Current insights into code-switching

This volume presents a series of studies and reviews that provide insights into grammatical variation and the development of code-switching in neurotypical speakers, as well as into language mixing practices among individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions. Across seven chapters, a range of themes is explored, including: community norms and language practices, the influence of caregivers on bilingual development, attitudes and ideologies surrounding bilingualism, code-switching as a communicative resource, and the intersection of neurodiversity and bilingualism. By offering up-to-date perspectives on these topics, the volume builds on existing research into code-switching, such as work by Margaret Deuchar, and it highlights open data initiatives for advancing future research in this area.

Draško Kašćelan is a Lecturer in Language and Communication Sciences at the University of Essex (Division for Speech and Language Therapy). Kašćelan’s research focuses on various aspects of bi/multilingualism, autism, and developmental conditions. Prior to Essex, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds on the Quantifying Bilingual Experience (Q-BEx) project: https://www.q-bex.org. He previously co-edited a special issue on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Code-Switching (2021) with Margaret Deuchar.

M. Carmen Parafita Couto is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Center for Linguistics (The Netherlands) and, beginning in September 2025, will serve as ATRAE Distinguished Researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). She earned her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Kansas (USA) in 2005. A key influence in her academic career has been her collaboration with Margaret Deuchar, which began during her time at the Center for Research on Bilingualism at Bangor University (Wales, UK; 2008–2012) and has continued through numerous joint projects. Her research focuses on understanding multilingual practices, with a particular emphasis on code-switching, which she investigates through comparative, cross-community approaches that explore its structural, social, and cognitive dimensions. She has worked with diverse multilingual communities in contexts ranging from Europe and the Americas to West Africa. She has co-organized numerous conferences and workshops on code-switching such as the Lorentz Workshop on Key debates in code-switching research (Leiden, 2018), the SMART Cognitive Science Workshop: Code-switching, syntactic theory and cognition (Amsterdam/Leiden, 2021) or Advancing code-switching research (Vigo, 2022).

Peredur Webb-Davies is a Reader in Linguistics and Bilingualism at Bangor University. Webb-Davies has published on bilingual language contact especially in Wales, focusing on grammatical variation and change in Welsh from a sociolinguistic perspective. He has a particular interest in code-switching and is one of the primary researchers involved with the BangorTalk bilingual corpora. He is a co-author of the main Welsh-medium textbook on bilingualism, Agweddau ar Ddwyieithrwydd (2017, with Enlli Thomas) and of Building and Using the Siarad Corpus: Bilingual Conversations in Welsh and English (2018, with Margaret Deuchar and Kevin Donnelly). He also produces creative research in the form of Welsh-language fiction, for which his work has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year (2023).

Rocío Pérez Tattam is an Associate Professor in Modern Languages, Translation and Interpreting at Swansea University, Wales. Her published research focuses on the bilingual acquisition of grammatical phenomena in English and Spanish (grammatical gender, tense and aspect) and the effects of linguistic and environmental factors. She also leads on a project with community schools across the UK titled 'Language Learning and Cultural Affirmation: A Model for Heritage Spanish Education', which explores the effect of language and culture on the acquisition of Spanish as a minority language.

Hans Stadthagen-González is a Professor of Psychological Sciences at Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas, and previously was an Associate Professor at The University of Southern Mississippi, in Long Beach, Mississippi. He Earned a PhD in Experimental Psychology at The University of Bristol, England, in 2005. From 2007 to 2012 he was a Research Officer at the Center for Research on Bilingualism at Bangor University, Wales, where his interactions with Margaret Deuchar sparked an interest for research in code-switching which has continued to this day. His main area of research is in the psychology of language, including work on bilingualism (particularly regarding code-switching and semantic interaction), language and emotion, categorization of meanings, and word recognition, with a particular emphasis on research methodology for those topics.