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CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS
Hungarian and American lives by recalling their relevant experiences. In order
to contrast American and Hungarian ways of life and their personal experience,
subjects rely on the discourse-related functions that code-switches fulfill. As
the principle of Perspective includes the most discourse-related subfunctions,
as opposed to Face, Solidarity, and Power fulfilling sociopragmatic functions
reflecting interpersonal relations, it is likely to be the most numerous in the
sample. Faith is also an inherent part of bi- or multilingual speakers’ discursive
accounts of different experiences accumulated in different cultural settings.
Instances of Faith-related code-switches index culture-bound notions, related
to the subjects’ different cultural scripts - American and Hungarian -,
prevalent and/or absent in different cultures. Therefore, Faith is also expected
to be prevalent in the sociolinguistic interviews, actually, it has turned out to
be the second most frequently occurring function in the examined set of data.
According to Bolonyai and Bhatt’s proposed ranking in the Hungarian¬
American set of data?’’, Solidarity ranks below Faith and Perspective but
above Face and Power, which equally rank as the lowest constraints. As for the
principles subsuming the sociopragmatic functions of code-switches reflecting
interpersonal relations (Face, Power, and Solidarity) rather than fulfilling
discourse-related functions, fewer instances are expected to emerge. As the
particular genre of my set of data is sociolinguistic interviews, few examples
of face-related linguistic choices — face-saving or face-loss games between
the subjects or in the setting of the sociolinguistic interviews — are expected.
Bolonyai and Bhatt claim that the ranking of Solidarity, Power and Face
and their interrelational position is more subject to the “socio-relational”
context”. As the socio-relational context depends on a given community’s
sociolinguistic characteristics, the ranking of Solidarity, Face and Power is
susceptible to these community sociolinguistic variables, while the ranking of
Perspective and Faith depends more on the discourse-related functions that
code-switches are expected to fulfillin a given context.
Therefore, in light of this, I claim that Perspective and Faith as the highest
ranked constraints involve the ‘discourse-related’ functions of code-switching,
characteristic of bi- or multilingual speech communities. Solidarity, Face
and Power, however, fall within the category of ‘socio-relational’ functions of
code-switches with their interrelational ranking being susceptible to the given
micro-linguistic and -social context of the code-switched utterance.
Hence, what remains to be examined is the hierarchical positioning of
Perspective, Faith, Solidarity, Face, and Power as well as the operation of these
supposedly ranked constraints in concrete situations.
27 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-546
2°8 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 522-542