Switching and mixing within and outside of a dialect continuum: the case of Greek-speaking Cyprus.
Stavroula Tsiplakou Department of Education University of Cyprus stav@ucy.ac.cy
Abstract * This paper looks at types of code-switching and code-mixing between Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek in Greek-speaking Cyprus; the attempt is made at drawing a structural distinction between switching between dialect and standard on the one hand and language alternation in terms of dialect-/continuum-internal register or stylistic variation. The second step is a conversation-analytic oriented attempt to relate particular types of switches to types of pragmatic functions in localized contexts.
1. Introduction Any attempt to tackle the intricacies of the host of phenomena collectively labelled as ‘code-switching’ inevitably stumbles across a series of theoretical and methodological problems. On the structural side, major issues include defining the matrix or base language(s), identifying types of code-switching and relating them to potentially universal grammatical constraints. On the pragmatic side, the challenge is to relate types of code-switching to particular discursive functions, which are often localized and specific to individual speech events. On the sociolinguistic side, the challenge is to incorporate code-switching in an overarching model of language variation within particular speech-communities; to define its similarities and differences to other types of language variation that are part of speakers’ active *
Warmest thanks are due to a number of people who have helped me collect and make sense of the data continuum presented here. My former students Koulla Lambitsi, Thalia Mina, Evanthi Papanikola, Costas Papapetrou and Stella Pastella were operative in eliminating observer paradox effects and other types of noise in the data. I am particularly grateful to Xenia Hadjioannou, a linguist, a dialect speaker and an inveterate code-switcher, for her valuable insights, her endless patience in discussing data and for her even more valuable objections.
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repertoires; and to identify the emic functions of code-switching in relation to overarching categories such as (sociolinguistic status), the structuring of communal identities or of identities and allegiances within communities of practice, etc. The construct of code-switching becomes even more problematic in cases of standard language-dialect continua such as the Cypriot Greek continuum examined in this paper. The methodological problem of determining whether code-switching between the standard language (Standard Modern Greek) and the dialect (Cypriot Greek) is actually at work in this particular speech community is compounded by the following factors: (i) the historical relation between the two varieties and the concomitant similarities/overlaps in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis, which make it hard to establish a linguistic metric for determining whether code-switching is taking place, and if so, what its direction is; (ii) an ongoing process of levelling and koineization, arguably expedited post-1974, whereby local idioms have receded in favor of an urban/metropolitan Greek Cypriot koiné, whose more formal registers display heavy admixtures from Standard Greek at the phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical level; assuming that at least some part of the Greek Cypriot koiné is already structurally mixed further compounds the attempt to define code-switching on the basis of structural criteria; (iii) the impact of koineization on the ongoing resolution of Greek Cypriot diglossia, which makes the notion of functional differentiation of the two varieties depending on traditional constructs such as ‘domain’ of language use or ‘speech-event’ effectively irrelevant for interpreting code-switching. This paper is a first attempt at shedding some light on these issues; building on earlier work on koineization and register variation within the Greek Cypriot continuum (Terkourafi 2005, Tsiplakou et al 2006) as well as on sociolinguistic work on speaker attitudes towards the standard language and the dialect and the relation to these attitudes to status and identity formation, broadly conceived (Tsiplakou 2003/forthcoming), the attempt is made at drawing a
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structural distinction between switching between dialect and standard on the one hand and language alternation in terms of dialect/continuum-internal register or stylistic variation. The second step is a conversation-analytic oriented attempt to relate particular types of switches to types of pragmatic functions in localized contexts. The findings indicate that constructs such as ‘linguistic capital’ and the linguistic negotiation of (sociolinguistic) identities take on a new slant when examined against the backdrop of situations of language contact, dialect levelling and the formation of dialect continua. The data comprise recordings of informal conversations among young educated peers, conversations among older educated peers in relatively formal settings (business meetings etc.), data from the public domain (public speeches etc.) and relevant tokens from personal observations of a host of other (varied) communicative situations, as well as speaker comments.
