Abstract
Socialization into the workplace is a challenge faced by new foreign workers in multilingual societies. One underexplored factor in the process is code-switching. We presented a case study of how a Filipino migrant integrated into her Hong Kong workplace where the local veterans used code-switching at work. Conceptualizing the workplace as Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998), we employed Gee's (2011) model of discourse analysis to examine empirical workplace discourse. Our analysis suggests that for a newcomer, code-switching indicates desire of socialization, negotiation of membership, linguistic competence, and professional abilities, and that for a veteran, code-switching reveals situated identities, instantaneous relationships, openness to newcomers, and encouragement to them. We argue that code-switching is performed by foreign newcomers and local veterans for workplace socialization and mutual identification.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 25-51 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | International Journal of Applied Linguistics |
Volume | 26 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2016 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
User-Defined Keywords
- Adult learning
- Code-switching
- Hong Kong
- Socialization
- Workplace discourse analysis