Code-switching, the act of changing how you speak based on who you’re with, is one of the most powerful ways we can communicate with others. If done right, it can help us develop rapport quickly and understand others better – whether they’re colleagues, friends, or even complete strangers. what code-switching is and how you can use it to improve your social interactions.
What is code-switching? First, let’s talk about what code-switching isn’t. It isn’t slang. It isn’t speaking a different language fluently. And it isn’t dialect (though some may use a separate dialect or accent when switching). Instead, code-switching is changing your manner of speaking to better match your environment and your audience. There are many reasons people change their communication style — whether you think they consciously do it or not — but generally it boils down to making yourself more relatable, engaging with your audience better and becoming more comfortable in a given situation. The most common example is when someone takes a call and goes from normal speaking that you know them to speak like, to super nice, sweet and professional. I see so many people do this and not even realize that they are doing it so its more common than what you think.
Why do we code-switch? Linguists are always studying code-switching, or how we alter our speech when we’re talking to different people. There’s a good reason for that. It turns out, how you speak to someone reveals a lot about your relationship with them. Studies have shown that if you speak more slowly and pause more frequently when speaking to someone, then they perceive you as closer than if you spoke quickly and used minimal pauses. If that weren’t interesting enough, imagine being able to tell whether or not two strangers can get along just by listening to them talk! Luckily for us, code-switching has been around since humans learned how to communicate with each other and will continue for as long as we exist on Earth.
Is Code-switching a Bad thing? We all do it. We all have our own code, a way we speak and act with certain people. When you’re around your best friend, maybe you use slang words, feel more comfortable using contractions, and tend to make more jokes. Your speech pattern changes depending on who you’re with. But what if that code was different? Depending on your social situation, we change our accents, how fast we talk, and even how we pronounce words—all without realizing it.
Code-switching is a significant part of our contextual identity A friend, a customer, an acquaintance, or your boss may trigger subtle changes in how you speak and act. For instance, we tend to speak differently to friends versus acquaintances. Research shows that even when a group has similar backgrounds—like people who have gone to college together—we code-switch based on our individual needs within that group. In other words, we change our behavior according to who we’re speaking with and what we want from them in those conversations. Psychologists say code-switching is really about being strategic about how much of ourselves we show at any given time.