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CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW
the analyst should demonstrate how that reality is actually constructed through
the local interaction-bound interpretation of the meaning of code-switching
(constructivist-based CA analysis, cognitive, local, bottom-up approach, and
micro-analysis). On the other hand, theorists claim that there are existing
societal norms, and for the profound interpretation of the meaning of code¬
switching, it has to be analyzed in the global, macro-sociolinguistic reality of
a given utterance (essentialist-based sociocultural, global, top-down approach,
macro-analysis). Also, there are different approaches to interpreting code¬
switching as an inherent part of acommunity’s linguistic repertoire or as the
result of a cognitive process of the individual speaker. If it is seen more as part
of a community repertoire, its meaning is determined by the community’s
norms and sociolinguistic characteristics (Markedness Model). However, if it
is seen more as part of the individual’s linguistic repertoire, then the ultimate
cognitive choices lie with the individual (Rational Choice Model).
As a result of the constant interplay between the two main theoretical
approaches to the interpretation of the meaning of code-switches, new
tendencies, integrating some elements of one another’s theoretical approaches,
have emerged. In the sociocultural approach, thanks to the emergence of
ethnopragmatics based on neo-Hymnesian ethnographical traditions, the
dimension of the ethno-centered interpretation of the meaning of code¬
switching has strengthened**. Among the followers of the Conversation
Analysis tradition, the need for a new dual approach integrating the results
of the sociocultural approach in the cognitive framework of the Conversation
Analysis method has become more apparent”.
OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE
In the quest for a unifying, comprehensive, and universal framework of the
how’s and why’s of code-switching, a new perspective has been proposed
by Bhatt and Bolonyai focusing on the interpretation of the meaning and
functions of code-switching from a sociocognitive perspective™.
Bhatt and Bolonyai set up a sociocognitive, normative community
framework interpreting the meaning of code-switching in consideration of
the cognitive, objective and social factors interplaying in the mechanism
of code-switching. Their model provides a unified theoretical framework
96 Wierzbicka, Emotion, language and ‘cultural scripts’, 130-198; Wierzbicka, English: Meaning
and Culture; Pavlenko, Emotions and Multiculturalism; Rampton, Neo-Hymesian linguistic
ethnography in the UK, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 584-607
97 Wei, “How can you tell?”, Journal of Pragmatics, 375-389; Rampton, Neo-Hymesian linguistic
ethnography in the UK, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 584-607
"98 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, 522-546
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