Russian-English Code Switching Examples
Example of codeswitching
–Ой, Лилечка, я твой кол промисала, не смогла вернуть сразу. Все так бизи была с кастомерами. Так что я сорри.
–Да, итс окей, Ритуль. Я тут к тебе в офис еду. Дай дирекшнс. К тебе какой экзит брать-то?
–Бери 10-й, и после второго трефик лайта сразу у гез-стейшн паркуйся.
Translation (word to word): * Oops, Lilechka, I your call missed, couldn’t return immediately. All so busy was with customers. So I sorry. * Yes, it’s ok, Ritul’. I here to your office driving. Give directions. To you which exit take? * Take 10th, and after second traffic light immediately near gas station park.
Literary translation: * Oops, Lily, I missed your call, couldn’t call you back (return your call) immediately. I was very busy with customers. So, I’m sorry. * That’s fine, Rita. I’m driving to your office. Give me directions. Which exit should I take? * Take 10th, and park near the gas station after the second traffic light.
I found this example in the article about Russian emigrants in the United States. This conversation involves two business women, Russian immigrants from New York who are speaking neither Russian nor English but an interesting language phenomena known as Rusenglish, which has developed in the Russian community during the second wave of immigration in the 70th.
This small dialogue is an example of intra-sentential codeswitching, as each of the clause includes elements from both Russian and English.
I made two translations of the conversation – word-to-word and literary one. It is obvious from the translation which language is “the source of the morphosyntactic frame of the clauses” [Myers –Scotton, 241]. Russian is the Matrix Language and English is the Embedded Language. Firstly, if we look at the Morpheme Order and System Morpheme Principle, we can see that in the clauses ‘я твой кол промисала’ (I your call missed), ‘бизи была с кастомерами’ (busy was with customers), ‘к тебе какой экзит брать-ть’ (to
–Ой, Лилечка, я твой кол промисала, не смогла вернуть сразу. Все так бизи была с кастомерами. Так что я сорри.
–Да, итс окей, Ритуль. Я тут к тебе в офис еду. Дай дирекшнс. К тебе какой экзит брать-то?
–Бери 10-й, и после второго трефик лайта сразу у гез-стейшн паркуйся.
Translation (word to word): * Oops, Lilechka, I your call missed, couldn’t return immediately. All so busy was with customers. So I sorry. * Yes, it’s ok, Ritul’. I here to your office driving. Give directions. To you which exit take? * Take 10th, and after second traffic light immediately near gas station park.
Literary translation: * Oops, Lily, I missed your call, couldn’t call you back (return your call) immediately. I was very busy with customers. So, I’m sorry. * That’s fine, Rita. I’m driving to your office. Give me directions. Which exit should I take? * Take 10th, and park near the gas station after the second traffic light.
I found this example in the article about Russian emigrants in the United States. This conversation involves two business women, Russian immigrants from New York who are speaking neither Russian nor English but an interesting language phenomena known as Rusenglish, which has developed in the Russian community during the second wave of immigration in the 70th.
This small dialogue is an example of intra-sentential codeswitching, as each of the clause includes elements from both Russian and English.
I made two translations of the conversation – word-to-word and literary one. It is obvious from the translation which language is “the source of the morphosyntactic frame of the clauses” [Myers –Scotton, 241]. Russian is the Matrix Language and English is the Embedded Language. Firstly, if we look at the Morpheme Order and System Morpheme Principle, we can see that in the clauses ‘я твой кол промисала’ (I your call missed), ‘бизи была с кастомерами’ (busy was with customers), ‘к тебе какой экзит брать-ть’ (to