CODE-SWITCHING UND ANDERE FORMEN MULTILINGUALEN SPRECHENS IN GESPRÄCHEN DER FERNHEIMER MENNONITEN IN PARAGUAY

This paper is about the multilingualism and different types of multilingual speech in conversations of a group of Mennonites who live in the colony Fernheim in Paraguay (South America). These Mennonites are in contact with different languages and its varieties: They speak standard German in public domains, for example at church or at school, Mennonite Low German in private situations, for example with friends or at home, and Spanish with the Paraguayan population. The focus of this study lies on analyzing the distribution of the languages and varieties based on Joshua Fishmans (1967) concept of Diglossia. In a second step, the author examine code-switching, borrowings and transfers as a result of several languages and varieties being in contact. The phenomena are described on the base of a big corpus of spoken language which has been took during a field research stay in Paraguay.

Key words: multilingualism, code-switching, transfer, borrowing, Mennonites, conversational analysis, Diglossia, Mennonite Low German, spoken language