THE CATCHINESS OF CODE-SWITCHING: PLURILINGUALISM IN CATCHY (A ROMANIAN WOMEN’S E-ZINE)
THE CATCHINESS OF CODE-SWITCHING: PLURILINGUALISM IN CATCHY (A ROMANIAN WOMEN’S E-ZINE)

Summary/Abstract: The Catchiness of Code-Switching: Plurilingualism in Catchy (A Romanian Women’s E-Zine). This case study investigates code-switching as a salient feature of women’s online magazines. The corpus is made up of textual material posted on catchy.ro, self-proclaimed “the only premium-luxury-e-zine in Romania which privileges editorial content”. In the first instance, Daniela Hăisan will look into the plurilingualism which characterises the structure and site map of the online magazine, and then into the plurilingualism which singularises the (feature) articles as narratives about identity, filtered through subjective experiences of everyday life. Four major criteria are taken into account when analysing the corpus: visual embeddedness, preferred embedded language(s), types of code-switching (tag-switching, inter-sentential switching, and intra-sentential switching), and morphology of the embedded language. The main conclusions are that code-switching is used in order to make a statement about the writer’s identity while fostering a rapport with the target group of readers, and that it is less a sign of language decline as it is of a gradual movement towards informality.

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