Page 19 [19]
CHAPTER 2
—o> —
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This particular study focuses on the applicability of Bhatt and Bolonyai’s
Optimality Theory framework for the analysis of bilingual use of the
Hungarian-American immigrant community living in North Carolina, USA".
More particularly, it focuses on what sociopragmatic functions the instances of
code-switches fulfill, and how they are governed by the bilingual community
grammar shared by the examined community. In addition to the qualitative
analysis of the mechanism of code-switching and that of the sociopragmatic
functions fulfilled by it, the study also aims to provide a sociolinguistic analysis
— based on qualitative data — of the examined community to highlight those
characteristics along which the community can be defined, and which make
this particular community susceptible to the specific bilingual community
grammar determining the ranking of socio-cognitive constraints proposed
by Bhatt and Bolonyai™.
Bhatt and Bolonyai claim that the sociocognitive meaning-making
mechanism of code-switching is determined by conflicts between linguistic
candidates competing to fulfill the most optimally a given sociopragmatic
function required by the linguistic situation". Relying on the premise of
Optimality Theory in bilingual use, this study aims to provide evidence of
how the optimal sociopragmatic function instantiated by a particular situation
is realized by the successful linguistic candidate competing for surface
representation. The study aims to examine how sociopragmatic optimality
is maximized by the act of code-switching and which other sociopragmatic
functions activated in the linguistic situation have been overridden by the
successful linguistic candidate.
Representing the sociopragmatic functions (classified as principles) fulfilled
by the successful candidate and the other ones activated in a linguistic
situation but overridden or fulfilled by the successful candidate in algorithmic
1! Bhatt - Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-546
2 Bhatt - Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-546
13 Bhatt - Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-546
+ ]7 +