English vietnamese code switching in conversations of vietnamese engineers reasons and attitudes of community

i DECLARATION I hereby certify that this thesis entitled: ―English-Vietnamese Code-switching in conversations of Vietnamese engineers - reasons and attitudes of community” for the deg

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

REASONS AND ATTITUDES OF COMMUNITY

(Hiện tượng chuyển ngữ tiếng Anh trong giao tiếp của các kỹ sư

người Việt - nguyên nhân và thái độ của cộng đồng )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis English Linguistics

Major code: 60220201

Hanoi - 2017

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

REASONS AND ATTITUDES OF COMMUNITY

(Hiện tượng chuyển ngữ tiếng Anh trong giao tiếp của các kỹ sư

người Việt - nguyên nhân và thái độ của cộng đồng )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis English Linguistics

Major code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà

Hanoi - 2017

i

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this thesis entitled: ―English-Vietnamese Code-switching in

conversations of Vietnamese engineers - reasons and attitudes of community” for

the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this paper has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal courses of study

Signature: ………

Date: ……….………

Besides, my grateful thanks go to the lecturers and professors at the department

of Post – graduate studies of ULIS for their guiding lectures, which give much contribution to the achievements of the thesis

Finally, I would also love to give my heartfelt gratitude to my family, my husband, colleagues and friends, especially the leaders and staff of the companies PVC-PT, PVC-MS, PTSC Marine, for their endless encouragement and unconditional help without which the graduation paper could not have been fulfilled

Thanks to all of you

iii

ABSTRACT

The aims of this thesis is to find out the reasons why a group of engineers in a company use English-Vietnamese code-switching in conversations at work and the attitudes of their colleagues to this phenomenon A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was employed to collect and analyze the data with a system of two questionnaires based on the audio-recorded conversations of those engineers in the meeting and the theoretical frameworks of Malik (1994), Eagley & Chaiken (1993), Myers-Scotton (1993), Hidalgo (1998) It is found that most of the respondents use code-switching to emphasize a point at work, to show identity of a group, for habitual expression, lack of register and lack of facility Besides, they states four other reasons useful for their work, namely to work in the international contexts, to clarify the specification, to take for granted from internet or Facebook and to save time The attitudes towards code-switching are open and positive Most of the respondents can understand the conversations with code-switching, feel comfortable and prefer them In their opinion, age, occupation, proficiency and frequency of English do not much affect favor, understanding and using of code-switching in general, but in detail there are still some influences like experience, work fields, proficiency of English and specification, and frequency of using English Although code-switching may a little bit destroy the impurity of Vietnamese, the positive impact of it on English acquisition is not denied Code-switching needs to be used while teaching and learning English, especially vocabulary and terms of specification

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT Error! Bookmark not defined TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES viii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and scopes of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Outline of the report 3

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Bilingualism 4

2.1.1 Bilinguals and bilingualism 4

2.1.2 Types of bilingualism 5

2.1.3 Language choice of bilinguals 6

2.2 Code-switching, code-mixing and borrowing 7

2.2.1 Code 7

2.2.2 Code-switching and code-mixing 7

2.2.3 Code-switching and borrowing 9

v

2.3 Reasons for code-switching 10

2.4 Attitudes about code-switching 13

2.5 Previous studies on English-Vietnamese code-switching 14

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 188

3.1 Context and Participants: 188

3.2 Methods of the study 18

3.3 Mehthods for data collection: 189

3.3.1 Instruments: 199

3.3.2 Procedures: 2121

3.3.3 Data analysis: 22

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 24

4.1 Research question 1: What are the reasons for code-switching used in conversations of Vietnamese engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas? 24

4.1.1.Lack of facility 26

4.1.2 Lack of register 26

4.1.3 To amplify and emphasize a point 27

4.1.4 Habitual expression 277

4.1.5 To show identity of a group 288

4.1.6 To work in international contexts 300

4.1.7 To clarify the specification 300

4.1.8 To take for granted 31

4.1.9 To save time 31

4.2 Research question 2: What are the attitudes of their colleagues towards this phenomenon? 32

4.2.1 Part 1: Frequency of code-switching in everyday conversations 322

vi

4.2.2 Part 2: Attitudes of respondents towards code-switching in conversations at

workplace 33

4.2.3 Part 3: Further findings about the impacts of age, occupation, proficiency of English and frequency of English using on code-switching 355

4.2.4 Part 4: Positive or negative impacts of code-switching on English acquisition 39

4.4 Summary .40

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS 42

5.1 Recapitulation 43

5.2 Limitations 44

REFERENCES 466

APPENDIX 1: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTS 50

APPENDIX 2: PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA 588

APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW 65

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CS : Code-switching

CV : Curriculum Vitae

ESP : English for special purposes

ESL : English as second language

ELT : English Language Teaching

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

L1 : The first language

L2 : The second language

PDF : Portable Document Format

PVC-PT : Petroleum Pipeline & Tank Construction Co, Ltd

PVC-MS : Petroleum Equipment Assembly & Metal Structure Co., Ltd PTSC : PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation

TESOL : Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

ULIS : University of Languages and International Studies

Q : Question

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Reasons for code-switching (proposed by Malik, 1994) 25 Table 2: Other reasons for code-switching (proposed by the respondents ) 29 Table 3: Attitudes to code-switching in conversations at workplace 34

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Frequency of codes-switching in everyday conversations 33

Figure 2: Impact of age on understanding and using of code-switching(Breakdown of

of Q7 in Part 2 and Q1 in Part 3) 36

Figure 3: Impact of occupation on understanding and using of code-switching (Breakdown of Q8 in Part 2 and Q2, 3 in Part 3) 37

Figure 4: Impact of proficiency of English on understanding and using of code-switching (Breakdown of Q6 in Part 2 and Q4 in Part 3) 38

