About Mixed Language Queries

Social linguistics

In my analysis and modeling of economic phenomena, I have begun to incorporate various types of credit searches. This includes searches conducted using the Armenian alphabet, Armenian words for credit in the Latin alphabet, English, and Russian. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of credit-related information retrieval and enables me to account for the multilingual nature of search behavior in this domain.

During my research on credits and financial activities, I became interested in the different styles of searching for credit-related information. As I delved into the literature on linguistics and finance, I came across numerous unconventional ideas.

One particularly intriguing paper I discovered is titled “Mixed Language Queries in Online Searches” by Hengyi Fu. This paper explores the code-switching behavior of Chinese-English bilinguals during online searches.

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the impact of societal aspects, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language usage. It also examines the influence of language on society, overlapping with the sociology of language. Sociolinguistics shares common ground with pragmatics and has close ties to linguistic anthropology.

In the paper titled “Mixed Language Queries in Online Searches” by Hengyi Fu, the focus is on investigating the code-switching behavior of individuals who are bilingual in Chinese and English within the context of online searches. The study delves into various aspects of this phenomenon, including the situations in which code-switching occurs, the underlying motivations for making code-switching decisions, the patterns observed in the formulation and reformulation of mixed language queries, and the potential role of current information retrieval systems and online search tools in meeting these information needs.

Based on Fu’s research findings in 2018, some participants mentioned their use of Google’s language setting feature to narrow down search results to Chinese webpages that contained English concepts. However, they reported that the majority of the returned results were actually in full-text English, which did not align with their intended purpose and significantly diverged from their expectations for mixed language queries.

I don’t know how this function is designed, but obviously the results I got from using mixed language queries like “bidirectional bfs” plus a Chinese term like “analysis” are very different from using an English-only query “bidirectional bfs analysis” and setting the language as “showing results in Chinese”. Results of the latter approach are still English-only web pages, which are not my target (P5, in Hengyi Fu, (2018)).

I don’t think the results this feature provides are the same as those provided by mixed language queries. There are still many full English pages returned by setting the language as Chinese. I know it can translate pages into Chinese. But I want webpages originally in Chinese (P14, in Hengyi Fu, (2018)).

Code-switching refers to the phenomenon in which bilingual individuals alternate between two or more language varieties during a conversation. The choice of a specific language variety and the subsequent code-switching are often influenced by both linguistic constraints and social factors. Numerous studies have argued that social factors play a more prominent role in determining code-switching behaviors compared to linguistic factors (Bhatt and Bolonyai, 2011; Gardner-Chloros and Edwards, 2004; Shin, 2010). These social factors encompass various elements, including the influence of participants, the social context, the topic of conversation, the level of formality, the participants’ status, and the purposes of the discussion.

Scholars such as Heller (1988) and Myers-Scotton (1993) have identified a link between code-switching and identity, ethnicity, and solidarity, with speakers associating different languages with these aspects. Moreover, code-switching functions in similar ways across different regions of the world.

In sociolinguistics, mixed language refers to a significant form of code-switching within a sentence, where phrases and clauses from two distinct grammatical systems are combined (Bokamba, 1989). In the context of online searches, a mixed language query is a search query that incorporates words from two or more languages. For instance, the query “Caudalie grape water 效果 (effect)” represents a Chinese-English mixed language query used to find reviews about a specific skincare product. This particular type of query formulation and search strategy is commonly employed by multilingual users who search in multiple languages to fulfill their information needs (Chau et al., 2007).

In conclusion, the paper sheds light on the code-switching behavior of Chinese-English bilinguals during online searches and emphasizes the impact of linguistic constraints and social factors on code-switching decisions. The connection between code-switching and identity, ethnicity, and solidarity has been established by scholars, revealing the universal nature of code-switching across different regions. Sociolinguistically, the concept of mixed language refers to the integration of phrases and clauses from distinct grammatical systems within a single sentence. In the context of online searches, multilingual users frequently employ mixed language queries that combine words from multiple languages to fulfill their information needs. The incorporation of various types of credit searches in economic analysis allows for a deeper understanding of credit-related information retrieval and accommodates the diverse search behavior observed in multilingual contexts. By exploring unconventional ideas in the field, including the study of code-switching, researchers can gain valuable insights into the complex dynamics of language and information retrieval in online settings.

References

Hengyi Fu, (2018), “Mixed language queries in online searches: A study of intra-sentential code-switching from a qualitative perspective”, Aslib Journal of Information Management.

Bhatt, R.M. and Bolonyai, A. (2011), “Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual language use”, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Vol. 14 №4, pp. 522–546.

Bokamba, E.G. (1989), “Are there syntactic constraints on code-mixing”, World Englishes, Vol. 8 №3, pp. 277–289.

Chau, M., Fang, X. and Yang, C.C. (2007), “Web searching in Chinese: a study of a search engine in Hong Kong”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 58 №7, pp. 1044–1054.

Gardner‐Chloros, P. and Edwards, M. (2004), “Assumptions behind grammatical approaches to code‐ switching: when the blueprint is a red herring”, Transactions of the Philological Society, Vol. 102 №1, pp. 103–129.

Heller, M. (1988), “Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives”, Vol. 48, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.

Myers-Scotton, C. (1993), “Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching”, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Shin, S.-Y. (2010), “The functions of code-switching in a Korean Sunday school”, Heritage Language Journal, Vol. 7 №1, pp. 91–116