Codeswitching In Contrasting Social Roles

Codeswitching is a common occurrence in everyday life. Humans never realize they are changing the way they speak and act towards specific people. Codeswitching is using code in mutually exclusive settings (Lavenda, 2003). To see how people interact in contrasting social roles, I interviewed three young women, all at different stages in their lives. The first interview was with Caty Heron. I met Caty at the beginning of the school year. She is twenty years old and currently my resident assistant. Next, I met with Karen Smith, who I also met at the beginning of the school year. She is nineteen years old and in my sociology lecture. Regina George is fifteen, she is a close relative I have known for a long time. Caty and Karen gave more in depth …show more content…
As a resident assistant it affects her life dramatically because the university of Iowa is her home, but she cannot walk around like it is her home because she has to stay professional. It also affects her life greatly outside the university because she needs to be a role model and she needs to conduct herself as an employee of the university. There are people everywhere that can recognize her and associate her with what is going on around her. Being a catholic effects how she acts and who she is. “Ash Wednesday, for example, that day the way that I look, I have ashes on my forehead versus someone else that does not.” Acting as a sister and a daughter does not change how she looks or acts because that is how people generally are on a college campus. According to her, being a “pre medicine student also dramatically affects what I say and how I act and how I look. Especially around people that are around Carver or any medical association, you have to be more professional. Especially around people that maybe are not a pre medicine major, they post something on social media that will not matter, but for me will always matter. That is the same for me being a RA is that I cannot post what other people can post or I will have a bigger consequence.” As a second year resident assistant it has been smoother, but her first year was quite difficult because she did not always want to be an resident assistant. Whereas, being a daughter, sister, or an aunt has been easy because it comes naturally. Overall, Caty says that enacting these roles has been fairly effortless. Caty has many social roles that transforms the way she conducts herself in unique