ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the fourth part of this book. The book defines language crossing's identity as a sociolinguistic practice, to clarify its political character, and to consider its implications for some dominant educational discourses on language. It describes the term 'code-switching' in a general way throughout, and at this point, it is important to explicate understanding of the concept, to align it with particular accounts, and to suggest certain refinements. Code-switching research has generally adopted an ingroup perspective. Ingroup code-switching would appear to offer less analytic potential when it is only either participant- or discourse-related. The book discusses briefly glance at the wider span of sociolinguistic phenomena that the notion of crossing. Code-crossing's sociolinguistic significance extends beyond the negative impetus it gives to 'passing' and 'refusal'. It is obviously also the focus for a great deal of debate, play and meta-commentary.
