English-Mandarin code-switching in a bilingual family

The study of code-switching has raised and attempted to answer a number of questions related to the nature of language use, the motivations behind different kinds of language use, and the very nature of a “language.” Broadly, two questions have been central: the “how?” and the “why?” When interlocutors alternate between two or more languages or language varieties, what are the formal and structural features of their language use, and what are their motivations for doing so? The present study intends to investigate both of these questions in the context of the code-switching behaviours of one English-Mandarin bilingual family living in Canada. Canada is home to many immigrant languages, one of the most prominent among them being Mandarin (Statistics Canada, 2017; 2022). In addition, Chinese diaspora communities that speak a variety of Chinese and non-Chinese languages exist worldwide, and their code-switching practices are accordingly varied (Li, 2016).