Extensive academic research has been devoted to the analysis of living in a
world exposed to the constant interplay of two languages and cultures. In the
quest for understanding the underlying mental, emotional, and cognitive
mechanisms of bilingualism, investigating the speech patterns of bilinguals
has taken on increasing importance. This book will attempt to provide a
complex analysis of code-switching patterns in a Hungarian-American bilingual
community in the Triangle area of North Carolina, USA. The main premise of the
book is that the complex linguistic-pragmatic nature of code-switching
patterns activated by various socio-cultural factors can be systematically
interpreted in the framework of the theory of Optimality. The uniqueness of
this book lies in the fact that the proposed conclusions rely on the analysis
of a large-scale corpus of personal interviews conducted in the course of
extensive on-site research.