Code-Switching, or You're Asking a Question?

Once when I was living in the Outer Richmond and shopping at Thom's Natural Foods Store on Geary, the Russian woman who worked there as a cashier said something very interesting to me. "What language did you speak growing up?" she wanted to know.

"English," I said, "why?"

"I grew up speaking Russian and I learned to speak English when I was older. You speak to me the way I myself speak, like people who learn English later in life."

As a language acquisition specialist I found this intriguing and have considered it often ever since. It is true for me, I think: there is a way I speak English with native speakers and then there is also a way I speak with to non-native speakers, a way I find myself speaking often here in Israel.

My ability to unconsciously discern which if these two dialects is needed in any given conversational situation is fascinating to me, and my skill at navigating effortlessly back and forth between the two—a technique known among language teachers as "code switching"—is something I've long studied but never had a chance to experience first hand. I observe a notable difference between the English I speak in the house with Debby, Tal, and Edan and the English I speak as soon as I step outside the door and into the street.

The most evident thing to me is the way I ask questions here. The 5W's and One H which I work so diligently to teach my Third Graders (Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?) have all but disappeared from my oral vocabulary, replaced by statements hallmarked by the "question sound" (another Third Grade term, more commonly described in the linguistic world as "rising vocal action") at the end.

You're hungry for falafel?

This bus goes downtown?

The apartment is still available?

I can buy these tomatoes by the kilo or I must buy the whole box?

Fascinating…