Page 93 - Compétences plurilingues : perspectives et actions / Plurilingual competencies: perspectives and actions

Data analysis

other languages, mainly in the area of syntax. Mother also reported the in luence of Czech on
́
Hebrew, for example by adding the suf ix “-ova”³ to Hebrew words. Furthermore, when the
subject does not know a word in French, she compensates by using a Spanish or an English
word. Czech is almost never spoken at home among the family members.

Data analysis
We decided to observe the language contact phenomena and include examples illustrating
code-switchingandthewaythechildisusingherlinguisticrepertoireininteractionwithher
caregivers. We have discussed language contact phenomena in relation to language attrition
̌
concerning Czech as L3 in Dolezı́ (2020) and also in this study we follow Manfredi, Simeone-
Senelle and Tosco (2015, p. 286) in de ining code-switching as the presence of lexical or
sentential material belonging to different linguistic systems, provided that its different ori-
gin is still transparent in the speaker’s output. In literature three types of code-switching
are usually distinguished – inter-sentential, intra-sentential and intra-word (Bordag, 2013,
p. 17).

Code-switching – single words

There are various reasons for code-switching. One of the usual assumptions could be that
code-switching is a result of de icits in language pro iciency or cognitive control (Wei, 2016,
p. 175). Nevertheless, we believe that it is not the case in example 1 below where the answer
to a Czech question comes in Hebrew.
Example 1

́
̌
́
1. K: a mas nejaky pastelky?
̌
/K: and do you have any crayons?/
2. A: IMA ((zarazı́ se)) [ja musı́m jı́t]
́
/A: IMA ((she stops talking))[I need to go]/
3. K: ((smı́ch)) [mamka]
/K: ((laughter)) [mum]/
Some words have the right meaning and carry the corresponding emotional load only in
some languages. Not surprisingly is the word “mother” expressed in the language of fam-
ily communication and intimacy – that is Hebrew. Pavlenko (2005, p. 131), nevertheless,
stresses that L1 does not necessarily mean “we-ness and intimacy” and L2 distance and de-
tachment.
Similarly, some words may be representatives of other languages, for example of Czech as
a second language. In the dialogue below, example 2, we can see the Czech word “lı́zatko”
́
used as an answer to a question in Hebrew given by the child’s grandmother.
Example 2
́
3. Suf ix “-ova” is a suf ix that might be used for gender in lection or creation of feminines, for example “Merkel
́
– Merkelova” or denotes one of possible endings of adjectives derived from nouns (Simandl, 2017).

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