una pregunta from germany

[peter-privat]

Hola a todos,

soy un estudiante alemán de linguística. Estoy escribiendo mi tesis doctoral. Mi tema: el cambio de lenguas entre personas bilingues, es decir, me interesa cuando Puertorriquen@s de Nueva York cambian entre inglés y espanol y – más importante – porqué. Por eso estoy buscando a personas que hablen espanol y ingles perfectamente. Voy a estar en Nueva York desde el 11 de noviembre hasta unos dias ante navidad. Al mismo tiempo estoy buscando – no sorpresa – un lugar para dormir.

Le agradecería que me pueda ayudar!

Ya sé que Ustedes son una gente muy especial – estoy esperando con ilusión llegar a conocer Ustedes.

Saludos sinceros de Hamburgo, Alemania,

Peter Frantzen



Hi everybody,

I am a german post-graduate student with the big goal of discovering when bilingual persons rationally switch codes. I would like to get in touch with Puerto Ricans who are speaking Spanish and English, I would like to talk about switching, that is to say about situations where you switch from one language to the other in order to make a point, to express yourself.

I am going to come to the big apple in November and I will stay there until Christmas.
At the same time I am looking for a place to stay. If you happen to know any housing-opportunity, please let me know!

I am very much looking forward to meeting you: I know that Puerto Ricans are the coolest people on earth.

All the best from Hamburg,


Peter Frantzen

[Suki]

You certainly came to the right place Peter. If you scroll through the "highly entertaining" and completely filled with the practice of "code switching" political discussions forums, you will get a great insight into the patterns of why this occurs. My father had a Master's Degree in Linguistics and he loved to study the reason why people code-switch.

Just remember, in this forum there are "purists" as well, who do not like mixing English and Spanish. There are some who are Spanish only, or Spanish dominant. There are some who only are fluent in English, others that are English dominant and who struggle with Spanish. And there are those who are very sophisticated and very well educated in both languages. This is a buffet of study for a German doctoral student! Happy feasting!

[Suki]

I am a code-switcher, my mother is a code-switcher, my sister is a code-switcher, my father's best friends are New Yoricans super code-switchers.

I am afraid none of us who would qualify for your doctoral work live in New York. I live in Denver and my sister lives in Soledad, California. My parents best friends are native New Yorkers but they are retired and live in San Francisco California. If you want you can stay with us in Denver you are very welcome (my husband is a native Puerto Rican) and we have many international friends from all over the world. But if you must go to the Big Apple I am afraid I have no family there to recommend you. I am sorry that the code-switching perfect candidates for case study live out west. But many in New York might respond I don't know. Con Carino Suki. E-mail me at hectorlui@hotmail.com