Oldal 45 [45]
OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE
mechanism of the switched codes, the model can be adopted to describing
the structural interaction of any language pair(s) participating in the process
of code-switching.
OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE:
A SOCIO-COGNITIVE MODEL OF CODE-SWITCHING
Relying on Optimality Iheory, Bhatt and Bolonyais model is an attempt at
describing the socio-cognitive regularities in the meaning-making mechanisms
of code-switching. Claimed to be universally applicable in any bi- or
multilingual speech community, Optimality Iheory in analyzing bilingual use
is a framework which aims to demonstrate how the socio-cognitive constraints
of code-switching, in interaction with each other, filter the linguistic inputs to
finally select the output indexing or constructing the optimal socio-pragmatic
meaning and/or fulfilling the appropriate socio-pragmatic function in a given
utterance. Relying on the thorough and comprehensive overview of previous
literature on code-switching, pragmatics, and conversation analysis, Bhatt
and Bolonyai set up five constraints, of which interaction, the optimal socio¬
cognitive meaning of code-switching is created, indexed, and decoded in a
given linguistic utterance. Ihese universal optimality filtering constraints are
as follows: the Principle of Interpretive Faithfulness (FAITH); the Principle
of Symbolic Domination (POWER); the Principle of Social Concurrence
(SOLIDARITY); the Principle of Face Management (FACE); the Principle of
Perspective Taking (PERSPECTIVE).
The premises of Bhatt and Bolonyai’s framework can be enumerated as
follows!”:
(a) Optimality Theory for bilingual use is a socio-cognitive framework, aim¬
ing to describe the socio-cognitive meaning-making process of code¬
switching in a universally applicable community framework.
(b) It claims that there is a universal bilingual grammar that sets up, gener¬
ates and evaluates violable socio-cognitive constraints that determine
the actual surface representation of the competing monolingual and
code-switched candidates.
(c) The community-specific framework of OT relies on the algorithmic rep¬
resentation of code-switched outputs, surface realizations, and is backed
by the knowledge of socio-cultural characteristics of the examined
106 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, 524-525
107 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-546
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