The state of codeswitching research at the dawn of the new millennium (1): focus on the global context*

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

The research of the past forty years or so has provided considerable insights into the various aspects of codeswitching, among them the syntactic, psycholinguistic, and pragmatic aspects. This review article aims to provide a state-of-the-art report on this research. Because of space limitation, here I report only on the state of codeswitching research in the global context. A subsequent report will focus on the state of codeswitching research in Africa. The aim of the present report is to retrace the paths which codeswitching research has taken over the years; highlight the findings of this research; and underscore some of the issues with which it is likely to be concerned in the next millennium.