LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

An investigation of code-switching in the Rusholme area of Manchester

Introduction
A perennial question that often arises in Bilingual studies is: What is it that Bilingual speakers switch between two languages during a conversation exchange? This language phenomenon is known as code-switching (CS) and is generally agreed to denote the changing back and forth between two language varieties, especially in a single conversation (Crystal, 1987) There are a plethora of reasons reported to why Bilingual speakers consciously decide to code-switch. Quite often Bilinguals are not as proficient in a second language compared to that of their mother tongue when they are talking about a particular subject matter that they may find difficult bilingual speakers code-switch because they cannot express themselves adequately in one language. (Wei, 2007) and so to combat this they switch to a language that they are more comfortable using to facilitate both speakers. Our aims (more of which will be discussed below) is to find out to what extent does codeswitching happen in the Rusholme area and more importantly why and because Manchester and in particular Rusholme is such a melting pot of different cultures it is the ideal location to conduct a multilingualism investigation.

Background information
Manchester, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Britain, is known for its vast multicultural society. If we look into the history of Manchester, we begin to understand how this has occurred. Given that along with Bradford and Liverpool, Manchester was one of the centres of immigration, it is anticipated that it would be eventually become an area of wide-ranging cultural diversity.

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

Throughout the nineteenth century, Manchester was the international commercial centre of the textile industry. At its peak there were at least 1000 warehouses, 99 spinning mills and dyeing and printing works. However due to the recession in the 1930s, Manchesters textile industry suffered greatly, with unemployment on the rise and a decreasing population, the once great city fell into a 30 year period of decline. Despite Manchesters demise, the 1950s saw an increase of South Asian and Indian migrants entering and opting to settle in a city which was fast losing its economic stability. Initially they worked in existing factories and mills, during the 50s it is claimed that 95 percent of the employees at the time were Asians. However in the late 60s early 70s migrants began to utilise empty warehouses and workshops and seizing chances to create new businesses independently. Asian immigrants saw Manchester as a base for potential economic prosperity, and in doing so they helped breathe life into Manchesters faltering economy. What was once a city headed towards industrial decline, returned again to its former industrial glory. An example and area of Manchester where migrants have settled and prospered in their business ventures, is the district of Rusholme dubbed The Curry Mile. This is due to it being the home to what is said to be the largest collection of South Asian restaurants in the United Kingdom. The late 50s and 60s saw and emergence of Asian migrants who entered the UK to work in the textile mills and factories of Manchester. Rusholme quickly became a place where these workers would come together to socialise and meet. Slowly but surely the emergence and success of Indian restaurants in this area encouraged a domino effect to take place, and by the late 70s Rusholme was recognized to be an area of predominantly Pakistani ethnicity, a community which had settled and was gradually expanding. By the mid 80s Rusholme coined the nickname The Curry Mile. A report published in 2010 showed that English, Urdu, Punjabi, Guajarati, Hindi, Kurdish, Arabic and Portuguese were spoken in businesses in the curry mile (Rusholmes high street), though it must be noted, this wasnt a conclusive report and there are likely to

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

be many other languages spoken in the area. It showed that English was spoken most regular which is to be expected, followed by Urdu. Our report will hopefully find whether those speakers of Urdu also speak another language (other than English) and their opinions on their other languages. http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/reports/Linguistic%20profile%20of%20businesses %20on%20the%20Curry%20Mile%20Rusholme.pdf The area surrounding Rusholme is rich with other languages that the aforementioned report hadnt observed in the businesses they queried. I feel this as the community surrounding Rusholme has many of the following nationalities; Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Iranian, Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese, African, Polish, and Somali; though it is highly feasible that some nationalities may have members that do not operate businesses along the curry mile therefore the aforementioned report would not have encountered them. Information in the census of 2001 show that The inner city district of Manchester is a multicultural centre with a significant ethnic minority comprising 12.6% of the district population. The largest group is Pakistani (3.8%) Significantly, one in eight of all Pakistanis and one in twelve of all Bangladeshis in Britain reside in Greater Manchester. This cultural diversity is expected to increase over time, given existing trends.

Literature Review
The practice of code-Switching, often purported to be a language phenomenon, usually impels both positive and negative attitudes from monolingual and bilingual speakers alike. By some, it is stigmatised and seen as a low prestige form and the result of a deficient mastery of the two languages, for others, it helps break down any language barriers between both participants and helps bridge a gap in communication making conversation more comfortable and relaxed.

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

Code-switching is thought to date from the work of Blom and Gumperz (1972) Social meaning in linguistic structures which to date, is still considered influential in the field of sociolinguistics, not least for introducing the terms situational and metaphorical switching. Blom and Gumperz state that An important distinction is made from situational switching, where
alternation between varieties redefines a situation, being a change in governing norms, and metaphorical switching, where alternation enriches a situation, allowing for allusion to more than one social relationship within the situation." (1986).