Figure 5: Impact of frequency of using English at work on favor and disfavor of code-switching (Breakdown of Q3 in Part 2 and Q5 in Part 3) 39

Figure 6: Impacts of code-switching on English acquisition 40

1

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

This chapter comprises background to the study that are the rationale, aims and scope, research questions, methods, significance and design of the study

1.1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, together with the rapid globalization in many fields of life, an international language for communication, technology and business is required and English with about 1,500 million speakers worldwide has been chosen to apply for this purpose (Crystal, 2003) He also emphasized ― English is a global language‖ with World Englishes all over the world In Vietnam, English has also widely been taught

at school or used in the daily life As a result, the number of bilinguals speaking both English and Vietnamese is increasing They like mixing languages and switching them back and forth in everyday conversations This sociolinguistic phenomenon is defined as ―code-switching‖ or ―code-mixing‖ that is very popular in ‗bilingual communities where speakers use their native tongue (L1) and their second language (L2) in different domain‖ (Kim, 2006)

Moreover, the demand of being high qualified to find a good job in the globalization age and the open-door policy of the government approved throughout Vietnam has encouraged many people in using English as the second language (ESL), especially the engineers who may carry on their study abroad or may have to gain knowledge on the new hi-technology at workplace and do business with foreign companies Since then they have sooner become the members of bilingual community in Vietnam In spite of living in their first language environment, they usually use code-switching of English in speech at work as the bilinguals of Vietnamese and English Being a teacher of English as second language and a bilingual, the author is very keen on this problem and decided to set out an investigation on it

Although there are a number of studies of foreign linguists written on this phenomenon, which concentrate on linguistic aspects of code-switching (Gumperz, 1976; Poplack, 1980), attitudes towards code-switching, (Gibbons, 1983 ), reasons

2

and motivations of code-switching (Kim, 2006), only a few studies of Vietnamese linguists related to code-switching such as Ho Dac Tuc (2003) and Tran & Do (2015) (2015) Ho Dac Tuc (2003) is considered as one of the pioneers, who had given a view on patterns of Vietnamese-English code-switching in conversions of the Vietnamese community in Australia Besides, Tran & Do (2015) proposed a point of

of view on patterns and features of English terms mixed in the corpus on ―Hoa Học Trò‖ - a magazine for teenagers published weekly and has great influence in Vietnam Vietnam Obviously, there are still many gaps left for the further studies In this paper, the author tries to find out the reasons for code-switching in conversations of a

a group of Vietnamese engineers in a company of Oil and Gas in the South of Vietnam and the attitudes towards this phenomenon of the other colleagues

1.2 Aims and scopes of the study

In this study, a survey is carried out to explore the factors that cause the code-switching phenomenon in conversations of the engineers in a company of oil and gas in the South of Vietnam and the reaction of the other people when meeting this case In general, the study focuses on the reasons of the use code-switching found

in daily speech at workplace of the engineers in a company of oil and gas in the South

of Vietnam who are not linguists or teachers of English but most of them quite good

at English and the attitudes of their colleagues while facing this phenomenon

1.3 Research questions

In order to reach this aim, the research has to answer two questions as follows:

1) What are the reasons for code-switching used in conversations of Vietnamese engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas

2) What are the attitudes of their colleagues towards this phenomenon?

1.4 Methods of the study

A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is employed in order to find answers to the research questions in the study Some conversations of a group of

of engineers in the meeting were naturally recorded and transcribed, based on which two questionnaires were designed and launched out to get the data In the paper, the

3

theoretical frameworks of Malik (1994) concerning the reasons of code-switching and of Eagley & Chaiken (1993), Myers-Scotton (1993), Hidalgo (1998) related to the attitudes on code-switching of the community had been applied for data analysis

to find the results of investigations

1.5 Significance of the study

Willing to understand the reasons why this phenomenon enters the daily working life of the high qualified people in Vietnam, especially the people who can use English fluently at work and the reaction of other people about it, the researcher hopes to get some points of views on code-switching - a widespread sociolinguistic phenomenon - and give some contributions to studies of speech community of bilinguals using code-switching

1.6 Outline of the report

The thesis is presented with 5 chapters:

Chapter 1 is the introduction of the thesis that deals with rationale, aims, specific objectives, scope and significance of the study

Chapter 2 is the literature review that being in charge of reviewing previous studies

on code switching in conversations of bilinguals At the same time, theoretical background, which describes the theories used in the study, would be provided Chapter 3 is the methodology that indicates methods which are used in the study to analyze data

Chapter 4 is the findings and discussions that shows the result of the study The analysis of data and the findings are both indicated in this chapter

Chapter 5 is the conclusion that summarizes all the above chapters

4

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter introduces the main concepts and definitions related to Code-switching like bilinguals, bilingualism, code, code-switching, code-mixing, borrowing, and the frameworks that are used for analyzing the data in the study to clarify the reasons of code-switching in conversations of a group of engineers at workplace, not in other contexts such as advertising, chatting room or classrooms, Facebook or online chatting, and attitudes towards this phenomenon

2.1 Bilingualism

2.1.1 Bilinguals and bilingualism

Sociolinguistics is the field that studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live Bilingualism is considered as a field concerning sociolinguistics and a bilingual speaker is a person who can communicate in more than one language (Spolsky, 1998)

Many scholars and linguists have attempted to describe and fully understand the concept of bilingualism From maximalist views, Bloomfield (1935) defined bilingualism as the ―native-like control of two languages that raised some questions

on the degree of mastery of competence of a speaker in the languages in order to be considered to have native-like control Haugen (1953) from minimalist views explained that bilingualism only exists when a speaker of one language ―has the ability to produce complete meaningful utterance in another language‖ According to Mackey (1962), bilingualism is ‗the ability to use more than one language‘ (p.52) and Macnamara (1966) stated that bilinguals are those who possess at least one of the language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in a second language, even

if such skills are minimally developed Weinreich (1968) with the intermediate views thought bilingualism involves ‗alternately using two languages‘ (p.5)