2. Defining code-switching in the Greek Cypriot context 2.1. Theoretical preamble Code-switching has long stopped being considered a type of aberrant linguistic behavior specific only to (subsets of) bilingual speakers, or even as failure to achieve pure monolingual performance. Ever since code-switching started being recognized as bog-standard linguistic practice cutting across a vast spectrum of superficially different speech communities and languages or varieties (thereby exploding the myth of monolingualism as the norm), the challenge has been: (i) on the structural side, to unveil systematic grammatical/structural aspects of and restrictions on code-switching phenomena and to relate these to constraints posed by Universal Grammar (McSwann 1999, Muysken 2000, Myers-Scotton 2002, Poplack 2000); (ii) on the psycholinguistic side, to relate types of code-switching to types and levels of bilingual language competence (Poplack 2000) (iii) on the sociolinguistic side, to relate codeswitching to the politics of identity construction and to sociocultural categories specific to
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particular communities (Heller 2000, Myers-Scotton 2000); and (iv) on the conversationanalytic side, to examine the mechanics of code-switching in relation to the organization of conversation, to the realization of particular conversational moves etc. (cf. Alfonzetti 1998, Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998, Auer1999, Meeuwis & Bloomaert 1998). These approaches are often seen as standing not in a relation of complementary distribution, i.e. as attempts to examine distinct facets of essentially the same phenomenon, but as standing in a relation of (theoretical and methodological) conflict and incompatibility. Thus, critiques levelled at the structural approach query its basic distinctions between borrowing, (inter-sentential) code-switching and (intra-sentential) code-mixing, and this on both theoretical and empirical grounds. On the empirical side, it appears that each of these structural distinctions and associated purportedly universal constraints, such as Poplack’s equivalence and free morpheme constraints (Poplack 2000) or more recent Minimalist reformulations (cf. McSwann 1999) can be invalidated by a host of counterexamples On the theoretical side, there has been extensive problematization of the notion of distinguishable or distinct linguistic ‘code’ (cf. Alfonzetti 1998, Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998, Auer1999, Meeuwis & Bloomaert 1998) and there have been significant counter-proposals to the effect that linguistically ‘mixed’ production has its own rules and constraints, i.e. that it constitutes a distinct grammatical system (Gardner-Chloros & Edwards 2004)or, worse, that the structural properties of the codes that enter the mix and, crucially, the structural properties of the mix itself should not be seen as phrase or sentence-bound grammatical constraints stricto sensu but rather as effectively probabilistic rather than absolute pragmatic/discursive constraints (Auer 1999). Similar critiques are often levelled at attempts to construct a typology of code-switching effects based on psycholinguistic notions such as bilingual competence, balanced vs. non-balanced bilingualism etc., as speaker production is often inconsistent with the predictions made by their psycholinguistic profiles (see, e.g., Auer 1999, Gardner-Chloros & Edwards 2004, modulo
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McSwann 1999, Muysken 2000, Myers-Scotton 2002, Poplack 2000) Similar theoretical tensions arise between macro- (or strict sociolinguistic) approaches (e.g. Heller 1995), whose primary goal is to relate code-switching practices to overarching sociocultural categories such as identity and status or even linguistic expectations relevant to domains of language use, and micro- (or conversation-analytic) approaches, whose main concern is to relate particular instances and patterns of code-switching to the localized dynamics of specific conversations; research findings from conversation-analytic approaches often buttress the claim that code switching can be best understood in its micro-context, i.e. within the setting of particular communicative instances, within which code-switching practices may relate to conversational acts relevant to the organization of the conversation, framing, turn-taking etc. (Auer1999), while the relation of code-switching to levels of bilingualism and overarching sociocultural categories and practices may not be immediately apparent in particular tokens of conversational code-switching The theoretical challenge of combining macro-and microapproaches still remains unmet, particularly as the examination of localized instances of codeswitching often belies the purported overarching links between particular codes or codeswitching patterns and particular sociocultural categories and acts of identity (AlvarezCáccamo 1998, Meeuwis & Bloomaert 1998).
2.2. What’s in a continuum? The Greek Cypriot dialect has long been described as a geographical continuum consisting of eighteen regional idioms (Contosopoulos 1969) or basilects, collectively termed xorkátika ‘peasanty’, as opposed to elliniká ‘Greek’, the latter being the standard variety spoken in mainland Greece (Newton 1972: 51). Among these regional geographical varieties, the ‘metropolitan’ idiom (spoken in the plain of Mesarká and the capital, Nicosia) was characterized as ‘town speech’, i.e. as somehow more ‘standard’ or ‘formal’. The Greek
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Cypriot dialect has long stood in a diglossic relationship with Standard Modern Greek. Ιn Fergusonian terms, Standard Modern Greek is the H variety while the Cypriot dialect (or set/continuum of geographical basilects) is the L variety, the two varieties being distinguished both in terms of non-naturalistic vs. naturalistic acquisition and in terms of functional differentiation depending on domain of use (mainly ‘public’ versus ‘private’ or formal vs. informal). In Tsiplakou et al (2006) it is argued that present-day Greek-speaking Cyprus is still by and large diglossic, the difference being the levelling of regional idioms and the concomitant emergence of a pancyprian koiné, which now arguably stands in a diglossic relation with Standard Greek. It is further shown that present-day Greek-speaking Cyprus meets the sociohistorical criteria for levelling and koineization (cf. Kerswill & Williams 2000, 2005, Siegel 2001, Tuten 2003, Terkourafi 2005), as: (i) all contributing varieties, including the more standard one of Mesarká, are losing local variants: for example, the regional allophone [x] is yielding in favor of the more Standardsounding [θ] (e.g. [xɔˈɾɔ] see.1S - [θɔˈɾɔ], cf. Standard Greek [θɛɔˈɾɔ] ‘I consider’); similarly, the Mesarká-specific allophone [t:] is yiledng in favor of the pancyprian [θ:] (e.g. [ˈpɔt:ɛn ] ‘whence’ - [ˈpɔθ:ɛn ]) and the Mesarká third person plural copula énun be.3P is én(i) in the koiné; (ii) a number of these structural changes are due to influences from Standard Greek, and they result in phonetic, morphological and syntactic forms which are often hard to distinguish from their Standard Greek counterparts. To provide a few examples, the koiné irrealis verb form enná ’rkumun ‘I would have come’ is phonetically and morphologically Cypriot, as it consists of the Cypriot future morpheme énna plus the Cypriot past imperfective (é)rkumun; syntactically, however, it parallels the Standard Greek structure θa erxómun, which consists of the Standard Greek future marker θa and the Standard Greek past imperfective erxómun; the form enná ’rkumun is thus syntactically dissimilar to the ‘older’ Cypriot, irrealis forms ítan ná’rto ‘was.3S
