese-English dictionary. The definition? "a rice ball." No romanized version of "おにぎり" is listed.

Now we turn to an English-English dictionary and look up the word "croissant." We find,
"a rich, buttery, crescent-shaped roll of leavened dough or puff paste."

Do the same thing with "onigiri" and you will see,
"No results found for onigiri."

Not that dictionaries are the be all and end all of language but I think it's pretty clear that croissant is a well established part of the English language, and onigiri is not.
Of course there are Japanese foods that can't be reasonably expressed any other way than with their Japanese names, whether they're in the dictionary or not, but there is a concise and accurate English equivalent for おにぎり so until such time as E-E dictionaries start listing "onigiri," I will continue to call it a rice ball.

Code switching discussion - dingomick - 2007-09-03

Meh, again it all comes down to personal preference and audience.

JimmySeal Wrote:croissant is a well established part of the English language, and onigiri is not.

For me, that's all the more reason to use おにぎり. "Rice ball" is an imprecise definition, and doesn't encompass exactly what an おにぎり is, most commonly a triangular wad of rice, usually with a core of other material, all wrapped in seaweed. Living in Japan, おにぎり is the only word I hear foreigners use because it is precise. In fact, I distinctly remember someone once saying "riceball" and another person having to clarify with, "you mean an onigiri?" Then when talking about おにぎり to relatives and friends who don't know what it is, I have to say, "it's this rice ball thingy with stuff in the middle all wrapped in seaweed". After that one description I stick to おにぎり.

Code switching discussion - dingomick - 2007-09-03

JimmySeal Wrote:None that I know of, but I guess I associate this with people who don't make the slightest effort to learn Japanese but insist on peppering their English with a few Japanese words simply because they live in Japan and think it makes them sound knowledgeable. I also speak the way I do as a way of maintaining my cultural identity. I want to use vocabulary that an American in America would use if they knew nothing about the Japanese language.

The fact is, foreigners living in Japan are immersed in an entirely different context, even when they're hanging our with their fellow countrymen talking about home country topics. Everyone feels differently about how to adapt to different cultures. This changes their speech and behavior in some way. To deny that is foolish. The difference is in what aspects of life they allow those changes to occur. The same applies even to people moving between vastly different people groups within their own country.

Quote:I associate this with people who don't make the slightest effort to learn Japanese but insist on peppering their English with a few Japanese words simply because they live in Japan and think it makes them sound knowledgeable.

Honestly though, how do you know their intention? What of foreigners who are completely fluent who pepper their English with Japanese? I can understand with friends who you know intimately, but who can judge of others what their intention is?

Quote:I also speak the way I do as a way of maintaining my cultural identity. I want to use vocabulary that an American in America would use if they knew nothing about the Japanese language.

I don't feel I lose an ounce of my identity by using Japanese with other Americans living in Japan. That's because my identity is no longer purely American. An analogy I heard long ago about cross-cultural exchange is that each country is a color. Say America is blue and Japan is yellow. If a blue American moves to Japan, they will begin to turn green, no matter how hard they resist it. They can never be yellow though, just varying shades of the mix. But they also seep blue into the yellows around them. Then, when they interact with other pure blues, or any other color/country, they seep some green back into them.

The analogy also works well when considering concentration of color. A lone JET in mountains without internet is a drop of blue in an ocean of yellow and is drastically changed. But a older businessman in the big city who lives and works with other foreigners, goes to gaijin bars, and only consumes English media is in a pool of blue not so easily penetrated by the yellow, but still affected.

Code switching discussion - wrightak - 2007-09-03

dingomick Wrote:Depending on the situation, I occassionally get annoyed when Japanese fluent in English speak to me in Japanese.

Why? If they speak to you in English you learn nothing, if they speak to you in Japanese you learn.

dingomick Wrote:And I'm positive they are sometimes annoyed when I attempt to speak in Japanese instead of English. (^_^)

Why's that? Is that because they'd prefer you to communicate more efficiently in English?

Code switching discussion - dingomick - 2007-09-03

wrightak Wrote:
dingomick Wrote:Depending on the situation, I occassionally get annoyed when Japanese fluent in English speak to me in Japanese.
Why? If they speak to you in English you learn nothing, if they speak to you in Japanese you learn.

dingomick Wrote:And I'm positive they are sometimes annoyed when I attempt to speak in Japanese instead of English. (^_^)
Why's that? Is that because they'd prefer you to communicate more efficiently in English?

They're both about efficiency. I'm not proud of it, just admitting what I sometimes feel. I'd prefer that I spoke all Japanese all the time with Japanese!

Code switching discussion - wrightak - 2007-09-03

Yeah I know mate, it's tough. If you do manage to stick it out and blunder through in 100% Japanese then it really helps (for me at least). One thing that really helped me, is if you can find some foreign friends who can't speak English. I went to a Japanese language school where lots of my friends there were Korean, Chinese, Peruvian, Italian... some of them could speak English but the majority couldn't so our common language was Japanese. Forming that group of friends really helped me improve.

Code switching discussion - resolve - 2007-09-03

It's very common for foreigners to substitute Japanese words for explanations when speaking to other people in Japan. Yes, "rice balls" isn't much harder to say than おにぎり, but "fermented soy beans" is a much bigger mouthful than 納豆, "sweet bean paste" to あんこ, etc.

When teaching English, I don't think such shortcuts should be used, as the students should be exposed to the language they would encounter if they were living in a foreign country. However, the shortcuts come so easily that it takes conscious effort to say "I bought some fermented soy beans" in the classroom when I would have just said 納豆 outside of class.

