2 ms·

Can you explain the difference? They look identical to me.

wccrawford 3y ago
I don't necessarily agree with everyone above, but.. When the first person used "hotel" in an English sentence, they were struggling to find a suitable word and failed, and fell back to another language for it. Or possibly they thought it was a better word than the English equivalent for some reason. They thought of it as a French word, with all the implications of it in French, rather than English. When I use "hotel" in a sentence, it's just part of the language I grew up with. To me, it's an English word, not something I fell back on in another language. That said, the "Spanglish" referenced here is being learned from birth by people, so they aren't context switching either. They're just speaking how they learned to speak. Older people are probably still context switching, but younger people likely aren't.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  The fact that's it's an English word to you doesn't make it no longer a French word. You simply aren't aware you're using a French word.
mcswell 3y ago
Code switching is when you're speaking language X, then switch over to language Y for one or more words. If there's another person present who knows X but doesn't know Y, they'll probably be lost when you do that. Borrowing might have started out as code switching, or something else, but when you use words borrowed a long time ago from Y in language X, people who know X but not necessarily Y will probably understand you. There are of course technical terms that you might use which not everyone will understand. Some of these will have been borrowed from another language, like electron or perigee or perihelion, while others might be words made up and not borrowed, like quark or boson or fermion. The fact that some were borrowed, and others not, does not make the one code switching and the other something else. And if you're code switching, you'll probably be pronouncing the words from language Y with the expected pronunciation of Y, whereas if you're using words borrowed from Y into X, they will probably be pronounced differently from how they would be pronounced if you were code switching into Y (or just speaking Y), and the semantics may have changed. Take the word 'mesa' in English, describing a flat-topped hill in the southwest. If you're a non-Spanish speaker, you'll probably pronounce that last vowel as a schwa, and only have the flat-topped hill meaning in mind. Whereas if you code switched into Spanish, that last vowel would probably sound like the /a/ in 'father', and you might be talking about a table.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  My point could have been clearer but it was essentially that imported words started out as code switching. The fact that someone mimicking a code switcher doesn't understand French doesn't make hotel no longer a French word.

I don't necessarily agree with everyone above, but.. When the first person used "hotel" in an English sentence, they were struggling to find a suitable word and failed, and fell back to another language for it. Or possibly they thought it was a better word than the English equivalent for some reason. They thought of it as a French word, with all the implications of it in French, rather than English. When I use "hotel" in a sentence, it's just part of the language I grew up with. To me, it's an English word, not something I fell back on in another language. That said, the "Spanglish" referenced here is being learned from birth by people, so they aren't context switching either. They're just speaking how they learned to speak. Older people are probably still context switching, but younger people likely aren't.

tchaffee 3y ago
The fact that's it's an English word to you doesn't make it no longer a French word. You simply aren't aware you're using a French word.

mcswell 3y ago

Code switching is when you're speaking language X, then switch over to language Y for one or more words. If there's another person present who knows X but doesn't know Y, they'll probably be lost when you do that. Borrowing might have started out as code switching, or something else, but when you use words borrowed a long time ago from Y in language X, people who know X but not necessarily Y will probably understand you. There are of course technical terms that you might use which not everyone will understand. Some of these will have been borrowed from another language, like electron or perigee or perihelion, while others might be words made up and not borrowed, like quark or boson or fermion. The fact that some were borrowed, and others not, does not make the one code switching and the other something else. And if you're code switching, you'll probably be pronouncing the words from language Y with the expected pronunciation of Y, whereas if you're using words borrowed from Y into X, they will probably be pronounced differently from how they would be pronounced if you were code switching into Y (or just speaking Y), and the semantics may have changed. Take the word 'mesa' in English, describing a flat-topped hill in the southwest. If you're a non-Spanish speaker, you'll probably pronounce that last vowel as a schwa, and only have the flat-topped hill meaning in mind. Whereas if you code switched into Spanish, that last vowel would probably sound like the /a/ in 'father', and you might be talking about a table.

tchaffee 3y ago
My point could have been clearer but it was essentially that imported words started out as code switching. The fact that someone mimicking a code switcher doesn't understand French doesn't make hotel no longer a French word.