Spolsky (1998, p97) defined ―Bilingualism, therefore, simply as having two

languages” He stated that ―The simplest definition of a bilingual is a person who has

has some functional ability in a second language This may vary from a limited ability

5

ability in one or more domain, to very strong command of both languages, which is

sometimes called balanced bilingualism‖ (Spolsky, 1998, p45) Besides, Grosjean

(1982) considered bilingualism as a phenomenon involving ―the regular use of two or

or more languages‖ and he furthermore defined a bilingual speaker as more than the sum of two monolinguals in the sense that the bilingual has also developed some unique language behavior (Grosjean, 1985a) Through this view, he pointed out the role of the frequency and proficiency in the language use and language related- behavior The theory of Spolsky is easy to understand, but the theory of Grosjean is overall and better accepted

According to Weinreich (1953), bilingualism can be further divided into compound bilingualism, coordinate bilingualism and subordinate bilingualism by looking at bilinguals‘ cognitive process of representation and organization of concepts and words

2.1.2 Types of bilingualism

As mentioned above, Weinreich (1953) suggested a famous typology that distinguishes three types of bilingualism based on the conceptual representations and cognitive organization of words in a bilingual‘s mind They are compound bilingualism, coordinate bilingualism and subordinate bilingualism

Compound bilingualism refers to the type of bilingualism where both first and second languages are acquired by a speaker concurrently under the same environment in early childhood The speaker assigns identical meanings for equivalent words as the two languages merge at the conceptual level of the brain Hence, two language systems are developed and maintained by the speaker, both similarly available in speaker‘s linguistic repertoire (Nomura, 2003) This can be seen in speakers with bilingual parents or those growing up with different linguistic backgrounds

Coordinate bilingualism occurs when a speaker learns two languages under separate environments This results in speaker having distinctive conceptual representations for translation equivalents in the languages (Archibald, 2000) In

6

other words, equivalent forms refer to different concepts in both languages with slightly different meanings assigned to each word The speaker may establish a first language in early age followed by a second language much later such as through formal education or in adulthood

Subordinate bilingualism is a type of mediated bilingualism where the lexical and conceptual representations of a speaker‘s first language play a role in facilitating the lexical representations of the speaker‘s second language Dominant in the first language, meanings and concepts in the second language are understood with the help of words from the first language Hence, one of the characteristics of subordinate bilingualism is low level proficiency in the second language

In this study, the participants are Vietnamese who are still living and working in Vietnam, they use Vietnamese as mother tongue and English as second language at work, so they can have coordinate bilingualism

2.1.3 Language choice of bilinguals

Members of the community have to decide on what language to use in certain contexts to certain interlocutors Holmes (2008) states that ―Certain social factors – who are talking to, the social context of the talk, the function and topic of the discussion – turn out to be important in accounting for language choice in many different kinds of speech community‖ This claim can be exemplified by the factor of participants in a conversation If two monolinguals are talking, they both tend to use monolingual language However, if this is a conversation between bilinguals, who share the same linguistic background, the phenomenon becomes far more complex and involves more than one choice only; it may involve aspects like code-switching and borrowing (Grosjean, 1982)

Whether in family life, social interactions, or business negotiations, half the people in the world speak more than one language every day Yet many myths persist about bilingualism and bilinguals Crystal (2003) and Grosjean (2010) both agree that bilingualism is a tendency nowadays due to many factors of geography, immigration, international business and trade, and government‘s policy on language

7

in the globalization time For instance, English is spoken in most of the countries throughout the world and that creates a concept of ―World Englishes‖ with ―colorful nicknames attached - Franglais, Tex-Mex, Chinglish, Japlish, Singlish, Spanglish, Denglish or Angleutsch‖

Bilinguals do not usually translate from the weaker language to the stronger one and codes-witching is most often used when a word does not ―come‖ Code switching is not a language interference based on the fact that it supplements speech It provides continuity in speech rather than presenting an interference when used because of an inability of expression Code-switching can be used in a variety

of degrees, whether it is used at home with family or friends, or used with superiors

at the workplace (Lipski, 1985, p23)

Bilingualism is a concept often associated with code-switching as a speaker must be able to preform more than a language in order to code-switch

2.2 Code-switching, code-mixing and borrowing

2.2.1 Code

Human beings use ―code‖ for communication between them The term ―code‖

is defined by sociolinguists as a less popular name for ―variety of language‖ or just

as ‗a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution‖ (Hudson, 1996, p.22) The notion ―variety‖ includes languages, dialects and registers (Hudson, 1996, Holmes, 2008) In the other words, the function of code is ―a system of words, letters, numbers or symbols that represent a message or record information secretly

or in a shorter form‖(Oxford Advanced Learners, 8th ed, OUP) While talking, the speakers switch codes, so codes here are known as the languages used in the conversation that may be words, phrases, clauses or sentences switching back and forth in two languages or more Code-switching is the alternation between two codes (languages and/or dialects), between people who share those particular codes

2.2.2 Code-switching and code-mixing

Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon where two or more varieties are used alternatively by bilinguals in a conversation This phenomenon is considered

8

as one that involves ―the regular use of two or more languages‖ (Grosjean, 1982, p 1) within a certain speech community Shana Poplack (1980), simply defines code-switching as ―the alternation of two languages within a single discourse, sentence or constituents‖, often with no change of interlocutor or topic This view is shared by many other linguists, such as Hudson (1996), Spolsky (1998), Ho-Dac-Tuc (2003) and Holmes (2008) Crystal (2003) states that ―in the form of code-switching, the process in which people rely simultaneously on two or more languages to communicate with each other‖