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+ SUBJUNCTIVE MARKER + come.PERFECTIVE.1s’ or even í∫en ná ’rto ‘had.3S + SUBJUNCTIVE MARKER + come.PERFECTIVE.1s’ (Tsiplakou 2006a, Tsiplakou et al 2006). At the phonetic level, forms with a strong regional flavor such as [ɔmɔɾˈcɐ] ‘beauty’ become [ɔmɔɾˈfcɐ] in the koiné; the koiné form retains the fricative [f] in the consonant cluster (see Malikouti-Drachman 2001) and is thus significantly more similar to the Standard Greek form [ɔmɔɾˈfçɐ]. Variation in Cypriot Greek can then best be described in terms of a register continuum rather than a geographically defined dialect continuum, at least for a substantial subset of speakers (Tsiplakou et al 2006); this is evidenced by the fact that speakers, especially those born post-1974, seem to be aware of the fact that Cypriot Greek used to have a number of regional idioms, but they are typically unable to identify them or mention any of their features (with very sparse exceptions). Moreover, the term xorkátika ‘peasanty’ has lost its original meaning of ‘Cypriot dialect’ (as opposed to Standard Greek) and is now used to denote a nonformal register of the koiné which may or may not be perceived as having a generic regional flavor. The hyperdialectism in youth slang(s) can be treated as yet another piece of evidence in favor of this assumption; Tsiplakou (2003/forthcoming) shows that youth slang contains both regional forms which older speakers perceive as obsolete, and constructed forms which sound generically regional (xorkátika) in terms of phonetics and morphosyntax. Tsiplakou et al 2006 and Terkourafi 2005 treat hyperdialectism as the by-product of levelling and of the shift from a geographical to social/stylistic continuum. Speaker intuitions confirm the paradigm of register rather than geographical variation within the koiné; speakers are certainly aware of register variation within the Greek Cypriot continuum and are usually able to name the various registers with a striking degree of certainty and convergence (cf. Tsiplakou et al 2006). What is more important for the purposes of this discussion is the fact that speakers seem to think that at least some part of Standard Modern Greek overlaps with the Cypriot
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continuum, or that it is part of the Cypriot acrolect. The speaker comments in (1) are particularly telling:
(1)
Stav:
tóra s’eména milás cipriaká?
Elena:
ne, tóra eséna en cipriaká pu su miláo alla ói ta cipriaká pu én:a milíso me tus ðikús mu alla ta cipriaká pu katalávis esí pu íse kalamarú, miló su étsi sistarisména, pco epísima cipriaká, as to púmen.
Stav:
kalamarizis, ðilaði?
Elena:
ói, éθ:a éleγa óti kalamarízo, en cipriaká. étsi θa emílun t∫e s’ énan áγnoston cipréon. kalamarízo mónon ótan páo stin el:áðan.
Stav:
Are you speaking Cypriot with me right now?
Elena:
Yes, right now I’m speaking Cypriot with you though not the kind of Cypriot I will speak with my family but the kind of Cypriot that you can understand, being a pen-pusher, I’m talking to you in a, sort of, tidied-up way, more formal Cypriot, let’s say.
Stav:
Does this mean you’re talking like a pen-pusher?
Elena:
No, I wouldn’t say I’m talking like a pen-pusher, it’s Cypriot all right. It’s how I would speak to a Cypriot who I’m not acquainted with. Ι only talk like a pen-pusher when I go to Greece.
Note that while the informant draws a distinction between sistarisména/evgeniká ‘tidiedup’/‘polite’ Cypriot Greek and kalamarístika/kalamarízo ‘pen-pusher speak’/ ‘I speak like a 8
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pen-pusher’ (kalamarístika being the arguably no longer pejorative term for Standard Greek), she seems to think that that Cypriot and Standard Greek are in some kind of a continuum, or mutual intelligibility, relationship; cf. her formulation ta cipriaká pu katalávis esí pu íse kalamarú ‘the kind of Cypriot that you can understand, being a pen-pusher’. Note, moreover, that the speaker feels confident that she can switch to kalamarístika, albeit ‘when going to the mainland’. These comments are of particular significance when attempting to tackle codeswitching both within and outside of the Cypriot continuum. Arguably, there are levels or types of code-switching which can be viewed as comprising moves (a) outside of the Greek Cypriot continuum, the directionality of the move being towards Standard Greek or (b) inside the continuum but outside the limits of the (mixed) koiné and towards more Cypriot-heavy registers of the continuum. Both types of code-switching can therefore ultimately be viewed as moves from more to less mixed codes/registers, and both may serve specific discourse functions, often identifiable as such by participants. The establishment of the above premises presupposes a partly structural approach to (code)-switching within and outside of the Greek Cypriot continuum, in that it requires an independent mechanism for establishing what lies within and what lies outside the continuum in question; this is deemed necessary in order to void the circularity often inherent in micro-approaches to (code)-switching, where the absence of a definition of ‘code’ often renders the discussion problematic (cf. Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998, Meeuwis & Bloomaert 1998). This requires a mix of linguistic and sociolinguistic as well as quantitative criteria (Tsiplakou 2004, Tsiplakou 2006b, Tsiplakou et al 2006), but runs the obvious risk of circularity.
3. Switching within and outside of the continuum? In order to meet the methodological challenge of distinguishing between continuuminternal switches and linguistic moves outside the continuum on the basis of structural criteria,
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one may attempt to define sets of linguistic variables and to examine which associated variants fall within the continuum and which fall outside it. The similarities between the two varieties however render this task problematic.
