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OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE
Tableau 7: Interaction of SOLIDARITY and FACE (SOLIDARITY >> FACE)
Candidates FAITH | PERSPECTIVE | SOLIDARITY | FACE POWER
— (a) "Köszi szépen,
M. Ha esetleg át * *
tudnád rendezni a
funkciókat ..."
(b) "Ihank you very
much, M. If you
could maybe
re-organize the
functions ...’
#1
In the examples listed above, we have seen that Solidarity outranks both Face
and Power. However, we have not seen empirical evidence of the interaction
of Faith and Perspective with Solidarity. Example [20] indicates how Faith and
Solidarity relate to one another.
Example [20] — The interaction of FAITH and SOLIDARITY
1 A “Most itt azéta van rend, amiôta eldjott ez az ... izé, a homeland
security
2 probléma, most mindenhol civil ruhás, meg egyenruhás rendőrök
vannak,
3 és ezek ... az ilyen bűnözések egy kicsit lecsökkentek, mert mindent
4 figyelnek."
(Now, here its been order since this ... this whatchamacallit, the homeland
security problem has come up, now there are policemen in plainclothes and
uniform everywhere, and these ... like the crimes have decreased a little,
because they are watching everything.)
(source: data collected by Kovács in 2008—2009)
This utterance provides clear indication of Faith outranking Solidarity. The
speaker switches to English in line 1 to express the most authentically a socio¬
cultural concept embedded in contemporary American life. The switch, hence,
complies with the constraint of Faith. However, it violates Solidarity, as the
speaker switches to the language of Power, English, from the default language of
the conversation, Hungarian. As the actual surface representation is the switch
to English, it is the more optimal choice serving the intended socio-pragmatic
function of maximum authenticity. The actual surface representation, the
code-switched candiate complying with Faith, is a more optimal choice than