The views on code-switching and code-mixing seems quite different The first view is the approach of Clyne (1991) who argues that code-switching is similar to code-mixing and both refer to the same phenomenon in which ― speaker stops using language ‗A‘ and employs language ‗B‘‖ The second approach belongs to Bentahila and Davies (1983) and some other linguists such as Wei (1998), Bhatia & Ritchie (2004) They share the view that if code occurs below at or above clause level, it is called code switching, but if it occurs below clause level it is code-mixing The last approach is from Poplack (1980) in which she suggests code mixing is a sub-type of code switching This is also agreed by Holmes (1992) and Liu, P (2008) who states that: ―Very often the expression code-mixing is used synonymously with code-switching and means basically intra-sentential code-switching‖ (p.4)

Poplack (1980:1:589) also classifies the occurrence of code-switching into tag-switching, inter-sentential switching and intra-sentential switching

Tag- switching involves a tag or short phrase in one language into an utterance that is otherwise entirely in another language (E.g I mean, I wish, you know, ok, right…etc) This type of code- switching occurs the most easily for the reason being that tags typically contain minimal syntactic restriction that not violating syntactic rules when being inserted into monolingual sentence Poplack describes this type by

an example in Portuguese - English as following:

Example 1: I look like Lilica, you know, nunca paro! (I look like Lilica, you

know, I never stop)

9

Inter-sentential switching occurs at clausal or sentential level where each clause

or sentence is in one language or another Happening within the same sentence or between speaker turns, this type of code-switching requires its speaker to be fluent

in both languages in order to conform to the rules of the languages

Example 2: Sometimes I‟ll start a sentence in English y termino en espanol

(Sometimes I‟ll start a sentence in English and finish in Spanish).(p1)

Intra-sentential switching is possibly the most complex type among the three., can take place at clausal, sentential or even word level

Example 3: Why make Carol sentaser atraspa‟que everybody has to move

pa‟quese salga (Why make Carol sit in the back so, everybody has to move for her to get out) (p.589)

According to Poplack, code-switching refers to both inter-sentential and intra-sentential code- alternation occurring when a bilingual uses more than one language, and code-mixing refers to intra-sentential type

Actually, the difference between code-switching and code-mixing is not so much that only scholars or linguists can clarify it For the common bilinguals, they usually use both concepts alternatively or interchangeably

2.2.3 Code-switching and borrowing

One of the important outcomes of language contact is borrowing: this phenomenon is always confused with code-switching in the literature Many scholars tried to make a distinction between them Hudson (1996:55) says that ― Whereas code-switching and code-mixing involved mixing languages in speech, borrowing involved mixing the systems themselves, because an item is ―borrowed‖ from one language to become part of the other language‖ Here Hudson means that the borrowed words become totally assimilated to the recipient language and be part

of its repertoire

Holmes (2008, p 43) gives a fact that ―People may also borrow words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for which there is no

we can say the word has been borrowed‖ (Spolsky, 1998.p49)

Besides, Crystal indicates that ―the increase in code-switching is evidently one

of the most noticeable features of the situations in which New Englishes are emerging Any loan-word could be viewed as a minimalist example of code-switching‖

The distinction of code switching and borrowing is clarified by Plaff (1979, as cited in Ho-Dac-Tuc, 2003, p.8) in term of ―the speaker‘s degree of competence: borrowing needs monolingual competence, whereas for a code-switch to occur, a speaker should have bilingual competence.‖

Many words borrowed from other languages become quite familiar to monolingual speakers in Vietnam such as giáo sư, ngành thương mại, món hủ tiếu (Chinese-Vietnamese), cái gác ba ga, cái săm xe (French-Vietnamese), cái đầu video, xem TV (English-Vietnamese), súng Kachiusa (Russian-Vietnamese)

In brief, the mentioned definitions give an overview and distinction of code-switching and borrowing as well as clarify the close relation between them

2.3 Reasons for code-switching

Code-switching is very common among bilinguals, and Myers-Scottons (1993) suggests that it serves important social functions The motivations, functions and reasons of code-switching have been studied extensively by a number of researchers from various linguistic perspectives There are the views of Halliday (1975), Gumperz (1982), Malik‘s (1994), Appel and Muysken (2006) on this problem that would be mentioned below

Halliday (1975) views code switching as fulfilling the interpersonal function of

communication Here the mixed language spoken plays the role of a mediator In

function of language A speaker plays upon the connotation of the we-code to create

a conversational effect Thus, code switching is seen as fulfilling the relational and referential function of language that amounts to effective communication and interlingual unity

In fulfilling the relational and referential functions, code switching is seen as the medium to convey both social and linguistic meanings Gumperz (pg 144, 1982) lists examples of situations created to convey meaning as given below:

1 To appeal to the literate

2 To appeal to the illiterate

3 To convey precise meaning

4 To ease communication, i.e., utilizing the shortest and the easiest route

5 To negotiate with greater authority

6 To capture attention, i.e stylistic, emphatic, emotional

7 To emphasize a point

8 To communicate more effectively

9 To identify with a particular group

10 To close the status gap

11 To establish goodwill and support

Based on the concepts of functional specialization by Hallidays et al (1964), Appel and Muysken (2006) listed six main functions of code-switching (as cited in Kim, 2006):

1 Referential function: Code-switching involves lack of knowledge or facility

in a language Hence, bilingual speakers switch code when they do not know the word

or when a certain concept is not available in that language Language is chosen also because it is more appropriate or suitable to be used for a particular topic

12

2 Directive function: This function of code-switching aims to include or exclude a person from a part of a conversation such as by using a familiar or foreign language to that person

3 Expressive function: Speakers use more than one language to stress their self-identity of feelings to others in the conversation

4 Phatic function: Code-switching is used to show a change in tone and emphasize parts of a conversation that are of important

5 Metalinguistic function: Speakers sometimes switch code in order to comment on another language

6 Poetic function: Words, puns and jokes in one language are switched to another language for the purpose of amusement or entertainment