JimmySeal gives the example of rice balls, but I'd never say that when talking to another foreigner here. The term is a general description of おにぎり and a lot of other things, and thus it's not really a substitute for おにぎり。All おにぎり are rice balls, but not all rice balls are おにぎり. Thus using "rice balls" in the conversation constitutes information loss. A quick google for rice balls yields images like this, for example:

[Image: RedBeanSoupswithRiceBall2_copy.jpg]

[Image: RedBeanSoupswithRiceBall2_copy.jpg]

I agree that "onigiri" is not an English word like croissant is. However, many foreigners living in Japan don't speak the same dialect of English as they do at home. "Keitai" and "onigiri" are known to almost every foreigner here, and I would argue that they are part of "English language in Japan" language, irrespective of dictionary entries. The whole point is efficiency of communication - if there's a chance the other person won't understand, it doesn't make much sense to be using anything other than an English description.

Note that the widespread use of specific Japanese words in English sentences by the foreign community seems to be quite consistent: keitai, onigiri, and other names of (uniquely Japanese) things are quite common, because they are efficient or more accurately convey an idea than a description would. Using grammar elements and random Japanese adjectives or Japanese versions of simple nouns in a sentence is a different manner, and is often regarded as annoying (I can't stand it either). Quite possibly the reason we find it annoying is because there is no reason to switch. In a sentence like:

I ate some 納豆 for lunch

the speaker is expressing something as succinctly and accurately as possible.

In a sentence like:

I really love 果物 and vegetables. たとえば、bananas.

Here the speaker has no reason to switch languages, and it arguably makes them harder to understand. They are just using Japanese for the sake of using it, and violating the efficiency principle.

I believe this is related to the way Japanese people who insist on speaking to you in broken English are perceived. In any group of two people, with an absence of external factors, the conversation will gravitate towards whatever language can most efficiently express ideas. Despite their native tongue being a lot more efficient, they force themselves to use another language and thus it can irritate the listener.

Code switching discussion - wrightak - 2007-09-03

Personally, I have no problem with saying おにぎり instead of rice ball and so forth. The thing that I have a problem with is switching between Japanese and English frames of thought. This is usually manifested or reflected in the pronunciation that I use. I find it really difficult to speak English and insert Japanese words and pronounce these Japanese words as I would when speaking Japanese. Similarly, I find it difficult to speak in Japanese and insert English words without converting them into some kind of katakana word.

My analogies have landed me in trouble already but I'll try and use one again. If you imagine that me speaking in my British English is like putting a rain coat on in order to to walk along in my journey of rainy communication in English (thinking about the rainy UK here). Speaking Japanese is like me putting on shorts and sandals to get by in the muggy summer heat in Tokyo. So the analogy is that speaking different languages is like putting different clothes on to cope efficiently with different linguistic environments. When you come across a Japanese word, like a small hot and humid area in my travels in English, it feels like I lose my rhythm and lose my pace when I have to stop and change clothes into Japanese. Similarly the other way round for when speaking Japanese and wanting to use English words.

That was a crazy analogy, maybe something else would be better. It's like running along in one language and having to turn around and jog backwards for a short while when I want to say a word in another language. I'm just trying to describe how it feels, does anyone else get this?

I don't want to sacrifice the efficiency of being able to say おにぎり instead of rice ball but at the same time I don't want the frame of thought shift so the compromise I make is to indoctrinate the word in question into the other language. I'm really interested that other people feel the exact opposite and for instance can't stand saying "Toe key oh" for 東京. Does no one else feel uncomfortable when they switch between Japanese and English accents mid-sentence?

Code switching discussion - johnzep - 2007-09-03

I've had many students ask me how to say daikon, I tell them just to say "daikon" and if they need to explain it further they can say "a japanese radish" or "a large, white, japanese radish" because most people don't know what a daikon is in america

Code switching discussion - resolve - 2007-09-03

Quote:I'm really interested that other people feel the exact opposite and for instance can't stand saying "Toe key oh" for 東京. Does no one else feel uncomfortable when they switch between Japanese and English accents mid-sentence?

"Toe key oh" is the standard pronounciation that any English speaker I know would use. "ca ri yo ki" is similarly popular. Thus I use the accepted pronounciation when speaking English, and encourage my students to learn the English version as well.

But we don't have an accepted pronounciation for the more obscure place names like Kagoshima, and I have no problems pronouncing in the standard Japanese way in the middle of a sentence. A few years in Japan and I've lost my ability to pervert random Japanese words into English pronuncation even when they're in the middle of a sentence. But I do point out to the students that if they say Japanese words without any stress, it'll be difficult for a foreigner who doesn't know Japanese to catch.

Code switching discussion - wrightak - 2007-09-03

resolve Wrote:"Toe key oh" is the standard pronounciation that any English speaker I know would use.

synewave Wrote:Keeping to the cities, even when I'm speaking to my friends back home who have no real interest in Japan, I can't bring myself to say 'Toe-key-oh'. None of them seem to have a problem with my (attempted) Japanese pronunciation of 東京。

Well there you have an English speaker that doesn't pronounce it the 'standard' way. edit: When you said any English speaker you knew, I assumed that you were including those on this forum.

resolve Wrote:But we don't have an accepted pronounciation for the more obscure place names like Kagoshima, and I have no problems pronouncing in the standard Japanese way in the middle of a sentence.

That's interesting, because I definitely find it uncomfortable. What about the other way? When you're speaking Japanese do you find it uncomfortable at all if you say "George Bush" or something in a perfect English accent in the middle of a Japanese sentence?

Code switching discussion - resolve - 2007-09-03

Quote:When you said any English speaker you knew, I assumed that you were including those on this forum.

I should have said any English speaker back home. And while synewave might have success communicating to his friends back home using Japanese pronounciation, I certainly wouldn't encourage my students to do that.

Quote:or something in a perfect English accent in the middle of a Japanese sentence?

I don't find it hard at all, actually :-)