3.1. The trouble with lexical variables Lexical variables are inherently difficult to define, as historically there has always been significant overlap in the vocabulary of the two varieties. A significant part of the Cypriot Greek vocabulary (e.g. words like panepistímio ‘university’, ðiícisi ‘administration’) is identical to that of Standard Greek (Tsiplakou et al 2006); for this part of the vocabulary there is no Cypriot equivalent, and it is perceived as formal Cypriot vocabulary. In the case of lexical doublets (cf. Ferguson 1959), such as oksino : lemoni ‘lemon’ or mapha : bala ‘ball’, it is tempting to assume a robust distinction between Standard and Cypriot Greek in virtue of the fact that one of the two words does not belong to the lexicon of Standard Greek; however, this does not entail the reverse, i.e. that the Standard Greek word is not also part of the (naturallyacquired) vocabulary of Cypriot Greek. To compound matters further, there is a substantial subset of more or less formal Cypriot vocabulary that is lexically and morphophonetically modelled on Standard Greek, but does not form part of Standard Greek vocabulary, i.e. it is Cypriot-specific. Examples include afipiretó ‘I retire’ for Standard Greek sindaksioðotúme, isðoçí ‘entry’ for Standard Greek isaγojí or ísoðos etc. Cypriot speakers perceive these forms as
Standard Greek and they are usually unaware both of the fact that they are non-existent in the standard language and of the corresponding Standard forms. It is then clear that the use of such forms cannot fall within the remit of any discussion of (code-)switching stricto sensu. In sum, lexical overlap between the two varieties renders the delimitation of the matrix language (and therefore of code-switching) problematic.
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3.2. The trouble with morphological variables Morphological variables may at first blush appear easier to determine, the rule of thumb being that non-Standard morphology is Cypriot morphology. However, the Standard forms are learned at school and they are easily emulated and, crucially, in naturalistic production, some Standard forms can co-occur with Cypriot forms, as in examples (2) - (4), and this for no easily detectable discourse purpose:
na endopísume tis dinatótites ce tes aðinamíes, ja tes opíes θa zitísume voíθia apó tin civérnisi
(2)
in order to spot the strengths and the weaknesses, for which we will ask for government aid.
(3)
elávate ta xrímata? Did you receive the money?
(4)
na sas efxaristíso ja tin timí pu mas kámete. Let me thank you for the honor you have done us.
In (2) the Standard form of the feminine accusative plural determiner tis co-occurs with the Cypriot form tes; in (3), we have a hybrid simple past form (elávate ‘you received’) which contains both the unstressed past tense ‘augment’ e-, a dialect-specific phenomenon, and the Standard second person plural inflectional ending –ate, while in (4) we have the reverse picture, i.e. a non-augmented past tense form (kámete ‘you did’) with the Cypriot second person plural inflectional ending –ete. Conversely, Standard forms can occur within Cypriot-specific syntactic structures; cf. ne, tóra eséna en cipriaká pu su miláo ‘Yes, right now it’s Cypriot that I’m speaking with you’ in example (1) above, where a Cypriot focus cleft (en…pu ‘it is…that’) co-occurs with a Standard Greek inflectional ending on the verb miláo ‘I am speaking’; cf. also examples such as (5),
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(5)
ta misá seminária ine metá to mesiméri tis tetártis pu lamvánun xóra It’s after noon on Wednesdays that half our seminars take place.
where the Cypriot focus cleft ine metá to mesiméri tis tetártis pu ‘it’s after noon on Wednesdays that’ contains the Standard copula ine ‘(it) is’ rather than the Cypriot copula en. Finally, examples such as (6) and (7) indicate that Cypriot morphology can occur in otherwise Standard contexts:
(6)
méname se éna spíti kápcus fílus mas sto pasalimáni We stayed at the house of some friends of ours in Pasalimani.
(7)
xánumen ton élexon pléon tus ariθmús We are losing control of the numbers by now.
In both examples, the Cypriot masculine genitive plural morphology (kápcus fílus ‘of some friends’, tus ariθmús ‘of the numbers’) persists, although the utterances are presumably in Standard Greek. Examples such as the above unfortunately abound in the data and make it clear that morphological variation cannot be used as a reliable criterion for determining code-switching or for defining a shift as continuum-internal or continuum-external, given that morphological switching either takes place randomly and unsystematically, in the sense that it does not seem to correlate with particular discourse moves (cf. (2)) or that morphological switching into Standard Greek takes place despite the fact that the syntax remains Cypriot (cf. (5)), and, finally, given that there are morphological variables, e.g. the masculine accusative plural morpheme in (6) and (7) which cannot be switched at all.
3.3. The trouble with syntactic variables 12
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Cypriot-specific syntactic phenomena appear to be relatively robust, and hence non-Cypriot choices may be good candidates for defining a switch as continuum-external. Cypriot-specific syntactic phenomena include: (i) clitic-second or Tobler-Mussafia/Wackernagel effects (where Standard Greek has proclisis; cf. Tsiplakou 2006a):
(8)
íðes to? póte to íðes? Did you see it? When did you see it?
(ii) clefting in wh-questions:
(9)
túto índa m bu kámni? This one, what is it that it does?
(iii) Strict IO>DO order for postverbal clitics:
(10)
ípe mu to o níkos Nick told me it.
(iv)
focus clefts, but not focus movement (unlike Standard Greek, which only allows focus
movement):
(11)
en esás pu íðamen
(see Tsiplakou et al in press)
It’s you that we saw.
One could then argue that the use of the corresponding Standard Greek structures provides a criterion for determining that code-switching outside the continuum occurs. However, in the
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data there occur structures with proclisis, which is unexpected both syntactically and discursively, such as:
(12)
vasiká ekámnamen parusíasin…ítan foverí. ekáθetun píso, s’ ákuen, í∫en tapel:ítses… Basically, we’d be doing a presentation…She was terrific. She’d sit in the back, she’d listen to you, she had these little signs...
(13)
to é∫i maθitís mu A student of mine has it.
(14)
o cemális ítan, télos pándon, tútos o túrkos o meθístakas, t∫ ércetun t∫e mas efoít∫azen Anyway, Kemal was this Turkish drunkard, and he would come and scare us.