Kim also quoted Malik‘s (1994) ideas in discussing the sociolinguistic view on code-switching of the language situation in India explained ten reasons for speakers

to switch codes:

1 Lack of facility: When certain concepts in a variety are not available in the other, bilingual speakers switch code to express themselves and at the same time avoid unnecessary misunderstanding and loss of intended meaning

2 Lack of register: Bilinguals may find difficulties in choosing appropriate words in the target language for specific topics and choose to code-switch when they are not equally competent in the two languages

3 Mood of the speaker: Code-switching takes place when bilinguals are in different moods such as angry, anxious or nervous Although the intended words are available in both languages, bilinguals may code-switch when the words in the other language seem to take less effort and time to be used at that particular moment

4 To amplify and emphasize a point: Bilinguals may code-switch on selected parts of a speech to make sure that listeners know what to highlight and focus on in situations such as argument

13

5 Habitual expression: Code-switching also happens commonly in fixed phrases such as greetings, commands, requests, apologies and discourse markers This may suggest strength to a speech such as warning or threat

6 Semantic significance: Used as a verbal strategy, code-switching can convey important and meaningful linguistic and social information such as speaker‘s attitudes, communicative intents or emotion

7 To show identity with a group: Code-switching is used to signify shared values and experiences by people of a same group or culture Hence, words and phrases are retained in their original languages to represent a sense of belonging and familiarity to the group

8 To address different audience: Code-switching is also used when speakers intend to address different listeners or recipients, who are coming from various linguistic backgrounds

9 Pragmatic reasons: Sometimes, code-switching is dependent on the context of

a conversation or the factors such as formality, participants and location where a conversation is taking place Therefore, code-switching may portray a varying degree of speaker‘s involvement

10 To attract attention: When two languages or more are used in media or advertisements, audience are often attracted to the language that they are familiar with first

For the purpose of this study, Malik‘s (1994) ten functions of code-switching are then used to elaborate on the examples in detail to give a clearer view on why a group of Vietnamese engineers using code-witching in conversations at work These classifications of functions and reasons will be the basic theoretical frameworks in collecting and analyzing the collected data

2.4 Attitudes about code-switching

The term ―attitude‖ is itself very difficult to comprehend There are many definitions of attitude proposed by different scholars Gardner (1980) defines attitude as the overall outlook, a person has for specific thing Ajzen (1988) states

Although attitudes to code-switching have been described as the neglected area within the phenomenon (Romain, 1995; Lawson and Sachdev, 2000), there are still some studies looking for investigating factors that may influence attitudes to code-switching Myers-Scotton (1993) points out two factors believed to good determinants of the code-switching behavior, which are age of respondents and language proficiency A study conducted by Hidalgo (1998) has shown that the residents rated code-switching low in terms of understandability, attractiveness and correctness

In this study, to find out the attitudes to code-switching of the participants, the items of questionnaire will be related to those aforementioned concepts such as understanding or misunderstanding, favor or disfavor, liking or disliking, approval

or disapproval, attraction or aversion attractiveness and correctness, impacts of age, occupation, proficiency and frequency of English on code-switching, positive or negative impact of code-switching on English acquisition

2.5 Previous studies on English-Vietnamese code-switching

Ho Dac Tuc (2003) is one of pioneer in studying code-switching of English into

Vietnamese The subject in his study named Vietnamese-English Bilingualism

(2003) is Vietnamese Community in Melbourne, Australia with the aims at the patterns of Vietnamese- English code switching A survey was carried out by recording natural speeches of sixty people in the community of Vietnamese living

15

in Melbourne, Australia The results of interpretation showed that single words are switched more often than entire clauses, specifically different syntactic word class switch at different rates, in which nouns were most commonly switched and articles were least switched Another finding was that the participant in sub-groups residing

in different areas, but all make use of similar types of code-switching and there was

a correlation between code-switching patterns and specific topics being talked about

Recently, Tran & Do (2015) proposed a point of view on patterns and features

of English terms mixed in the corpus on ―Hoa Học Trò‖ - a magazine for teenagers published weekly and has great influence in Vietnam The results showed that there were 1379 English words mixed into six volumes, or an average of about 200 English words in each volume Most of the English words mixed are nouns, the rest are verbs and adjectives Code-mixing is quite popular in the columns about entertainment, i.e music or movie; internet and express news English codes, once mixed, hold many features of Vietnamese language such as transnumeral nouns, verbs without voice or tenses or the order of Adjective-Nouns instead of Nouns – Adjectives Quite a number of new words created by combining the two languages

or adding tones for English words, which enrich the variation of the Magazine vocabulary

There are also many other investigations on English - Vietnamese code-switching by many researches and it can be explored in many aspects, one of which related to patterns and reasons (Nguyen Thanh Phuong, 2012) The present study investigates the use of code-switching between Vietnamese and English in casual conversations and focuses on how and why conversational participants code-switch The data include recordings of talk among a small Vietnamese-English bilingual female group and short interviews with the participants after the recordings The paper will discuss how the bilinguals code-switched as a part of their communicative resources with implications for ESL/EFL teaching To the Tertial educational context, Nguyen Quang Tien (2012) emphasized that the use of

