Shared Lexical Items as Triggers of Code Switching
Shuly Wintner Safaa Shehadi Yuli Zeira Doreen Osmelak Yuval Nov
Why do bilingual speakers code-switch (mix their two languages)? Among the
several theories that attempt to explain this natural and ubiquitous
phenomenon, the Triggering Hypothesis relates code-switching to the presence of
lexical triggers, specifically cognates and proper names, adjacent to the
switch point. We provide a fuller, more nuanced and refined exploration of the
triggering hypothesis, based on five large datasets in three language pairs,
reflecting both spoken and written bilingual interactions. Our results show
that words that are assumed to reside in a mental lexicon shared by both
languages indeed trigger code-switching; that the tendency to switch depends on
the distance of the trigger from the switch point; and on whether the trigger
precedes or succeeds the switch; but not on the etymology of the trigger words.
We thus provide strong, robust, evidence-based confirmation to several
hypotheses on the relationships between lexical triggers and code-switching.