Diɛ nɛ wo bɛ teach-i me?: Social Correlates of Akan-English Codeswitching in Ottawa

This study investigates Akan-English codeswitching (CS) in Ottawa. Participants were nineteen male and female participants ranged from 18 to 63 years old with different levels of formal education and varying lengths of time lived in Canada. The study uncovers how the social factors of gender, age, education, and length of time in Canada influence codeswitching at the intrasentential and intersentential levels of speech. High school speakers employ intersentential CS the most and graduate speakers use intrasentential more than other levels of education. Younger speakers also use more intrasentential CS compared to older speakers. In contrast to previous studies, the male participants in this study codeswitched at the intrasentential level significantly more than females. The study also indexes the proportioned use of each language and the ways in which Akan-English CS speaks to Poplack's free morpheme constraint and equivalence constraint.