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CHAPTER 4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
the clerk, the speaker shifts roles of being a narrator to giving voice to the
quoted person. This shift in roles positions the narrator of the story in the role
of the ‘other’ in the recalled episode. The switch, therefore, reconstructs the
dialogic nature of the recalled situation placing the narrator of the story into
his original position of the ‘other’. The position of the ‘other’ places the narrator
into distance from the recalled episode, letting the speaker (the bank clerk)
‘play his own role’. This position of contemplative distance from the recalled
episode adds a parodic note to it. Letting the participants of a recalled episode
‘speak for themselves’ is a conversational resource of parody. The switch to
English, hence, fulfils three socio-pragmatic functions: it reconstructs the
dialogicity of the situation by giving voice to the quoted person, it positions the
speaker as ‘other’, and it allows the speaker to parody the American bank clerk.
The next example [12] is also a clear indication of how a code-switch complies
with the principle of Perspective by shifting roles as well as emphasizing the
dialogicity of the situation by contrasting the perspective of ‘others’ to ‘ours’. In
this conversation, three multilingual (English-Hindi-Kashmiri) Kashmiris are
talking about a plight of migrant Kashmiris. The switch in line (2) is of interest
to us.
Example [12]
1 A “What are the politicians doing about the migrant problem I would
like to know”
2 B “They do nothing, they say kashmiriyon ko pahle khud organize hona
paRhegaa”
(‘Kashmiris themselves have to first get organized’)
(cited by Bhatt and Bolonyai)’”’
The switch to Hindi fulfils two functions. By literally quoting the local Hindi
politicians’ response to the English question in line (2), the speaker gives
voice to the politicians. The switch also enables the speaker to shift his role
of a narrator to taking on the role of the local politicians. This switch well¬
illustrates the dialogicity of the situation, the political dialogue taking place
between the local Hindu politicians (they) and the migrant Kashmiris (us).
This shift in perspectives is optimally expressed by the switch to Hindi. The
switch to Hindi activates the constraint of Power as well, as the switch from
English, the official language, the language of power and dominance, to Hindi,
the language of unofficial communication, violates the constraint of Power.
Example [13] shows how a code-switch complying with the constraint of
Perspective, through the discourse-related function of repetition, manages to
77 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 530
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