16

English has rapidly been growing in the Expanding Circle of world Englishes This situation is especially true in Vietnam In order to know what affects the use of English, including its role in code-switching in classrooms in Vietnam, a case study was conducted to address the main question, ―What is the impact of the tertiary education context on code-switching in classrooms in Vietnam?‖ The subject was one teacher of two English classes (one in a public university and the other in a private one) The data for this study include document analysis, classroom observations, the teacher‘s stimulated recalls, and the students‘ written feedback The study found that more code-switching (CS) happened in the public school than

in the private school due to (1) the in-class time budget, (2) the students‘ English levels, (3) cultural factors, (4) the teacher-evaluation system, and (5) teacher cognition The study also found that inter-sentential CS was dominant compared to intra-sentential CS Nguyen Thi Hang (2013) talking about code-switching at classroom recommended that teachers‘ over-translation from English into Vietnamese be discouraged in nearly all situations in EFL classes Some of the findings of this study may be useful for English language teaching in other similar educational contexts, e.g., Asian countries, where codeswitching in the English classroom is a common practice Besides, Pham Hoa (2015) also agreed that the literature on language teaching and second language acquisition has been largely driven by monolingual ideology with a common assumption that a second language (L2) is best taught and learned in the L2 only His current study challenges this assumption by reporting learners' positive perceptions of tertiary level teachers' code switching practices in Vietnam The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of code switching practices in language classrooms from a learners' perspective Nhan, Trong Nguyen ( 2016) tried to find out why bilingual language teachers and students switch between the two languages in their language classrooms? On the evidence of his research findings in relation to English-Vietnamese code-switching in the educational contexts of Vietnam, this article identifies that classroom code-switching between the second language and

17

the first language has its own pedagogic functions and it can be a valuable language classroom resource to both teachers and learners In Vietnam, the implementation of the monolingual approach of teaching English-through-English-only faces many challenges such as inadequate classroom resources, students‘ low levels of English competence, motivation and autonomy, teachers‘ limited English abilities, and inappropriate teaching methods Many Vietnamese teachers of English support code-switching in the classroom and they teach English through the bilingual approach English-Vietnamese code-switching is reported not to be a restriction on the acquisition of English; rather, it can facilitate the teaching and learning of general English in Vietnam This practice of code-switching is not just due to a lack

of sufficient proficiency to maintain a conversation in English; rather, it serves a number of pedagogic functions such as explaining new words and grammatical rules, giving feedback, checking comprehension, making comparison between English and Vietnamese, establishing good rapport between teachers and students, creating a friendly classroom atmosphere and supporting group dynamics.However, Tran Thi Thanh Phuc (2013) carried out a study mainly focusing on CS between Vietnamese and English as a communication device in conversations at workplaces and found out that the functions and the motivations of CS could be attributed to many factors and must not be underestimated CS is both inevitable and necessary

at workplaces It is not only a part of communicative resources of a bilingual repertoire but also an active part in the working experience

In general, their studies have given more contributions and richness to the study and widespread of code-switching in the society of Vietnam

18

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the methods applied in the study to get the data and data analysis like contexts, respondents, instruments to collect data and data processing

3.1 Context and Participants:

The study is carried out in some companies of Oil and Gas in Vung Tau – a city

in the South of Vietnam The participants are the engineers, workers, marketing and sales, and administrative assistants at different ages and different level of proficiency of English in those companies Their work is closely related to high-technology and international business so they have to use English everyday both in spoken and written types When working in office and chatting with each other they like mixing English and Vietnamese in the speech A group of fifteen engineers in the meeting in the PVC-PT company (Petroleum Pipeline & Tank Construction Co, Ltd) discussing and preparing documents for bidding with the international corporations, which require the documents and contracts prepared and translated in both English and Vietnamese, so they usually code-switch back and forth These conversations were naturally recorded and the participants in the conversations were chosen as the respondents in the self-report form of the first questionnaire dealing with the reasons of code-switching and around a hundred and twenty engineers, workers, marketing and sales, office assistants at the ages of twenty five to sixty working in the companies named PVC-PT, PVC-MS (Petroleum Equipment Assembly & Metal Structure Co., Ltd) and PTSC Marine (PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation) were selected randomly to answer the second questionnaire investigating the attitudes towards this phenomenon

3.2 Methods of the study

As mentioned in Chapter 1, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is employed in order to find answers to the research questions in the study Hence, the theoretical frameworks of Malik (1994) concerning the reasons of code-switching and of Eagley & Chaiken (1993), Myers-Scotton (1993), Hidalgo

3.3.1.1 Recordings

Audio-recording method is suitable to get the natural speech and not annoy speakers much and make the meeting too formal Code-switching tends to occur in informal situation and the spontaneous of real life speech is really important for the study of linguistic behavior like code-switching (Poplack, 1998) In this paper, recording natural speech is used to provide authentic data based on which the questionnaires are formed to investigate the reasons for code-switching and attitudes about it

3.3.1.2 Questionnaire

Brown (2001) states that ―Questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers‖ According to Dornyei (2003: 3), because the essence of scientific research is trying to find answers to questions in a systematic manner, it is no wonder that the questionnaire has become one of the most popular research instruments applied in the social sciences Questionnaires are certainly the most often employed data collection devices in statistical work The main attraction of questionnaires is their unprecedented efficiency in terms of researcher‘s time, effort, and financial resources By administering a questionnaire to a group of people, one can collect a huge amount of information in less than an hour, and the personal investment 23 required will be a fraction of what would have been needed for, say, interviewing

20

the same of people Furthermore, if the questionnaire is well constructed, processing the data can also be fast and relatively straightforward, especially by using some modern computer software These cost – benefit considerations are very important, particularly for all those who are doing research in addition to having a full – time job (Gillham, 2000)

Therefore, aiming to investigate the opinions and attitudes of more than one hundred respondents in the study, the researcher chooses survey questionnaires as the best approach Furthermore, this kind of data collection instrument fitted this study‘s size What is more, the participants may feel more comfortable to complete the questions than direct interviews or discussions As a result, the validity and reliability of the data collected are significantly increased

Here two kinds of questionnaires are employed to get the data for the study The first one ―Reasons why the engineers are using code-switching in conversations― is the self-report form applied for twenty engineers who are taking part in the conversations in the meeting at the workplace that were recorded to search for the reasons of code-switching used in their speech To support the purpose of the first research question: ―What are the reasons for code-switching used in conversations

of Vietnamese engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas―, the first questionnaire were based on Malik‘s theoretical framework and it has two tables (Table 1& Table 2): the first table is for ten reasons of Malik, and the second is for other reasons chosen by the respondents ( See Appendix 2)

