PT116.S1.P2.Q12 > Analytics

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In many bilingual communities of Puerto Rican Americans living in the mainland United States, people use both English and Spanish in a single conversation, alternating between them smoothly and frequently even within the same sentence. ████ █████████████████ ███████████████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████████████ ███

Phenomenon · Code-switching

Puerto Rican Americans use both English and Spanish in a single conversation, smoothly alternating between them.

Explanation · Most instances of code-switching can be explained by situational or rhetorical factors

Some exceptional cases of code-switching cannot be explained.

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Explanation · Domains or social context determine whether code-switching occurs

Main factors are setting, participants, and topic which combine into five domains: family; friendship; religion; education; and employment.

Experimental Setup · To test effects of domains on code-switching

Researchers create hypothetical situations with 2 congruent factors or 2 incongruent factors. Then, researchers ask students to determine the third factor and which mixture of language they would use.

Results · 2 congruent factors

Prompted with participants: parent and child and topic: how to be a good son or daughter. Students chose setting as home and language was Spanish only.

Results · 2 incongruent factors

Prompted with participants: priest and parishioner and setting: beach, students disagreed on third factor and mix of language.

Exceptions · Unexplained code-switching

Sometimes the domain predictions about code-switching are wrong.

Example · One family at home

Family thought they spoke only English but they code-switched to Spanish (even when situational factors didn't change) to express certain attitudes like intimacy or humor more emphatically.

Passage Style

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

Single position

12.

Which one of the following ████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ████████

Linguists have observed ████ █████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ██ █████████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███████████ ███████████ ████████

(A) is mentioned at the end of P2. But it’s mentioned as part of a discussion of how situational factors affect code-switching. It doesn’t provide evidence that some code-switching is explained by non-situational factors.

Code-switching sometimes occurs ██ █████████████ █████ ███████████ ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ██ █ ██████ █████████

Used as evidence that code-switching is sometimes based on non-situational factors. A “domain” is defined earlier to refer to a mix of situational factors. If the domain would lead one not to expect code-switching, that means the mix of situational factors would lead one to believe the participants would stick only to one language. But even in some of these cases, code-switching occurs, as shown in P3.

42%

Bilingual people often ██████ ████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ████████████ █████ ██████

Not used as evidence that code-switching can’t be entirely explained by situational factors. In P2, we learn that situational factors can lead people to use a mix of languages. This isn’t presented as evidence that sometimes we need to turn to non-situational factors to explain code-switching. Some contexts, even if they don’t change, might lead to mixed use of Spanish and English. This is entirely consistent with situational factors as an explanation for code-switching in those situations.

29%

Puerto Rican Americans █████████ ███ ███████ ████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ███████ █████████

(D) sounds very similar to what’s described in P3. But the family in P3 mainly used English at home. Although we know that the situational factors would lead us to believe the family doesn’t code-switch, that doesn’t imply we’d expect the family to use Spanish as the primary language instead of English as the primary langauge. Because (D) isn’t something mentioned in the passage, it isn’t used to support the claim that code-switching can’t be entirely explained by situational factors.

19%

Speakers who engage ██ ██████████████ ███ █████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███████████ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ██ █████████ ██ ██████

Although P3 notes that sometimes people are unaware of their code-switching, the author never discusses lack of awareness of which situational factors can influence choice of language. Since (E) isn’t mentioned, it’s not used by the author to show that code-switching can’t be entirely explained by situational factors.

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PrepTest 116 - Section 1 - Passage 2 - Question 12

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