When I saw this assignment on codeswitching this week, I immediately thought of my friend Melissa. Melissa and her family speak both Spanish and English, and every time I am around them I catch on to some kind of codeswitch so I asked if I could go to her house and observe her and her family’s casual conversations to see how often this occurs. When I was at her house, they spoke both languages throughout the entire duration. Often, one person would speak in English and someone would respond in Spanish, or vice versa. There were also times when someone would speak an entire sentence in Spanish but add in an English word. Melissa’s parents were born in the United States, but both grew up in a Spanish only household. So, Melissa and her siblings have been around both languages since birth.
After my observation, I talked to Melissa and some of her family and asked how conscious they are of their frequent codeswitching. It was a unanimous decision that they don’t even realize that they’re doing it, or don’t think twice about it. However, there were different reasons for this based on the person. Melissa’s parents said they codeswitch subconsciously because they grew up trying to make their household bilingual as opposed to just speaking Spanish all the time so their children could understand both. They said because of this, they have always been used to speaking both languages in the home. Melissa and her siblings on the either hand, said they think they have picked it up from their parents. They also said as kids, codeswitching helped them when they didn’t know a word in English or Spanish, which I thought was very interesting. Furthermore, everyone in the family agreed that codeswitching has always been a part of their language and sometimes, they don’t know why they do it at all.
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