In (12) - (14) the pronominal proclisis is puzzling, not least because it combines with Cypriot morphophonology on the verb (ákuen ‘she was listening’ instead of Standard Greek ákuje, é∫i ‘has’ instead of Standard Greek éçi, efoít∫azen ‘he frightened’ instead of Standard Greek fóvize). Also, there are instances of focus movement, mainly with bare indefinites and deictic pronouns; again, syntactic focus movement, arguably an exclusively Standard Greek strategy, is couched in Cypriot morphophonology.
(15)
káthon θélo I want a cat.
(16)
t∫ínon iða I saw him.
In the data there are also instances of multiple fronted foci:
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(17)
t∫e torá pále ja to íðio práma én na su miliso And now I’m going to talk to you about the same thing once more.
Examples such as (18), (19) [=(5) above] and (20) are inherently problematic for a theory of code-switching, as they combine Cypriot syntax with Standard morphology:
(18)
teliká o arçiepískopos íne pu ta ðiicí óla Ultimately, it’s the Archbishop that rules everything.
(19)
ta misá seminária ine metá to mesiméri tis tetártis pu lamvánun xóra It’s after noon on Wednesdays that half our seminars take place.
(20)
póte ítan pu píγate stin aθína? When was it that you went to Athens?
Examples such as (18) are especially problematic, as they seem to combine two syntactic strategies, the ‘native’ focus cleft (íne pu ‘it is that’, albeit with a Standard copula) with Standard-like focus movement to the left periphery of the cleft (o arçiepískopos íne pu ‘the Archbishop it is that’). In (20) we get clefting in a wh-question, but again the morphology of the copula ítan ‘was’ is Standard, as is the morphology of the main verb píγate ‘you went’. It would seem, then, that syntactic variants are not always reliable indicators of (continuumexternal) code-switching, given that the complex patterns of morphosyntactic mixing make it extremely hard to define a matrix language and the types of ‘departures’ from it.
3.4. Phonetic variation as a potential criterion for defining types of (code-)switching In studies of code-switching among related varieties, phonetics is often used as the ultimate robust criterion for defining the matrix language of an utterance or a segment of talk, in the face of the difficulties engendered by lexical and morphosyntactic parity or convergence such 15
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as that described above (cf. Alfonzetti 1998). The use of Cypriot versus Standard Greek phonetics does, indeed, appear to be quite a robust criterion for determining the matrix language and for deciding whether code-switching outside of the Cypriot continuum is taking place. The following caveats are in order, however: (i) Cypriot speakers usually mention the palatoalveolar affricate [t∫] as a trademark of the Cypriot accent, hence milúmen me to t∫e ‘we speak with t∫e’. Indeed, in Cypriot Greek [t∫], but also [∫], occur before the front vowels [i] and [e], hence Standard Greek [cɛˈɾɔs] ‘weather’, [ˈɛçi] ‘s/he/it has’, but Cypriot Greek [t∫ɛˈɾɔs] ‘weather’ [ˈɛ∫i] ‘s/he/it has’. In reality, Cypriot Greek has at its disposal two palatoalveolar affricates /t∫h:/ and /t∫/, and the contrast between the two is phonemic, as is evidenced by pairs such as /fɐˈt∫h:ɛs/ ‘blows’ and /fɐˈt∫ɛs/ ‘lentils’. Additionally, only one of the two palatoalveolar affricates is in free variation with the Standard-like [c], hence [ˈlit∫ɛnɐ] or [ˈlicɛnɐ] ‘she-wolf’ but [fɐˈt∫h:ɛs] and not *[ˈfɐˈcɛs] ‘blows’. What is crucial for the purposes of our discussion is the availability of the phonemic contrast between [t∫h:] and [t∫] in contrast to the allophonic variation between [c] and [t∫], which is not subject to systemic (phonemic) constraints. This, in fact, implies that [c] and [t∫] are both viable options within the Cypriot continuum, and hence the availability of data such as
(21)
éfefcen i óra eftá c eksípnan i óra tés:eris t∫ elálen kafé! She’d leave at seven o’clock and she’d wake up at four and say “coffee”!
