New basques and code-switching: Purist tendencies, social pressures

Abstract

The chapter examines euskaldun berriak, ‘new Basques,’ as users of code-switching, not as language learners but as agents in constructing bilingual speech styles. The aim is to show how Basque bilinguals’ rationalisations surrounding code-switching and new speakerness, such as the idea of new speakers never being truly competent in their ‘new’ language, lead to purist tendencies in their speech patterns. At the same time, the dynamics of this language contact situation favour specific types of conventionalised code-switching, which are accessible to the new speakers of Basque.