Features of Macedonian-English discourse: code-switching as a (not so) peripheral attribute of Australian-Macedonians' vernaculars.

Australia, to a great extent, has inherited and upheld the Old World notions of European ‘great powers’ and ‘peripheral groups’. A concomitant attribute of Europe’s ‘peripheral groups’ is that they record high rates of emigration, as the areas in Europe in which they are domiciled frequently experience socio-political and demographic upheavals. Macedonians are one such ‘peripheral group’ in the Old World, and large numbers of Macedonians began migrating to New World countries such as Australia before WWII. High levels of emigration have continued since then. As a ‘peripheral group’ lacking socio-economic and socio-political power, it is perhaps unexpected that Macedonians record very high rates of language maintenance and ethnolinguistic vitality in Australia. This paper examines features of the Macedonian speech of 100 Macedonian first- and second-generation speakers. A feature of many speakers’ speech is the presence of code-switching: use of two languages in the same utterance. This paper examines the motivations – discourse-pragmatic and socio-psychological – that account for incidences of code-switching.