which indicate that identifying the matrix language on the basis of phonetic segments that native speakers treat as ‘shibboleths’ is not always a viable option. (ii) Consonant gemination (including aspiration of plosives), which is also considered a trademark of the Cypriot accent, and might hence be treated as a potential criterion for defining the matrix language or for determining code-switching, is also phonemic (cf. [ˈɛvɐl:ɐ] ‘I was putting’ and [ˈɛvɐlɐ] ‘I put’, or [ˈkuphɐ] ‘cup’, ‘bowl’ and [ˈkupɐ], a kind of sweetmeat. 16
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Gemination is also obligatory in consonant clusters consisting of two voiceless stops, e.g. [ˈpthɔsi] ‘fall’. Cypriot speakers are aware that gemination is not an option in Standard Greek,
but gemination is quite pervasive, even in contexts where the speaker is using the H code in all other respects, e.g. in contexts such as formal public speaking. It then looks as if the availability of consonant gemination cannot be used as a phonetic criterion for marking a segment of talk as Cypriot or Standard Greek, or as a criterion for establishing the matrix language. Interestingly, though, avoiding consonant gemination in phonetic contexts where Cypriot Greek requires it is perceived as (code-)switching, it is typically thought of as kalamarizmós ‘pen-pusher speak’; on the other hand, the ‘default’ choice, i.e. gemination, is not necessarily perceived as a switch to (heavy) Cypriot. This is a subtle yet significant aspect of the issue at hand. (iii) Unlike Standard Greek, Cypriot Greek does not have voiced stops [b], [d] and [g]/[ɟ], the Cypriot equivalents being the non-voiced [p], [t] and [k]/[c], e.g. [pɐˈpɐs] ‘dad’ (Cypriot Greek) but [bɐˈbɐs] (Standard Greek). Standard Greek has at its disposal prenasalized allophones of the voiced stops (i.e. [mb], [nd] and [ŋg]/[ɲɟ]. In Cypriot Greek, the prenasalized variants are also available, typically as a result of place assimilation of a preceding [n]; however, the prenasalized variants spread to positions where their occurrence cannot be explained as a result of [n]-assimilation, in, e.g. [ɔ mbɐˈmbɐs] ‘the.NOM dad.NOM’. Interestingly, Cypriot speakers consider such prenasalized forms as common to Cypriot and Standard Greek, although this is not always the case, as Standard Greek does not allow prenasalized voiced stops word-initially (conversely, mainland Greeks typically perceive prenasalized voiced stops as a trademark of the Cypriot accent). This is another interesting case of a phonetic discrepancy between the two systems where some facets of phonetic overlap are overgeneralized in ways which are extremely problematic for the purposes of any discussion on code-switching: in effect, we are dealing with the spread of a phonetic process
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(prenasalization) which yields a partial approximation of the standard accent; moreover, the phonetic process is not extraneous to the system of Cypriot Greek, although it can be argued that it is a recent development (cf. Arvaniti 2002). On the perceptual side, Cypriot Greek speakers are convinced that the prenasalized forms sound identical to the standard forms, and in most cases they claim not to be able to perceive the acoustic difference between the prenasalized and the non-prenasalized voiced stops. On the sociolinguistic side, speakers do not perceive the prenasalized forms as exclusively kalamarístika ‘pen-pusher speak’, but as forms which are somewhere in the grey area between sistarisména cipriaká ‘tidied-up Cypriot’ and kalamarístika, i.e. code-switched. (iv) The alternation between [i], [j] and [k]/[c] is a very similar case in point. Typically, the palatal glide is unavailable in Cypriot Greek and it is perceived as a trademark of kalamarístika. As the Cypriot joke has it, the man called Ciriákos comes from Cyprus but the man called Cirjákos comes from Greece; the interesting twist, is, of course, that the [j] in Cirjakos is pronounceable by the Cypriot speakers who relay the joke. More to the point, in Cypriot Greek there are robust phonotactic constraints forcing the pronunciation of an underlying /i/ as [k]/[c] when a complex consonant cluster is involved, e.g. [ˈ∫ɛɾin] ‘hand’ but /ˈ∫ɛɾi +ɐ/>[ˈ∫ɛɾkɐ] ‘hands’, [mɔˈlivin] ‘pencil’ but /mɔˈlivi+ɐ/>[mɔˈlifcɐ] ‘pencils’ (see Malikouti-
Drachman 2001, Papanicola 2005). In the corresponding Standard Greek plurals the underlying /i/ surfaces as a palatal fricative, [j] or [ç], e.g. [ˈçɛɾi] ‘hand’- [ˈçɛɾjɐ] ‘hands’, [xɔˈɾɐfi] ‘field’, [xɔˈɾɐfçɐ] ‘fields’. Pronunciations involving [j]/[ç] are perceived as Standard Greek; the Cypriot
attempt at sistarisména or kalamarístika results in forms with a stressed [í] such as [kɐɾˈðiɐ] ‘heart’ (Standard Greek: [kɐɾˈðjɐ], older Cypriot form: [kɐɾˈcɐ]). The twist is data such as (22),
(22)
írθan i áŋgli sto xorjó na pcásun anakrísis
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The English came to the village to carry out interrogations.
where it seems that there are strong phonotactic constraints permitting the standard-like pronunciation of [ɾj] but not of [pç] (Papanicola & Tsiplakou 2007). The problem can then be formulated as follows: if a Standard variant such as [ɾj] is perfectly pronounceable, does it count as an instance of continuum-external code-switching? Conversely, if a Standard variant such as [pç] is not only non-pronounceable but also not acoustically-perceptually salient, is the ‘default’ use of the corresponding Cypriot variant [pc] relevant for determining the matrix language as Cypriot Greek? To sum up, phonetic variants are mostly reliable indicators of continuum-internal vs. continuum-external code-switching; the snag is that, unlike morphological or syntactic variants, reliability comes with constraints associated with bilingual/bidialectal competence; thus, a continuum-external switch in phonetics may not be easily achievable, or it may not be perceptually salient to the hearers.
4. Which switch, then? And what for? The conversation-analytic perspective. The discussion of the data presented in the previous sections and the strong caveats inherent in any attempt to define code-switching between historically and ‘genetically’ related varieties, in conjunction with the processes of dialect levelling and koineization currently at work in Greek-speaking Cyprus, may then lead us to abandon a traditional approach to codeswitching as a move from one (well-defined) code to another serving specific, clearly identifiable discourse purposes, and, instead, to view recalcitrant patterns such as those occurring in the data examined in this paper as instances of language alternation akin to codemixing. Poplack (2000) draws the following distinction between code-switching and codemixing based on both syntactic and pragmatic/discourse criteria:
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code-switching may be used as a discourse strategy to achieve certain interactional effects at specific points during a conversation […] this use is characteristic only of certain types of code-switching, which we call ‘emblematic’, including tags, interjections, idiomatic expressions, and even individual noun switches. On the other hand, a generalized use of intra-sentential code-switching may represent instead an overall discourse MODE. The very fact that a speaker makes alternate use of both codes itself has interactional motivations and implications beyond any particular effects of specific switches […] More important, there is no need to require any social motivation for this type of code-switching, given that, as a discourse mode, it may itself form part of the repertoire of a speech community. It is then the choice (or not) of this mode which is of significance to participants rather than the choice of switch points.
