Codeswitching practices in the discourse of two lecturers in English-medium instruction at university

What is it about?

The present study focuses on analyzing the pedagogical functions of codeswitching (Milroy & Muysken, 1995; Canagarajah, 1995, 2011; Auer, 1998; Bista, 2010; García & Wei, 2014) as one of the most pervasive compensatory strategies used by lecturers in English-medium instruction at university. The corpus examined includes 8 lectures taught in English by two different lecturers and belonging to two subjects within a Business Administration degree in Spain. Findings suggest that there seems to be four pedagogical purposes as the main motivators behind codeswitching practices. In addition, results indicate that the personal teaching style of lecturers and the nature of the academic disciplines are likely to largely determine the use of this compensatory strategy.

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