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CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS tables, the study aims to provide empirical evidence for the applicability of the proposed community-specific ranking of constraints in the examined speech community. However, as the sociopragmatic function that the act of code-switching fulfils is influenced by the macro-linguistic social context as well, the salient tendencies of code-switching will be analyzed against the sociolinguistic variables, language use, and attitude patterns of the members of the examined speech community with a view to finding statistically significant correlations rendering the examined community susceptible to its ranking of constraints. In other words, in this study I set out: (1) To show how the Optimality Theory for bilingual grammar can be applied for the Hungarian-American bilingual immigrant community in North Carolina, and how the constraints interact with each other in a communityspecific ranking, based on the qualitative analysis of the empirical data. (2) To find statistically significant correlations, relying on the quantitative analysis of the survey data (based on the results of the questionnaires) in the Hungarian-American immigrant community’s quantified sociolinguistic characteristics (with special emphasis on the salient differences between first(G1) and second-generation (G2) speakers), their participant- and functionrelated language use patterns, their motivation in cherishing Hungarian language and traditions, and their attitudes to code-switching, to English and Hungarian, and to being an American-Hungarian. (3) To find out, relying on the results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses, what is the function of code-switching in the Hungarian-American speech community in North Carolina, USA. +18 +