(Poplack 2000: 254-255, emphasis added)
Similarly, Myers-Scotton (2000) notes that this kind of language alternation, which she terms ‘overall switching’,
differs from other types of switching in that each switching is not socially meaningful of its own. (Rather, only the overall pattern has a discourse function)
(Myers-Scotton 2000: 148)
and she further notes that it could be said to function as a type of interaction similar to register variation in monolingual language use. This type of approach may make more sense given the nature of the data discussed so far. As is well-known, most code-switches occur at major syntactic and prosodic boundaries or at the beginning of different turns, and their role is to index a meta-pragmatic commentary on some aspect of the ongoing discourse, e.g. a repetition, a repair, a change of footing or alignment, a topic change, etc. (Auer 1999). Code-mixing, on the other hand, does not carry out such identifiable local discourse functions. Code-mixing is mostly turn- or utteranceinternal and it constitutes an overall discourse mode (usually the discourse mode of balanced bilinguals, cf. Poplack 2000). The choice of such mixed modes may of course have overall
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social significance; it may, for example, index group identity or the particular tenor of the interaction. Such code-mixing is the first step towards the creation of a ‘fused variety’ or a ‘fused lect’ (Auer 1999). What is central to the interpretive sociolinguistic/conversationanalytic approach to code-mixing is that the linguist’s notion of code(s) may well be different from the participants’ own notions of what constitutes ‘code A’ and ‘code B’. As was shown in some detail in section 3 above, this is especially true of code-mixing between related varieties: the ‘codes’ juxtaposed may be objectively speaking similar or different, but participants’ notions of similarity or difference may well diverge from notions of similarity or difference based on formal linguistic criteria. This is especially true in situations of koineization and emerging ‘fused lects’, which is arguably the case for a large part of the Greek Cypriot koiné, as was evidenced in the examples discussed above. When seen from this perspective, the Cypriot Greek data begin to make a different kind of sense. Let us take another look at the examples with unexpected pronominal proclisis presented in section 3.2 above:
(12)
vasiká ekámnamen parusíasin…ítan foverí. ekáθetun píso, s’ ákuen, í∫en tapel:ítses… Basically, we’d be doing a presentation…She was terrific. She’d sit in the back, she’d listen to you, she had these little signs...
(13)
to é∫i maθitís mu A student of mine has it.
(14)
o cemális ítan, télos pándon, tútos o túrkos o meθístakas, t∫ ércetun t∫e mas efoít∫azen Anyway, Kemal was this Turkish drunkard, and he would come and scare us.
From a linguist’s perspective, the instances of pronominal proclisis (the Standard Greek syntactic strategy) are instances of (intrasentential) code-mixing, albeit with no easily discernible discourse purpose. From the native Cypriot speakers’ perspective, however, the 21
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proclisis does not constitute a departure from the native variety; in fact, during post hoc checking of the data the speakers mentioned that they were speaking in dialect, and that all the proclisis may have achieved was a practically imperceptible shift in register or style; the speakers mentioned that they would have considered these instances of their linguistic production as code-switched or code-mixed, i.e. as departures from the Cypriot continuum, had the whole of the syntactic phrase also been couched in Standard Greek morphophonology. I believe that such interpretive comments provide useful insights into the nature of language alternation within an arguably ‘fused lect’. In cases such as the above, language alternation (or ‘code-mixing’) is almost akin to language alternation in the naturalistic production of monolingual (or of fully bilingual) speakers; the sharp distinction between the two codes breaks down, even in the face of external, formal linguistic differentiation, and variants from the two codes are used interchangeably to construct a more or less mixed discourse mode. Having said that, we may also find instances where speakers may choose to contrast this mixed mode with other, less mixed or more ‘monolingual’ modes, which may also be part of their active repertoire; this type of language alternation may then be locally or discursively meaningful:
(23)
Myria:
stél:u su ðío tis ekatóm bíso.
Evanthi:
c aftá íne apó tin eterían?
Myria:
íne kaθará leftá ja tría xróɲa.
Evanthi:
ma ói, o mástros mu léi én en étsi, íne al:os pos.
[…] Myria:
stis proinés esí íne pu n na íse. θa ti válume túti ðóðeka.
Io:
en na me peθánis?
Myria:
siópa, tóra. lipón, to apójevma θa mbúne i eléni mazí me ti maría, t∫ i xará me ti varvára.
Io:
evríkamen t∫ al:om bróvlima.
Myria:
mɲá xará ine. θa prospaθísumen duláiston, tuláçiston, pércimon voleftúmen úl:es.
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Io:
ma inda m bu n na kámume?
Myria:
mas kánis ce paratirísis?
Io:
íne psém:ata pu laló?
Myria:
íne káti pu en ekatálaves, ce θa sto eksijiso tóra eγó. ma inda m bu se kófti?
Myria:
They send you two percent back.
Evanthi:
And this is from the company?
Myria:
It’s net money for three years.
Evanthi:
But no, my boss says it’s not like that, it’s different.
[…] Myria:
It’s you that’s going to be on the morning flights. We’ll put her on the twelve o’clock.
Io:
Are you trying to kill me here?
Myria:
Hush, now. So, in the afternoon it’ll be Eleni and Maria, and Hara together with Varvara.
Io:
We just created another problem for ourselves.
Myria:
It’s just fine. We’ll at least, at least, try, and hopefully we’ll all be happy with the arrangement.
