ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on body metaphors of multilingualism in connection with practices of code-switching and code-mixing and retraces the theoretical changes these concepts have gone through over the last decades within the field of linguistics. It provides a short introductory survey of the conflicting positions with regard to multilingualism that will be discussed in more detail in the course of the book and points to the necessity of finding new metaphors that move beyond the traditional notion of language and the simple opposition of monolingualism and multilingualism. Psycholinguistic research has pointed to the fact that it is misleading to ask for the specific location of single languages within the brain. The prevalence of a normative attitude towards code-switching and code-mixing that focused on the interaction of separate language systems and emphasized stability, resulted in a reduction of the field of enquiry.