One of the earliest studies focusing on code-switching was an American study conducted by George Barker. Barker sought to elucidate his question How does it happen, for example, that among bilinguals, the ancestral language will be used on one occasion and English on another, and that on certain occasions bilinguals will alternate, without apparent cause, from one language to another? (1947). Our investigation will endeavour to answer the above questions proposed by Barker.

Aims & Objectives

According to Meyerhoff & Schleef (2010), there are at least four different types of data for a sociolinguistic study: naturally occurring data, interview data, questionnaire data and experimental data. As our research will focus on the multi-language use and codeswitching between different languages, in the Rusholme area, collecting naturally occurring data may not be practical given the time constraints. For this to happen we would have to collect a copious amounts of data to obtain significant results. It is also not feasible for us to conduct an experiment on some of the residents of Rusholme as naturally, some may not wish to take part or be impeded by us. Therefore, we have decided that we will take on the method of a questionnaire based interview to achieve our aim. After deciding on our initial method, we had to think about how we were going to collect our data. The most appropriate method at the time seemed to use opportunity sampling however, selecting a random sample of people on the street may bring about difficulties and although this might bring variety to the research result, it is not necessarily

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

the easiest way to obtain data because there is a great chance that only a few people would like to stay and finish the interview for us given how busy the curry mile gets. So, we decided to conduct our interviews to the local businesses in Rusholme as it is a much more stable and relaxed environment and they may be more willing to participate. This method is called stratified random sampling in Meyerhoff & Schleef (2010). We are planning to visit around 10 businesses in Rusholme and interview 2 to 3 people (managers, staff, customers, etc.) in each place based on the questions that we have designed. Before the interviews begin, we will ask our informants whether they feel comfortable about our use of a recorder to record the conversations for our later analysis. The next thing we were confronted with was the research procedure itself. The major issue was to design the interview questions. We aim to have a clear goal of what information we want by asking these questions, but at the same time, not to be too intrusive. We came up with a draft of a questionnaire with 15 questions (see below). In this questionnaire, we have a combination of quantitative and qualitative, as well as closed and open questions. For example, the first two questions reveal our informants age and gender group, which can be used as standards for comparing if major differences show up. From previous investigations carried out within Rusholme, certain questions have been worded in such a way that participants have not understood them. So, rather than just giving the questionnaires out and letting them fill them out independently, we will talk through the questions and explain any that may cause confusion as opposed to just omitting them. The results from the questionnaire/interview will give an indication of how many languages are spoken, and the ratio of speakers, in the community and will allow graphs and tables to be formatted which will allow visual clarity of the multilingualism of the area. It will also provide an insight into the attitudes of the speakers in regard to the status and importance of the languages. This could show whether there is diglossia referring to the use by a language community of two languages or dialects, a high variety restricted to certain situations and a low variety for everyday interaction within the local community. Also, we hope that from our carefully constructed questionnaire we will really gain a true understanding of how code-switching occurs within Rusholme. It will be interesting to

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

see what attitudes arise as a result, are they positive: Code-switching is a verbal skill requiring a large degree of linguistic competence in more than one language, rather than a defect arising from insufficient knowledge of one or the other [R]ather than presenting deviant behavior, [it] is actually a suggestive indicator of degree of bilingual competence.(Poplack, 2000) Or are they negative and why is this? Unlike previous studies carried out last year in multilingualism, we want to look past just a simple hypothesis of: Code-switching happens within Businesses in Rusholme and look out for other social factors to help us get a better understanding. Why is it, if applicable, that business owners switch between different languages? Are there any prestige issues? Do they have a language preference, how often does this occur etc. We want to make this investigation as thorough as possible in order to really gain some significant findings.

Questionnaire 1, How old are you? 16-|___| 16-19|___| 20-25|___| 26-30|___| 31-40|___| 41-50|___| 50+|___| 2, What is your gender? Male|___| Female|___| 3, How would you describe your ethnicity? _____________________________________________________ 4, What languages do you speak? _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ 5, Which language do you predominantly speak?

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

_____________________________________________________ 6, Which language do you prefer to speak? _____________________________________________________ 7, Which language do you speak at home with family? _____________________________________________________ 8, Which language do you speak with friends? _____________________________________________________ 9, Which language do you speak in a religious environment? (if this applies) _____________________________________________________ 10, Which language do you use to your staff/colleagues? (if this applies) _____________________________________________________ 11, Which language do you use to customers? (if this applies) _____________________________________________________ 12, If the above language uses differ, what are your reasoning for it? ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ 13, Have you encountered language barriers living in Manchester? ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________

LELA 20102 Societal Multilingualism: 7334791; 7820609; 7329073; 7836509

14, Which language would/do you teach to your children? ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ 15, Does your business/employer provide provisions/language resources for non-english speakers, if so, what? ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________

References
Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1987. Gumperz, John Joseph, and Dell H. Hymes. Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell, 1986. Meyerhoff & Schleef .The Sociolinguistics Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2010 Poplack, Shana. Sometimes I'll Start a Sentence in Spanish y Termino en Espaol: Toward a Typology of Code-Switching. Routledge, 2000. Wei, L. Dimensions of Bilingualism. The Bilingualism Reader. New York, NY, Routledge, 2007.