Switching a bit revised

This is the first time I've really heard about "code-switching" but it's something I know I do all the time. I think that what we say isn't really about what language its in, words and our speech have feeling and reason behind them. There are reasons to change the way we speak in different situations. We all code-switch every day, whether we know it or not. At work, at school, with our family and friends. We have to change the way we speak to convey our thoughts and feelings to a specific audience. For instance, I was friends with a girl who's family was from Italy, they all spoke Italian and after some time i began to pick up on bits and pieces. When her grand mother died I was able to offer my sympathies in Italian which seemed to have a greater impact. Bottom line we speak with others to communicate our thoughts and feelings and we will always find the best way to do it.

I think that after class today i understand a little bit better about what code switching really is. i thought i understood yesterday after reading the the passage in the book but I guess i still had much to learn on the subject. I did understand that it had meaning behind it, and that we would code switch for certain effect but i guess i didn't quite grasp the idea that it was just a few words or phrases in one language or dialect and then switching back. It kind of makes me think that in situations where you speak only one language the slang that we use could be considered code switching. For example, when i worked in wilderness therapy, if a student showed signs that they would hurt themselves or some one else they would be put on suicide watch. This wasn't to say that we thought they were suicidal necessarily but just needed to be closely supervised and watched. When we would talk to their parents we would tell them that their child had been put on "suie" watch. It gave them the same information but in a less severe way.