The Impact of a Monolingual on Spanish Language Code-Switching

Objective: To determine whether Spanish code-switching occurs under laboratory-induced conditions among fluent bilinguals at higher levels compared to a nonintervention control condition.

Design and Methodology: Fifty-two Spanish bilinguals were randomly assigned to a control or experimental group and participated in a half-hour long face-to-face structured interview in Spanish. Half of the participant population was randomly assigned to the control group and the rest was assigned to the experimental group. The participants in the control group went through the interview without interruption and the number and timing of English code-switching instances were recorded during the interview. During the Spanish interview for the individuals in the experimental group, there was an interruption by a monolingual English experimenter halfway through the session. All instances of code-switching pre- and postinterruption were recorded and compared to the control group. At the conclusion of the Spanish interview, all participants completed an online 87-item questionnaire in English about their linguistic heritage and background.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Psychology, Queens University of Charlotte, January 2019 to February 2020.

Results: The bilinguals in the experimental group, postinterruption, code-switched significantly more than those in the control group. No significant differences in linguistic background or history were found between code-switchers and those who did not code-switch.

Conclusion: The experimentally designed social interruption during the Spanish interview in the experimental group increased the rate of code-switching among the participants while no such effect was found in the control group. This suggests that the observed code-switching was primarily due to the social interruption rather than any aspect of the interview session setup itself.