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OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE Studying the literature on code-switching, Bhatt and Bolonyai have subsumed various socio-pragmatic functions of code-switching described by previous theorists under the principle of Face, for example, among others, for avoiding “risking loss of face", "mitigating or defusing face threats""", and “dampening directness”'’, Below, two examples will be provided to demonstrate how face management can be optimally accomplished through code-switching. Example [9] is a good illustration of how code-switching can be used to express positive politeness by mitigating a request. The conversation below takes place in C’s house with C, the mother, C’s children (B, D), and the maid (A) present. The children (B, D) are visiting their mother’s (C) house where A works as a maid. The conversation takes place in New Delhi. The bilingual conversation predominantly takes place in Hindi, with some switches to Kashmiri between the mother and the children. In this tri-lingual speech community, A speaks only Hindi (normal font) and does not speak Kashmiri (italicized), whereas the mother speaks Hindi and Kashmiri and the children: English and Kashmiri. Therefore, the only language all the participants of this situation speak is Hindi. The code-switch that will be examined more closely is in line [5] (in bold letters). Example [9] 1 A “kyaa baj rahaa hai” (‘What time is it (getting to be)’) 2 B “bas cay pinee ka wagt ho rahaa hai” (Just getting to be the time to have tea’) 3. C “vuch aayas caay tyaTh” (referring to B) (‘look, he’s getting the urge to drink tea’) 4 D “mujhe bhii piinii hai, main bana detiihuN” (‘I also want to drink (tea), I will make it’) 5 C “D vanyi chak vatshmatsayi, zaraa A ke liyee bhii paani rakh degii” (‘D, now that you are up, can you put some water (for tea) also for A’) 6 D “haaN” (‘yes, (Okay)’) (cited by Bhatt and Bolonyai)!°® 1588 Gumperz, Discourse strategies Myers-Scotton — Bolonyai, Calculating speakers, Language in Society, 1-28 Penelope Gardner-Chloros — Katerina Finnis, Code-switching, gender and politeness: A study in the London Greek-Cypriot community, Estudios de Sociolinguistica, 4 (2) (2003), 505-532 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 532 154 155 156
