ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses code-crossing as a 'sociolinguistic problem', and addresses the ways in which crossing serves to 'maintain or change ethnic group boundaries'. It characterizes the kinds of ideological process that code-crossing encompassed. The chapter concerns the political dimension and sketches some of the conceptual interrelations involved in Gal's attention to code-switching, consciousness and political domination. Ethnic absolutism is a term that Gilroy uses to characterize a cluster of assumptions that widely figure in a range of established discourses, articulating a number of different political viewpoints. The chapter also discusses language crossing proper, drawing on more specific empirical descriptions. The diversity of the patterning is very important for a general characterization of the ideological significance of language crossing. The crossing simply endorsed and reproduced an image from racist ideology. Panjabi crossing was more independent of the ways in which ethnic minorities were generally represented than either Creole or stylized Asian English (SAE).
