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Methodologies for intra-sentential code-switching research
Edited by Amaia Munarriz-Ibarrola, M. Carmen Parafita Couto and Emma Vanden Wyngaerd
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8:1] 2018
► pp. 25–66

Monolingual stimuli as a foundation for analyzing code-switching data

| University of Illinois at Chicago |
| The University of Alabama |

Among methodological concerns specific to code-switching (CS) research is the design of the target stimuli used in experiments with an acceptability judgment task. We argue here that research which makes use of CS data of this type must also incorporate monolingual stimuli into the experimental design, specifically monolingual stimuli judged by the same bilingual participants who judge the code-switched stimuli. We do so by reviewing two sets of experimental CS data we collected and exploring the role that monolingual stimuli can play in the analysis of that data. In each experiment, an analysis based solely on acceptability judgments of the CS stimuli leads to one interpretation, while incorporation of results from the monolingual stimuli leads to a distinct interpretation. We show that it is the interpretation integrating the monolingual acceptability judgments which is more valid, thereby arguing for the value of monolingual stimuli in design and analysis.

Keywords: code-switching, methodology, acceptability judgments
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and assumptions
    • 2.1Minimalist approach to code-switching
    • 2.2Exploring assumptions in monolingual and code-switching data
      • 2.2.1Different sources of acceptability in code-switching
      • 2.2.2Comparability of I-languages
  • 3.Experiment 1: Pronouns in code-switching
    • 3.1Background and research question
    • 3.2Method
      • 3.2.1Participants
      • 3.2.2Stimuli
      • 3.2.3Procedure
    • 3.3Results and analysis
  • 4.Experiment 2: Wh-questions in code-switching
    • 4.1Background and research question
    • 4.2Method
      • 4.2.1Participants
      • 4.2.2Stimuli and procedure
    • 4.3Results and analysis
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.16007.ebe
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