Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Language mode (code-switching)




This is my oral report on Wednesday; I want to share it on my blog because I think it is funny.

Happy new year every one! Today I want to talk about language mode; it is a phenomenon or a kind of thing that happen to me. Yesterday when I went to the host family with Chen Shuyu. He suddenly talked to me in English. I just could not understand what he was saying. And after a while, I noticed that he was speaking English! What an embarrassing thing it is! And then I thought about language mode. In fact, I have met the similar things many times before. Let me explain language mode to you. Take me for an example; I speak a dialect as my mother tongue. It is a language similar to Cantonese. Cantonese and Mandarine are both my second languages. And now English will be my third language. So the problem is that when I am thinking about something n Mandarine and someone suddenly talks to me in English, I just can not react to it. I feel that I am a machine and I need some time to change to the correct language mode. I always feel embarrassed in this situation. Because the one I am talking to will think that why don’t you listen to me? I speak very clearly and loudly. You just don’t pay any attention to me! And this happen even when I am talking to my friends in Mandarine, because I will think about in Cantonese…so, wrong language mode again! And I think that some of you speak a dialect too. What I want to say is that when it happens to you next time, just be tolerant. Because the one you are talking to may just need some time to change his language mode! That is all, thank you!

(Ms Sonali said that this is called code-switching)

In fact, I think my Mandarine is good enough to communicate with people. The code-switching happens more often when I am speaking English. I hope that it will disappear one day. Because it means my English is good enough...

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