The second questionnaire ―Attitudes of community towards Code-switching‖ is designed to supply the second research question ―What are the attitudes of their colleagues towards this phenomenon?‖ This is in the form of close-ended questions that are time-efficient and easy to understand for all the respondents to find out the attitudes about code-switching of more than a hundred people facing this phenomenon The second questionnaire comprises four parts Part one is completed

on Likert scale type of questions to look for the results of frequency of using code-switching Part two with nine items in yes/no type to clarify the opinions on

21

the following gaps on code-switching: understandings or misunderstanding, feeling comfortable or uncomfortable, like or dislike, attraction or not, impact of age, occupation, work field, proficiency in English on code-switching and impact of code-switching on Vietnamese impurity Part three having four items in multiple choice form is describing further details concerning age, occupation, proficiency of English and frequency of using English that may affect the favor and degree of using and understanding code-switching Part four is clarifying the positive or negative impact of code-switching on acquisition of (teaching and learning) English from the view of the bilinguals and people at high level of proficiency in English on the role of code switching in ESL and ESP

3.3.1.3 Interviews

Interviews may be used as the primary research tool and of course, are just another way of asking questions, but in face-to- face interaction (Donough, 2001:181-182) This tool is used to focus on a specific aspect of analysis, individual case studies or mini-survey In this study, two interviews - one is of the leader of the aforementioned group of engineers and another is of a staff in this group - were carried on to find out the reasons why the respondents did not choose some of reasons for code-switching in Malik‘s framework

3.3.2 Procedures:

Relating to the research questions of the study, the content of the questionnaire was selected first and broken down into small items Afterwards this content was given to a group of experts consisting of teachers of English and engineers who are experienced and good at English to check and give their comments When this was available, it would be launched out to the respondents

The researcher has to get the data by visiting the company and asking for the assistance of the leaders and the agreement of the participants to join the research‘s investigation After getting the agreement of their leaders and themselves, recording the conversations of a group of engineers (about fifteen respondents) in the meeting

at work had been carried on naturally The content of these conversations were

22

transcribed and numbered into written form as examples for illustrating Then the prepared questionnaires with the attachment of the records‘ transcriptions were delivered to the respondents by hand to fill in The first question finding the reasons

of code-switching was given to ten people attending the conversations in the meeting and the second question investigating the attitudes of community about code-switching was given to over a hundred people to get their answers When their feedback was received, the data would be collected and analyzed by a combination

of qualitative and quantitative methods with the help of a system of Tables and Figures

Hence, after collecting and analyzing the replies of Questionnaire 1, two respondents who had been taking part in those conversations were chosen for the interviews One interview was audio-recorded and another was written down, then they both were analyzed to investigate more deeply the reasons of not using code-switching in this case

3.3.3 Data analysis:

The records are including three conversations in the meeting and lasting for one hour nine minutes and nine seconds (1h09‘09‖) Fifteen (15) copies of questionnaire one and one hundred and fifty (150) of questionnaire two were given out and then collected After processing, thirty copies of questionnaire two are not available and excluded because the respondents did not give the answers or drop some items in the questionnaire

There are 3 main audio-recorded conversations lasting for one hour nine minute and nine second (1h09‘09‖) with 180 codes of English to support the data for Questionnaire 1 consisting 10 reasons as Malik (1994) proposed In this questionnaire, fifteen (15) participants in the conversations, who were preparing documents and contracts for international bidding, were employed to answer the self-report form The conversations with 180 codes were transcribed into written form and those codes were numbered from 1 to 180 (see Appendix 1) Then, the transcriptions were given to the respondents with Questionnaire 1 based on Malik‘s

23

framework mentioned above (in Chapter 2) They would have a set of examples to choose the codes to clarify the reasons why they used them The replies were collected and the divided into groups of each item based on their choice of codes in their conversations to get the results of how many times the code occurred Getting these results, the interviews were carried out and then the answers of the interviews were transmitted, noted and analyzed to see why some reasons of code-switching were not chosen ( See Appendix 3)

In Questionnaire 2, there are four (4) parts with different small items sent to a hundred and twenty respondents to collect the data Their replies were collected and classified into groups relating to each part of this questionnaire for counting and analyzing After that, all the data were compared to find out the attitudes of the respondents when facing code-switching: understanding or misunderstanding, favor or disfavor, feeling comfortable or not, attraction or not, impact of age, occupation, work field, proficiency in English on code-switching and impact of code-switching on Vietnamese impurity, impacts of age, occupation, proficiency of English and frequency of using English on code-switching, positive or negative impact of code-switching on acquisition

After that, the data could be clearly analyzed by statistics of Excel through a system of three tables (Table 1, 2, 3) and six figures (Figures1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) (See in Chapter 4 below)

24

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter provides the process of the data analysis and the captured results concerning the aforementioned research questions

4.1 Research question 1: What are the reasons for code-switching used in

conversations of Vietnamese engineers in the Company of Oil and Gas?

