Oldal 165 [165]
OCR
AN OPTIMALITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN BILINGUAL USE In this part of the interview, the speaker characterizes Americans. She makes a comment that they are a spoiled people, then she switches to English to conclude this and to end the argument. By switching to English, she manages to conclude the statement leaving no space for disagreement. The switch to English enables her to give more weight to her concluding utterance as well as signaling that this is the end of her argument and she is absolutely positive about it. (k) Topic change Example [38] 1 12 (Interviewer 2) “Women power.” 2 G1M23,50 "I am so happy. So a nagyapám felesége az 3 Smoczer Mariska volt. Van egy olyan" (I am so happy. So, my grandfathers wife was Smoczer Mariska. There is such a ...) (source: data collected by Kovács in 2008—2009) Code-switching may function as a means of topic shift when “the speaker marks a shift in topic with a shift in language, with no consistent link between topic and language”*™. In this extract, the participants of the interview speak about an increasing number of American women taking their mother’s maiden names as their middle names. Interviewer two makes a concluding remark by saying “Women power". The interviewee reacts to this concluding remark in English, then he switches to Hungarian to indicate that he wants to change topic. By switching to Hungarian, he separates the two halves of his utterance indicating a shift in topics. While in the first half, he responds to what has been previously said in English, then he starts speaking in Hungarian about his family. The switch to Hungarian in this example, therefore, serves as an indication that the speaker wants to introduce a new topic. (1) Metalinguistic comment Example [39] 1 G1F48,65 “Szerintem sokkal egyszerübb azt mondani, hogy trunk, mint csomagtartó, nagyon nagyon csábító lerövidíteni, ha lehet" (I think that it is much easier to say trunk than csomagtartó, it is very very tempting to shorten if it is possible.) (source: data collected by Kovács in 2008—2009) 304 Zentella, Growing Up Bilingual, 94 * 163"
