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CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS This two-fold distinction between language seen as an abstract asset and as a pragmatic tool of communication well reflects the transitional bicultural, in-between two cultures, state of G1 members. Code-switching tendencies seem to depend on which extreme is more dominant in a particular situation on this scale of transitional bicultural continuum. Overall, G2 speakers have a more positive attitude to code-switching. G2 speakers seem to have a more natural, pragmatic attitude to code-switching. They readily rely on it as a means of filling competence-related gaps in their speech or as a device for expressing their bicultural experience. Therefore, the two-fold distinction between a ‘purist’ attitude to code-switching and its pragmatic use or the transitional continuum of the bicultural experience observed in the Gl group seems to be irrelevant in the G2 group. Still, traces of the ‘purist’ attitude to code-switching can be observed in the G2 group, too, but it seems to reflect more the parents’ set of values associated with the Hungarian language and culture than G2 respondents’ own. In conclusion, G2 speakers have a more balanced, less controversial attitude to code-switching and to the bicultural experience and use code-switching either as a means of making up for linguistic gaps triggered by their lack of Hungarian competence or as a means of expressing their distinct bicultural identity. To summarize, both for Gl and G2 speakers code-switching can be of functional as well as of complementary nature. In terms of G1 respondents, it depends on where speakers are situated in a particular situation in the transitional continuum of a pragmatic or a purist attitude to language use. Nevertheless, as for G2 speakers, it mostly depends on their Hungarian competence. AN OPTIMALITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF BILINGUAL GRAMMAR OF THE HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN BILINGUAL COMMUNITY IN NORTH CAROLINA In order to test the applicability of Bolonyai and Bhatt’s model?”’, EnglishHungarian code-switched instances from the transcribed texts of the author’s data recorded in the Hungarian-American community by conducting sociolinguistic interviews have been analyzed. The analysis is based on a uniquely ample volume of English-Hungarian code-switched instances (54 hours of recorded sociolinguistic interviews with 39 Hungarian-Americans living in 22 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 522-546 * 150 +
