Plurilingual Code-Switching between Standard and Local Varieties

This book presents a comparative study on plurilingual code-switching (CS) in Italy, Croatia and Scotland-UK, based on Italian in contact with four standard varieties (Spanish, English, Philipino and Croatian) and five non-standard varieties (Arbereshe, Occitan, Calabrese, Istrovenetian and Chakavski).

It intends to fill a gap in the literature by proposing an interdisciplinary perspective, as most studies are concentrated on bilingual CS and are grounded just in one approach (mostly sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic); it also presents a new mixed key for CS data analysis, going beyond the traditional neat dichotomies defining CS as «acceptable or grammatical vs unacceptable or ungrammatical».

A brand-new model, the Integrated Model of Plurilingual Code-Switching (IMPCS), which recommends the use of five-graded scales in informants’ judgments, is proposed. It includes socio-psycholinguistics (social status and prestige of the languages in contact, official status of minority language, symmetrical/bi- or pluridirectional or asymmetrical/unidirectional kind of contact, language mode, claimed CS practice, explicit attitudes and acceptability judgements) and lexicalist variables.

Dino Selvaggi holds a PhD in Linguistics (University of Calabria, 2016) with a dissertation on plurilingual code-switching in standard and local varieties.

Visiting Researcher at The University of Edinburgh in 2015 and at the University «Juraj Dobrila» of Pula in 2014, his research interests are the socio-psycholinguistic aspects of code-switching, plurilingualism and language policy.