“We need to ta det lugnt” : English-Swedish code-switching: A case study of TV personality Simon Davies’ idiolect

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to examine why Swedish-English code-switching occurs, focusing on one person. The idiolect examined is Simon Davies, hosting the TV-show Design: Simon & Tomas where Simon Davies and his colleague Tomas Cederlund travel around Sweden helping Swedes with interior design. Season three of the show was transcribed into written data and theories were later used when analyzing the data transcribed from the TV-show. The data was analyzed from a qualitative and a quantitative aspect as well as mixed and unmixed utterances. This was done in order to see if there is a pattern in the way Davies switches as well as further understand what kind of items are switched. As this is done, the essay analyses the possible reasons for why Davies switches using the theories displayed earlier. The results show that Davies’ idiolect does not fully follow any specific pattern, however most of the words switched are nouns and the least common word class is prepositions. However, theories applied show that Davies’ switching could be a way for him to create an identity and connect with Swedes. The use of Swedish could help him seem friendlier and less like a stranger.

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