Clinical Study

Executive and Language Control in the Multilingual Brain

Table 3

Samples of Dr. T’s code switching at the discourse level.

LanguageExamples

Cantonese (L1) to English (L2) or Mandarin (L3)(i) “ (very nice), (very sweet), (very nice) xxx… (they) xxx… xxx (they “jargon” are very good)… (yes)… xxx (because of this  weather…weather), xxx (they “jargon”  very good), xxxxxx (but “jargon” many “jargon”)… xxx (then “jargon” many many)… /er/… xxx (how “jargon” is also good)… (because, however)… (yes)… /er/… (there is… there is … then what?), xxx, xxx, xxx (they “jargon” “jargon” so-called “jargon”)… xxx (therefore they “jargon”)…xxx (then what “jargon” is very good)”
(ii) “Taiwan, you can, 西西 (waterwatermelon)”
(iii) “ (I)/er/… (summer)… /er/(did you have that one?)…xxxcotton (that really “jargon” look like cotton)… /ar/… (then that is good) … /sou/ (very nice;/sou/is a phonemic paraphasia of the Cantonese word “nice” )”

English (L2) to Cantonese (L1) or Mandarin (L3)(i) “very kindin some team, in source, the the the light go xxx to be some xxx in a sweet xxx… (become better)… then some are and some are /song/(very sour;/song/is a phonemic paraphasia of the Cantonese word “sour” )… strawberry (those are not right), the/ar/… grapes (are those/ar/grapes?), xxx (many “jargon” very early) in a, in join, (good)… North Point in …/um/…/er/… North… /er/… (North Point is a town in Hong Kong) join sight xxx… sometime they bad xxx (sometimes they need the bad ones)”
(ii) “ (yes) xxx… come xxx the tie, tie, xxx and then the trousers of/Chin/(target: Chinese) the Chinese of xxx… (with the) xxx white xxx xxx and  /trou.../xxx (that /trou…/; the target was trousers)”
(iii) “xxx xxx jacket xxx xxx xxx (is very)…/um…/xxx… a free xxx xxx xxx,  … (is very) (both of them are very… how should I say it)”

Mandarin (L3) to Cantonese (L1) or English (L2)(i) “ (pear… pear…peacpeach… right), (a tonal paraphasia of the Cantonese word “peach” ), 西西 (a semantic paraphasia of the Cantonese word “fruit” ) xxx xxx xxx xxx … (but “jargon” that “jargon” is not the case) xxx (but “jargon” many many) xxx… xxxxxx… (look “jargon” do not “jargon” … is not that one)”
(ii) “lemonie, lemon, lemon (the lemon)”

Notes: all verbal responses in English were bold and all verbal responses in Mandarin were boxed. Glosses and/or remarks in English were italicized and given in parentheses. Unintelligible vocalizations (or jargons) were transcribed as xxx. Note that several xxx strings were used in a row, in case the number of unintelligible words could be distinguished.