46 Hughson T. Ong of available options for an individual47. This leads to the third area of interest by sociolinguists — code-switching48. a) Code-switching Code-switching is the norm for any multilingual society, since users command several varieties of codes49. Gal Susan says, “code-switching is a conversational strategy used to establish, cross or destroy group boundaries; to create, evoke or change interpersonal relations with their rights and obligations”50. Therefore, sociolinguists look for factors that govern the choice of a particular code on a particular occasion. In other words, why would a language user switch from language A to language B? Wardhaugh provides several reasons, such as solidarity with and accom- modation to listeners, choice of topic, and perceived social and cultural distance that constitute some of the social motivations and reasons for code-switching, and says that speakers switch codes either consciously or unconsciously51. The study of Henri Tajfel on the concept of social identi- ty, for instance, demonstrates that the reason why people prefer a positive to a negative self-image is that social identity is attached to the value and emotional significance of a person’s membership in a community52. The 47 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 7. 48 Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon of selecting a particular language or code for conversation even within short utterances. Wardhaugh, An Introduction to So- ciolinguistics, 101. Some sociolinguists make a distinction between code-switching (actual spoken languages) and code-mixing (formal linguistic properties of said language-contact phenomena). While I do not make this distinction here as many sociolinguists do not, code- switching should be differentiated from lexical borrowing, pidgins (contact language) and creoles (“normal” language), calques (translation), and language interference (language transfer). For a brief introduction to these various linguistic phenomena, see Wardhaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 61-65. 49 This claim is accurate, for sociolinguistic theories are based on and gleaned from experimental observations. 50 S. Gal, “The Political Economy of Code Choice”, in M. Heller (ed.), Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives (Berlin 1988) 247; cf. Holmes, An Intro- duction to Sociolinguistics, 231. 51 Wardhaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 104. See also R. Finlayson ‒ K. Calteaux ‒ C. Myers-Scotton, “Orderly Mixing and Accommodation in South African Code-Switching”, Journal of Sociolinguistics 2 (1998) 403, who show that code-switching establishes equality and creates flexibility and openness. 52 See H. Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge 1981) 45; Tajfel, Social Identity, esp. 2, 15-36, 66-77, 85-91. Cf. J.C. Turner, “Social Comparison and Social Identity”, European Journal of Psychology 5 (1975) 5-34; A. Bell, “Language Style as Audience Design”, Language in Society 13 (1984) 145-204, esp. 166-67. For a brief overview of its historical development, see M.A. Hogg, “From I to We: Social Identity and the Collective Self”, Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 4 (2000) 81-97.