Peter Auer and others who study codeswitching within a Conversation Analysis (CA) framework come up with some distinct differences from the Markedness Model and other approaches that emphasize the role of norms about the social meanings that are associated with using one language variety rather than another. Auer makes four main points about the choices bilinguals make in a bilingual conversation: (1) CA analysts try to avoid using what Auer calls “pre-established external categories” in interpreting the social meaning in in- teractions involving bilingual codeswitching (1998: 2). That is, they downplay the role of societal norms regarding language use and emphasize instead that social meanings can be “locally produced”. (2) Thus, they argue that there is a level of conversational structure which is “sufficiently autonomous” from larger societal factors (1998: 3). (3) CA analysts emphasize paying attention to the overall organization of the discourse, especially sequences of how codes are alternated. Auer (1995: 123) states, “The situated meaning of code-alternation . . . cannot be stated unless a sequential analysis is carried out. The same cue may receive a different interpretation on different occasions.” (4) CA analysts in general emphasize that a fine-grained transcription of any speech event is necessary to capture potential nuances in how social meaning is produced. 6.9.1 An example in a Conversation Analysis transcript
The following example gives us an idea of what a CA transcript looks like and how its social meaning is interpreted.
Setting: An informal conversation among a group of young Spanish- German bilingual speakers of South American origin in Hamburg: J and U are hosts, C is a guest. Spanish is in italics.
1 J qué estás buscando?
‘What are you looking for?’ 2 C cigarros ‘Cigarettes’ 3 J ay por qué? ‘Oh why?’ 4 (1.0) (one-second silence) 5 C por qué? ‘Why?’
6 J por qué por qué quierres ir al flur?
‘Why why do you want to go out in the corridor?’ 7 C para fumar
‘In order to smoke’
9 L a(h)! fl(h)ur [a(h)! a(h)!l [a(h)l ‘To the corridor to the to the to the’
10 J [y dónde [al flur? h h
‘And where in the corridor?’ 11 A he he he [he
12 U [fuerte
‘Cool’ 13 (2.0) (two-second silence)
14 L ahí donde está la bicicleta [está
‘there where the bike is . . . it is’
15 J [aquí no hay aquí no hay nichtraucher=
‘Here we don’t have “no-smoking”’ 16 L =donde está la bicicle- he he
‘Where the bike is’
(Peter Giese, unpublished data 1992/93, cited in Auer, 1998: 4) In analyzing this interaction, Auer notes that in a basically Spanish conver- sation, the German word flur ‘corridor’ is used three times and the German
Nichtraucher ‘no smoking’ is used once. He recognizes that without knowledge
about recurring patterns of use in this group, it is difficult to tell whether flur is a borrowing into these speakers’ Spanish, but its uses in lines 9 and 10 are followed by laughter. But it’s also difficult to tell whether the laughing is just at the idea of smoking in the corridor and not in the living room.
Auer attaches more importance to the use of Nichtraucher ‘no smoking’ in the turn that is otherwise in Spanish and which translates as “Here we don’t have no smoking”. Auer states that the choice of German for ‘no smoking’ gives the decisive clue: It is a certain segment of German culture which is contrasted with these South American participants’ way of living in terms of how it deals with smokers. He couples this clue with background information (not in the conversation itself) that smoking in German society has been a topic for these speakers. He claims that “[I]t is only on the basis of an analysis of the sequen- tial position of this insertion together with this background knowledge . . . that a full understanding of code alternation can be reached” (p. 7).
6.9.2 Contrasting Conversation Analysis and the Markedness Model
Clearly, Auer doubts that one can refer to a particular language as a marked choice in a given interaction type unless the discourse structure of a specific interaction itself gives evidence as to the markedness of that choice. The impli- cation is that CA analysts would not agree that speakers, through experience and the workings of a markedness evaluator, arrive at markedness readings for how different languages will be normatively perceived in a specific inter- action type. That is, CA contrasts sharply with the Markedness Model on this point.
Let us look at the example cited above. Most non-CA analysts would agree that speaking German would call up different associations for young South American men, even though they live in Germany, than speaking Spanish. The Markedness Model goes a step further. Even without knowledge of the specific persons involved, that model would predict that German generally would be a marked choice for informal conversations among young South American men living in Germany. In this particular conversation, the marked- ness of Nichtraucher seems even more likely. Given the way the interaction has progressed in Spanish, the strong implicature of “no smoking” said in German is that the speaker wishes to call up not just restrictions on smoking, but the German mindset about such restrictions. For these speakers (who already know speaker C wants to smoke and have questioned why he is going out in the corridor), shifting to a marked choice (German) is a way to make fun of the restriction and the would-be smoker, and their laughter reinforces this interpretation.
The difference between a CA analysis of bilingual conversation and that under other approaches discussed here seems to be a matter of degree, not absolutes. Most other analysts would agree that large-scale societal factors cannot tell the whole story of why two languages are used in the same conver- sation. But they do pay much attention to previous associations of the lan- guages in the community (i.e. the situations in which they are regularly used, by whom, and for what purposes). The difference is that most CA analysts instead emphasize the “local” construction of meaning. By this they mean that they do not so much emphasize the choice that a speaker makes, as attach special meaning to where in the interactional episode the switch occurs.
Finally, CA analysts claim that their focus on discourse structure provides an interpretation more true to the role of language in the interaction because it limits external evidence. For an argument that the type of detailed trans- cription that CA analysts use necessarily results in a more interaction-internal explanation, see Li (2002: 174–7). Other analysts respond that they also take account of the sequence in which the two languages are used in interactions and the use of other cues, such as the use of silence. The difference is that these other analysts also argue that the participants bring with them to the interac- tion knowledge of the symbolic value of the languages in the community, as well as their own statuses and values of persons of like statuses.