Switching gears linguistically

[Glen]

Not sure how to say this. Is there a word for the situation where in a conversation between two bilingual people one speaks in Spanish and the other answers in English (and vice versa)?

Maybe it's just me, but I find that sort of thing frustrating; each of the two people has to quickly interpret to himself before formulating a reply. A real stumbling block to the flow of ideas, it seems to me.

[Rusty]

When one person sticks to one language, while his interlocutor uses another, is more common than one might initially think. I see this happening all the time here in the forums, and I suppose it happens in areas close to the border between countries where the official languages differ.

I don't know if someone has coined a word or phrase to describe the situation, but favoring a majority language, even if you are bilingual, is very common.
By majority language, I mean the language a person interacts in the most. Even though I speak Spanish, I'm not constantly exposed to it where I currently live. So, I favor English, the language heard and spoken by the majority of the people around me.
If someone speaks to me in Spanish, considered a minority language in my area, I will try to respond in kind since I am able to do so. However, if someone who doesn't speak the minority language is within earshot, I will respond in the majority language, purely out of courtesy to the person who doesn't understand the minority language. (It goes without saying that I would only do this when I'm certain the person speaking the minority language also understands the majority language).

I've always been of the opinion that communication works best using the language we're most comfortable with. If that means that one person sticks to their majority language and another person prefers to use their (different) majority language, communication can still occur if both parties know each other's minority language.
That is the situation I think you're describing.

The only part of your post that I don't quite understand is the "stumbling block to the flow of ideas" while someone "has to quickly interpret to himself." I believe a bilingual person can code-switch (think in one language and then the next) quite well.

I actually hear code-switching much more than I hear a favored-language exchange (did I just coin a phrase?).

One of the reasons bilingual people use code-switching is to fill in vocabulary gaps.
I bring this up to make a point. If the gap is to be filled, it must be done in a mutually-understood language. After each party is on the same page, conversation can continue as before. The vocabulary gap is bridged by temporarily using a shared, but not favored, tongue.
I think you can see my point. We can use a favored tongue, even if it differs from that of our interlocutor, so long as communication is clear. When it isn't, we have to switch gears and share our thoughts in a common language until true communication can resume.

[wrholt]

This kind of thing can also happen in contexts in which everyone is assumed to understand all of the languages in use. A friend of mine who lived and worked in Switzerland for a few years during the 1990's once told me that at business meetings there it is assumed that everyone can understand all of the official languages of Switzerland as well as English, so each participant speaks in their strongest language out of that set.

[Glen]

"The only part of your post that I don't quite understand is the "stumbling block to the flow of ideas" while someone "has to quickly interpret to himself."

What I meant Rusty, is the extra mental effort it takes (for me at least) to interpret what's just been said, in addition to formulating a reply of my own, which is a two-step process.

Anyway, don't mean to get on a soapbox; it's just a pet peeve of mine, along with a hatred for so-called Spanglish. The fact is I'm so attuned to listening to 100% Spanish, trying to learn new words/phrases/idioms/expressions etc., that when a bit of English shows up in the conversation it seems like a monkey wrench thrown into the works.

[Rusty]

I see what you mean.
It can certainly be frustrating when you're striving for a total-immersion experience and someone throws you off base.

[poli]

Originally Posted by Glen

Not sure how to say this. Is there a word for the situation where in a conversation between two bilingual people one speaks in Spanish and the other answers in English (and vice versa)?

Maybe it's just me, but I find that sort of thing frustrating; each of the two people has to quickly interpret to himself before formulating a reply. A real stumbling block to the flow of ideas, it seems to me.

I think the word you are looking for is code switching, but usually code switching comes in midconversation when a speaker switches from one language to another,

[Glen]

Hi poli, Happy Thanksgiving. Yes, I've heard of code switching and never knew what it meant precisely; just guessed it meant that other irritating (at least in my opinion) habit of interspersing Spanish words in English sentences when one knows better. No great complaint, just the purist in me coming out!

[JPablo]

This discussion reminds me few interesting things, namely, when I talk Catalonian, (not my mother tongue), some times I intersperse few English words, "you know", "now", "well"… of course I try to avoid it, and mention to my interlocutor my decades living in California to justify my "Catalenglish"…

The other thing is that years ago, Russians and Americans had some encounter (for the first time in decades, or for the first time, altogether) in the space stations. The protocol was that the Americans would talk in Russian and the Russians would answer in American English, or some such arrangement. Assuming of course that both crews were naturally fluent in the Space-age languages. (I am not sure what is the proper etiquette nowadays, but it seems like an interesting game.) (Probably now they have to be fluent in Chinese too).

At any rate, my dad, being from La Mancha, "Spanish Castilian teacher" living in Barcelona used to talk to the Catalonian farmers (pagesos, in Catalonian, "payeses" in Spanish) with these opening words: "Parli, parli en catalá, que l'entenc perfectament", ie., "[Please] Speak, speak in Catalonian, I understand you perfectly". I am not sure if he was just being polite and not really getting everything the good farmer would tell him, but surely was a good linguistic exercise.

Anecdotes and titbits aside, the important thing is to be able to communicate conceptually and smoothly…

I take that the more familiarity you get with the codes, the easier it is to stick to the code and be as purist as you want.

Not too long ago I did an awesome piece of interpreting at a convention, translating from English into Spanish at a very good clip. One of the lawyers who was listening to my rendition asked me during a break, "do you have a script pre-translated from the speeches you interpret?" The answer was "No". I had a rough layout of the subjects being discussed and knew pretty well the basic terms, and as long as I was able to grasp the conceptual units, interpreting at a fast pace, was relatively easy for me, and a bit impressive for the listener.

But like everything, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of any communication is the ability to convey concepts…

At any rate, I've been quite busy lately, but I always enjoy visiting Tomísimo and include some additional idioms and maxims as I keep learning (or remembering) more in the course of my activities and endeavors… (Knowing always that my English could stand some improvement here and there and everywhere) J

[pjt33]

The issue of loan-words also complicates the matter. I suspect that if Glen were to walk in on me and my colleagues having lunch and to hear one of them say that something was muy heavy then he would think it was an annoying code-switch. I, on the other hand, assume that they've internalised it as a "Spanish" word, because I have more context (7 months' worth of lunches rather than 30 seconds) on which to base my estimate of their idiolects and I know that all but one of the individuals who use heavy as a token inside an otherwise Spanish sentence have only uttered one or two sentences in English in my hearing in all the time I've known them.

[JPablo]

Yes, that is a funny situation. You have the use of "feeling" in Spanish, which is heavily used, and registered in Moliner:
feeling [fílin] (ingl.) 1 m. Sensibilidad o sentimiento; se usa particularmente con referencia a la música: ‘Una interpretación con mucho feeling’. 2 Sintonía o *armonía entre personas.

On the other hand, DRAE only gives us "filin"
filin Del ingl. feeling 'sentimiento', 'emoción'.

1. m. Estilo musical romántico surgido en la década de 1940.
Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados


I don't have any hard feelings for any Spaniard using it, and I guess it is a matter of knowing and being aware of the terms we use and hear, even if we have mixed feelings.



¡Cosas veredes, amigo Sancho!