Oldal 53 [53]
OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE
Two examples provided by Bhatt and Bolonyai demonstrate how the
principle of Power works will be discussed in more detail.
Example [4a-b] is a passage from a casual conversation that took place in
New Delhi, India, among Kashmiri (mother-tongue) Pandit family members.
The languages involved are Hindi, Kashmiri, and English (italicized and bold).
Example [4a]
1 A “zamiin par aapka bhii hak hai”
(‘you also have the (ancestral) right to that land’)
2 B “are hameN kyaa karnaa hai zaraa si us zamiin ka (1.0) tumhe
cahiye kyaa”
(‘what am I going to do with that little piece of land tumhe
cahiye kyaa’)
3 A “mujhe nahiN cahiye but you should demand what is yours”
(‘I don’t want (it) ... ‘)
4 B “Iam not interested, if you are, you do it”
(cited by Bhatt and Bolonyai)!”®
In Bhatt and Bolonyai’s interpretation the switch in line 4 from Hindi to
English “demonstrates a clear instance of how the exercise of assertiveness
and authority is rendered in English”!”’, that is, how the switch to English
enables the speaker to gain a dominant position in this particular situation. In
this speech community, a former British colony, there is a stable markedness
feature of the codes involved. English is the official language, the language of
“power and prestige”, while among community members Hindi is the default
language, the language of solidarity, the “we-code”. Kashmiri is also used,
though rarely, mostly for intimate speech functions.
In this example, the conversation between speaker A and B is about a piece of
land that speaker A wants to share with speaker B. Speaker B, however, seems
reluctant to accept this offer even though he is traditionally entitled to that
piece of land. Speaker B switches to English when he runs of out arguments
and simply wants to end the conversation making speaker A understand that
he has no intention of using the ancestral piece of land that he has a right to.
Speaker B draws upon a switch to English, the language of prestige and power,
to gain authority in the situation, which finally tops the argument. The switch
to English also indicates that speaker B wants to keep a distance from the
as a power resource in bilingual adolescents’ conversations in the Danish Folkeskole. Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 24 (1-2) (2003), 76-89
8 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, 529
2 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 529