A Review and Critical Analysis of Qualitative Methodologies and Data-Collection Techniques Used for Code-Switching Research

Code-switching is considered a language contact phenomenon that has long been a subject of scholarly investigation. This paper provides a review of common and nascent qualitative techniques often used to examine code-switching. Such a collection of salient qualitative methodologies could provide researchers with both prevailing and new frameworks and avenues for examining myriad types and aspects of code-switching. Numerous studies are highlighted with summaries of their data collection procedures, analysis techniques, and results. Also included are rationales for applying qualitative approaches to code-switching studies – especially poignant, as a trend to utilizing more experimental research designs have been recently observed regarding language contact phenomena. This paper will also discuss which types of research designs effectively combine techniques of acquiring code-switching data with rigorous approaches to data analysis to render new understandings of code-switching