As the results revealed in Table 1, about 96.66% of codes are switched to emphasize a point in their discussion, 88.33% of words are code-switched to show identity of a group, 65.55% of codes are used as a habitual expression, 46.11% codes occur due to lack of register, 23.83% of instances occurred because of lack of facility, only 4.44 % of them is to attract attention, no one choose the reasons of semantic significance, for mood speaker, pragmatic reasons and to address a different audience (See Table 1) The most preferred reason is to amplify or emphasize a point, the second favorite one is to show identity in a group, the third is for habitual expression, and then for lack of register, lack of facility and few people wanted to attract attention The rest reasons were not selected, so it is necessary to look at the results of the interviews Both of informants in interviews agreed that they did not choose these reasons, because the working context here was significant : firstly, they were in the meeting at office not out of work or in the site work, then showing the mood (feeling angry or happy) is rare; secondly, when working with foreigners, they usually use English, so they did not use code-switching to address different audience; lastly, this was a small-scaled meeting, not formal ceremony or conference or forum where speakers have to use Vietnamese, so that there was no need to express the formality or attitudes of speakers and the codes they used were not to show the semantic significance or pragmatic reasons Despite of that, the chosen reasons are quite appropriate and useful in their working conditions that demand the high proficiency of English and good knowledge of terminology or specification

words to code-switch that are not translated into Vietnamese like lên Face, lướt

web, search mạng, vào google map, check lại, chọn đường link, dùng cel, quá date, down xuống, PDF, Excel, logo, file, CV, PVC…as usual

Example 1:

E Bây giờ mình vẫn phải gửi cho nó bằng Excel …

C… Không, file PDF của tao mới là file chính …anh có thể gửi thêm file Excel

luôn…

A….Cái đầu tiên nguyên tắc phải gửi PDF, xong đằng nào nó cũng yêu cầu gửi…

hai file tốt nhất là một File PDF… một cái là của Excel để nó sửa…

C Gửi PDF… còn file giá để dễ tính toán thêm file Excel, ghi rõ luôn tao gửi file

Excel cho mày để dễ check Thế thôi…nay mai cãi nhau cái gì mang bản PDF ra đọ …

4.1.2 Lack of register

Code-switching usually occurs when speakers are not equally competent in two languages and when they do not know the terms or forget the terms in two languages, especially terminology In the conversations of the engineers, a lot of specific words (specification) are used and closely related to their work, then they codeswitch them back and forth quite regularly when they suddenly forget them or

they want to give more explanation or clear definition about these (e.g diagram,

histogram, utility consumption, temporary power station, portable water, fresh water, structure, proofing coating, indoor steel, flooring, curb stone…)

Example 2:

E Đấy có cột water riêng đây này

A Nước uống rồi nước rửa chân tay…

27

B Đúng rồi Nước sinh hoạt…Này…Không Portable water là nước uống, nước

portable water là nước uống…

A Nhưng nước rửa chân rửa tay nó cũng nằm trong đấy cả

B Không Không Nước rửa chân rửa tay nó gọi là fresh water, nó lại khác

4.1.3 To amplify and emphasize a point

Table 6 reveals that the most favorite reason for the engineers to code-switch in conversations at work is to amplify or emphasize a point In the meeting, they were discussing many problems concerning the technical standards, kinds of specifications, types of equipment, material prices etc applied to international

bidding such as view, review, header, footer, tittle, logo, form, file, PDF, Excel,

time, equipment, resource, material, consumption, shift, job, link, search, check, spec, site, office, structure, S-curve proofing, coating, flooring…, so that

everything should be carefully and correctly prepared, the words they used would

be transmitted in both English and Vietnamese, then they usually codeswitch to emphasize the necessary and important points to remember in their discussion

Example 3:

A …nói cho dễ hình dung…Thứ nhất, consumption … phải tính cho đủ loại… tính theo khu vực thì phải tính cho đủ Thí dụ, thứ nhất là khu vực site construction , khu vực camping …, site office …là như thế nào…tính cộng đủ vào…

B …nước uống chỉ là nước uống, cho drinking không thôi… còn chưa cho tắm

giặt, còn sinh hoạt mà, còn phần construction tính riêng, construction, construction

là tính ở ngoài site thôi, còn tắm giặt …tính từ camp, thậm chí là site không có, phần office không có, office chỉ dùng nước sinh hoạt, nước bồn cầu, nước xả tính vào đây hết chứ…tính cho nó đủ Note lại đi, note lại đi, tính lại đi, note lại, note

lại…

4.1.4 Habitual expression

Since English became popular all over the world with the development of telecommunication and computer science, many words of English has been widely used on internet, Facebook and even in daily conversations people codeswitch

them in common The youngsters and teenage prefer saying as a habit ―ok, hello,

bye bye, etc…‖ and that is accepted by the others in the society and explained why

28

the respondents often codeswitch them in speech Furthermore, the respondents were at company and they were quite familiar to using specification for work, some codes as specific terms in their specialization of civil engineering, coating, oil and

gas became more popular to switch in their conversations, for instance, equipment,

material, construction, civil work, site office, camp, coating, flooring, proofing, outdoor, indoor, …

Example 4:

B Em cho link sang…

A Cái này update vô trong cel là vẽ được mà…

B Cái này trong cel tự vẽ luôn…

A …tự vẽ luôn, tự update là tự nó nhảy luôn…Ok,ok Chuẩn, chuẩn, cái histogram

này là chuẩn rồi…

4.1.5 To show identity of a group

As the engineers working in one company, having a proficiency of English, getting background of specification and being in charge of one important duty to preparing documents and contracts for international bidding, the respondents share the same experiences and values that take them in a group They not only use the

codes that the others switch everyday like ok, view, search, check, link, PDF, cel,

but also many specific words referred to their specialization or their work such as

construction, civil work, indoor steel, outdoor steel, spec, S-curve, material, curb-stone…etc That why it is the second preferred choice of the respondents

Example 5

A Nói chung là muốn check lại cái phần nó đề tiêu chuẩn ASCM city bao nhiêu đấy…

C Kiểm tra cái phần spec xem nó giống bọc cái chân cột của bọn Tàu ấy Cái này

nó làm giống như vậy đấy Nó có cục tăng cục xê, nó có lưới thép không…Kiểm tra

lại spec … đây như nó đề direct structure, cantoni wall này, gry map ….có cả gry

map của phần cantoni nhé …không phải bê tông không đâu

A Cái này còn cantoni wall, cement compound, formwork, …đủ các thứ… không phải bê tông thông thường đâu … cái này muốn chào được kỹ phải mở cái ASCM

city xem