Code Switching as an Interactional Strategy for Developing Bilingual Competence

Abstract

ISSN: 0043-7956 (Print) 2373-5112 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwrd20 Starting from the observation that the main strategy followed by children leaming more than one language in progression toward the mastery of their communicative competence is code switching, this article discusses the dynamics, function, and consequences of such switching on the basis of longitudinal studies in a bilingual Estonian (LI) and Swedish (L2) environment in Sweden. 1. Introduction. A child acquiring language not only has to acquire the rules of grammar and semantics, but also the rules of usage, in arder to build up the ability to interact socially by generating and interpreting speech acts. A great deal of this development takes place in social situations, that is, in the interaction between the child and his interlocutors. Recent research on child-language acquisition has almost entirely concentrated on what the child learns. Very little can be achieved by this approach, how-ever, if it is not applied in connection with the how and the conditions under which a child acquires his communicative competence.! This how in-eludes the influence of extralinguistic situational factors. ln bilingual language-acquisition, in which linguistic and communi-cative competence are achieved through an environment in which two languages accompany the child's development from the start, we have to answer the crucial issue: which strategies are built up to use both languages as effective means of communication? In other words, we must match the items of those languages to the appropriate items in situations. Under