Code-switching in online academic discourse

Abstract World Englishes are the product of contact between English and other languages in multilingual habitats through the nativization phase. Yet the actual contexts of code-switching that contribute to the emerging regional variety have scarcely been described. This research focuses on code-switching among bilingual Filipino students, to illuminate this dynamic phase in varietal evolution. Using data from an online academic forum, it analyses the code-switching patterns within and between turns in the discussion, to see how they facilitate or inhibit the mobilization of Tagalog elements into code-mixed English. The data show intense levels of code-switching especially within individual turns. At the change of turns, the sequentiality principle is often set aside, and code-switching often involves Tagalog discourse markers and other function words. These include some elements noted two decades earlier (Bautista 1998) as potential features of evolving Philippine English, which have never been codified. The new data provide empirical evidence of how non-English elements are progressively taken up into World Englishes, in interactive use of English among bi-/multilingual speakers.