Reviewed by Diana M. Carter, Bangor University

This volume presents the contributions from a multidisciplinary workshop on codeswitching held at Ohio State University in December 2007. The aim of the collection is to promote an interdisciplinary approach to research on codeswitching, which integrates the perspectives of linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics.

The first section of the volume, Part 1: ‘Psycholinguistic studies’, is comprised of seven psycholinguistics chapters. Jeanette Altarriba and Dana M. Basnight-Brown present an overview of current studies that focus on the processing of code switched words in sentences in Ch. 1, ‘Empirical approaches to the study of code-switching in sentential contexts’ (3–25). In Ch. 2, ‘Language selection and performance optimisation in multilinguals’ (27–51), Renata F. I. Meuter provides a survey of empirical psycholinguistic studies that are concerned with the optimization of language performance in multilinguals. Janet G. van Hell and Marijt J. Witteman, in Ch. 3 ‘The neurocognition of switching between languages: A review of electrophysiological studies’ (53–84), discuss the techniques and findings of neuro-imaging studies that have been used in codeswitching research.

Kees de Bot, Mirjam Broersma, and Ludmila Isurin present a framework for triggering in codeswitching and discuss current relevant research in Ch. 4, ‘Sources of triggering in code switching’ (85–102). Their chapter provides a detailed theoretical background that complements the subsequent chapter by Mirjam Broersma, Ludmila Isurin, Sybrine Bultena, and Kees de Bot, Ch. 5, ‘Triggered code switching: Evidence from Dutch-English and Russian-English bilinguals’ (103–28), which is an empirical study that looks at the effects of trigger words on the rate of codeswitching at the lexical level. In Ch. 6, ‘Two speakers, one dialogue: An interactive alignment perspective on code-switchin in bilingual speakers’ (129–60), Gerrit J. Kootstra, Janet G. van Hell, and Ton Dijkstra argue that the main unit of analysis in the study of codeswitching should be dialogue rather than individual utterances, and suggest that interactional alignment is the main cognitive mechanism. Viorica Marian concludes this section in Ch. 7, ‘Language interaction as a window into bilingual cognitive architecture’ (161–85), by exploring the role of linguistic environment and the structural aspects of language during language production, specifically focusing on bilingual switching and transfer.

Part 2 ‘Sociolinguistic and linguistic studies’ presents studies that discuss codeswitching from a sociolinguistic and linguistic perspective. In their sociophonetic study of codeswitching, Ch. 8 ‘Trying to hit a moving target: On the sociophonetics of code-switching’ (190–206), Barbara E. Bullock and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio compare voice onset times to examine crosslinguistic influences at the phonetic level for Spanish-English bilinguals. In Ch. 9, ‘Which language? Participation potentials across lexical categories in code-switching’ (207–42), Janice L. Jake and Carol Myers-Scotton discuss and test the matrix language frame model and its predictions through the analysis of codeswitching examples from a variety of languages. Katja Francesca Cantone and Jeff MacSwan, in Ch. 10 ‘Adjectives and word order: A focus on Italian-German code-switching’ (243–77), adhere to a minimalist approach in their study of codeswitching within determiner hhrases, based on experimental and naturalistic data.

Donald Winford argues that there are similarities between the processes underlying bilingual speech production and the creation of contact languages in Ch. 11 ‘On the unity of contact phenomena and their underlying mechanisms: The case of borrowing’ (279–305). Ad Backus, in Ch. 12 ‘Codeswitching as one piece of the puzzle of language change: The case of Turkish yapmak’ (307–36), proposes that both psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic methods should be used in the study of contact-induced language change, supporting his argument with a case study of Turkish immigrants in The Netherlands. The final chapter of the volume is provided by Terence Odlin, who discusses the differences between transfer and codeswitching in Ch. 13, ‘Transfer and code-switching: Separate territories but common concerns on the border’ (337–58).