Code-switching as a marker of cultural identity
among Koreans in Toronto

Sheila Chung

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how one’s cultural orientation correlates to code-switching (CS) to English among first- and second-generation Koreans in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by calculating the frequency of code-switching in their speech. Keefe and Padilla’s Ethnicity Questionnaire (1987) was translated to Korean and was used to determine the speakers’ cultural orientation (that is, Korean, Korean-Canadian, or Canadian). The study included a total of 12 participants (six first-generation, six second-generation). The purpose of this research is to determine whether there is a correlation between (1) the speakers’ cultural self-orientation and the frequency of their CS, (2) the speakers’ generation category and the frequency of their CS, and (3) the speakers’ generation category and their cultural orientation. Results show that there is a higher rate of CS to English among those who consider themselves as “Canadians” than the rest of the group, second-generation speakers code-switched more than first-generation speakers (though a statistically significant outcome was not apparent), and there were more instances of orienting towards “Canadian” among second-generation speakers and more instances of “Koreans” among first-generation speakers.

This research is part of the Heritage Language Variation and Change Project in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto.