Diglossia

Diglossia is a characteristic of speech communities rather than individuals. The pattern of code or variety choice in Eggenwil is one which has been described with the term diglossia. It used in both in a narrow sense and in a much broader sense. The term diglossia describes societal or institutionalized bilingualism, where two varieties are required to cover all the community’s domains.

Attitudes to H in a diglossia situation are reinforced by the fact that the H variety is the one which it described and “fixed”, or standardized, in grammar books and dictionaries. Attitudes to H in a diglossia situation are varied and ambivalent. L is learned at home and the H variety in school, but some people may use H in the home too. Literature is generally written in H rather than L, but there may be a rich oral literature in L. though H has generally been standardized and codified in grammar books and dictionaries for centuries, L language are also increasingly been codified and standardized too.

Polyglossia is a term that has been used for situation where a community regularly uses more than two languages. 

Diglossia has been described as a stable situation. It is possible for two varieties to continue to exist side by side for centuries. Alternatively one variety may gradually displace the other.

Code-switch related to a particular participant or addresses and sometime people switch code within a domain or social situation. A speaker may similarly switch to another language as a signal of group membership and shared ethnicity with an addressee. Even speakers who are not very proficient in a second language may use brief phrases and words for this purpose. People may switch code within a speech event to discuss a particular topic and the topic relates to the function dimension.

Metaphorical switching is a type of switching to represents complex meaning. It also reflects te fact that this kind of switching involves rhetorical skill. Skillful code-switching operates like metaphor to enrich the communication.

Some believe there are very general rule for switching which apply to all switching behavior regardless of the codes or varieties involved. They are searching for universal constraint on switching. Switches only occur within sentence at point where the grammars of both languages match each other.

People are often unaware of the fact that they code switch when their attention is draw to this behavior, however, most tend to apologize for it, condemn it and generally indicate disapproval of mixing language.