Io:
But what on earth should we do?
Myria:
Are you being critical, on top of everything else?
Io:
Is it lies I’m telling?
Myria:
There’s something you didn’t understand, and I’ll explain it to you now. But what do you care?
The data in (23) were recorded during a business meeting among stewardesses working in a Cypriot airline (boldface letters indicate Cypriot Greek, italics indicate Standard Greek, boldface italics indicate hybrid morphosyntactic structures (cf. 3.3 above) and plain lowercase letters indicate words and structures that could be either Standard or Cypriot Greek). The chief stewardess, whom I have called Myria, discussed money returns and then attempted to allocate flights, which resulted in strong objections. Notice that Myria starts off in a more or less Cypriot-heavy mode (cf. consonant gemination, pronominal enclisis and word-final –n in 23
Stavroula Tsiplakou
stél:u su ðío tis ekatóm bíso ‘They send you two percent back’), and that her claim is contested by Evanthi in Standard Greek (c aftá íne apó tin eterían? ‘And this is from the company?’, modulo the Cypriot final –n in eterían ‘company’; arguably, Evanthi’s departure from the Cypriot-heavy or mixed mode indexes a change in footing and alignment; Myria’s turn (íne kaθará leftá ja tría xróɲa ‘it’s net money for three years’) mirrors Evanthi’s almost Standard-like mode in order to index the maintenance of the (antagonistic) footing established by Evanthi. The use of a Standard-like mode to indicate disagreement and assertiveness may point to a sociolinguistic correlation between Standard Greek and status/assertiveness; this is not, however, the case a few turns down: Myria announces flight allocations in her usual (neutral?) mixed mode (stis proinés esí íne pu n na íse. θa ti válume túti ðóðeka ‘It’s you that’s going to be on the morning flights. We’ll put her on the twelve o’clock’), and the statement of objections and of disagreement by Io, i.e. another shift in alignment, is now indexed by the move towards a more Cypriot-heavy mode (en na me peθánis? ‘Are you trying to kill me here?’, evríkamen t∫ al:om bróvlima ‘We just created another problem for ourselves’, ma inda m bu n na kámume? ‘But what on earth should we do?’). These are all instances of discourse-related language alternation that may or may not constitute departures from the Cypriot continuum; it is particularly interesting that the directionality of the switch can be either towards more Standard-like or towards more Cypriot-heavy language, and the change in footing and alignment is achieved either way; what is crucial is the linguistic indexing of the ‘departure’ from the interlocutor’s mode, not the direction of the departure. This is perhaps the expected pattern of discourse-related language alternation in situations of language mixing and fusion, koineization and potential diglossia resolution.
5. Remaining questions (in lieu of conclusions)
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On the basis of the data discussed in this paper it would be tempting to assume that codeswitching is equivalent to linguistic choices outside the Cypriot continuum, while code-mixing is continuum-internal, and hence that code-mixing is effectively style-shifting in the manner of bilinguals (or of monolinguals); yet we have seen that the patterns are not always clear-cut. The data inevitably give rise to the following questions, which must remain unanswered at this stage, pending further research: do the data constitute evidence against the strict delineation of linguistic codes in situations of language contact? Is it at all possible to have continuumexternal code-switching, if part of Standard Greek is taken to belong to the Cypriot continuum, or if we are dealing with a ‘fused lect’? How do acquisition factors enter the picture? And, finally, do such data allow us to make a case for competing grammars, and, if so, what is the precise nature of the competition?
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Newton, Brian (1972) Cypriot Greek: Its Phonology and Inflections. The Hague: Mouton. Papanicola, Evanthi (2005) Are phonotactics syllabically conditioned? The case of the Cypriot Greek dialect. Μ.Α. Thesis, Department of Linguistics, University College London. Papanikola, Evanthi & Stavroula Tsiplakou (2007) ‘Hardening’ in Cypriot Greek and its implications for understanding phonotactic constraints. Talk presented at ICLaVE 4, Nicosia, June 17-19 2007. Poplack Shana (2000) Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanol: toward a typology of code switching. In Li, W. (ed.) The Bilingualism Reader, 221-256. London: Routledge. Siegel, Jeff (2001) Koine formation and creole genesis. In Smith, N. & T. Veestra (eds) Creolization and Contact, 175-197. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Terkourafi, Marina (2005) Understanding the present through the past. Processes of koineisation in Cyprus. Diachronica 22: 309-372. Tsiplakou, Stavroula (2003/in press). Linguistic attitudes and emerging hyperdialectism in a diglossic setting: young Cypriot Greeks on their language. In Yoquelet, C. (ed.) Berkeley Linguistic Society 29. Minority and Diasporic Languages of Europe. Tsiplakou, Stavroula (2004) Στάσεις απέναντι στη γλώσσα και γλωσσική αλλαγή: μια αμφίδρομη σχέση; [Attitudes towards language and language change: a two-way relation?] In G. Catsimali, A. Kalokairinos, E. Anagnostopoulou & I. Kappa (eds) Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Greek Linguistics. Rethymno: Linguistics Lab. CD-Rom. Tsiplakou, Stavroula (2006a) Cyprus: language situation. In Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 2nd edition, 337-339. Oxford: Elsevier. Tsiplakou, Stavroula (2006b) The emperor’s old clothes. Linguistic diversity and the redefinition of literacy. International Journal of the Humanities 2: 2345-2352. Tsiplakou, Stavroula, Andreas Papapavlou, Pavlos Pavlou & Marianna Katsoyannou (2006) Levelling, koineization and their implications for bidialectism. In Hinskens, F. (ed.) Language Variation. European Perspectives, 265-276. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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