Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT116 S1 P2 Q13 Explanation

Code-Switching

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Passage

In many bilingual communities of Puerto Rican Americans living in the mainland United States, people use both English and Spanish in a single conversation, alternating between them smoothly and frequently even within the same sentence. This practice—called code-switching—is common in bilingual populations. While there are some cases that cannot currently factors, either situational or rhetorical, explain the use of code-switching.

Linguists say that most code-switching among Puerto Rican Americans is sensitive to the social contexts, which researchers refer to as domains, in which conversations take place. The main conversational factors influencing the occurrence of code-switching are setting, participants, and topic. When these go together naturally they are said to be congruent; a the setting “beach” yielded less agreement on the third factor of topic and on language choice.

But situational factors do not account for all code-switching; it occurs even when the domain would lead one not to expect it. In these cases, one language tends to be the primary one, while the other is used only sparingly to achieve certain rhetorical effects. Often the switches are so subtle that commented that it was used to express certain attitudes such as intimacy or humor more emphatically.

What this question is testing

Weaken

Your task

Find the choice that makes the argument's conclusion less likely to be true.

Common trap

Answers that look negative but attack a claim the argument never relied on.

Winning move

Find the assumption the argument depends on, then pick the choice that undermines it.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
13.

Which one of the following, if true, would most cast doubt on the author’s interpretation of the study involving the family discussed

Answer choices

  1. Correct61% picked this

    In a previous twelve-month study involving the same family in their home, their conversations were entirely in English except

    Why this is right

    This goes against the first sentence of the 3rd paragraph. The author presents the Puerto Rican family as an example of code-switching that took place even though situational factors were not the reason. This answer is strongly suggesting that situational factors were the reason for the code-switching, since the only times they switched language was when situation factors changed dramatically.

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  2. Compatible9% picked this

    In a subsequent twelve-month study involving the same family, a particular set of situational factors occurred repeatedly without

    The author presents the Puerto Rican family as an example of code-switching that took place even though situational factors were not the reason. So this answer sounds very consistent with that. Since situational factors supposedly aren't causing this code-switching, we wouldn't expect a change in situational factors to have an effect on the code-switching.

  3. Weaker Impact15% picked this

    In a subsequent twelve-month study involving the same family, it was noted that intimacy and humor were occasionally expressed through

    Whereas (A) made it sound like the code-switching was from situational factors, this feels like it's supporting the idea that code-switching wasn't from rhetorical factors. The family switched into Spanish sporadically, supposedly for rhetorical reasons such as expressing intimacy or humor. Does the fact that they also used English to express intimacy or humor undermine that notion? Not really. The author wasn't saying that "every time they wanted to express intimacy or humor they used Spanish for rhetorical reasons", she was saying, "every time they used Spanish, it was to express intimacy or humor for rhetorical reasons".

  4. No Impact1% picked this

    When asked about the significance of their use of Spanish, the family members replied in

    We don't really have any expectations about what language they would use if a researcher asks them about their use of Spanish, so the fact that the family replied in English doesn't clearly connect to or tell us anything.

  5. No Impact14% picked this

    Prior to their discussions with the researchers, the family members did not describe their occasional use of Spanish as serving

    Does it undermine the legitimacy of what the family members said to the researchers (about the rhetorical purposes of their usage of Spanish) if we learn that the family members had never described their use of Spanish this way? No, not really. Maybe no one's really forced the family to reflect on their occasional use of Spanish. In fact, since we're told that the family believed themselves to be speaking only in English at home, there would be no reason for them to describe their occasional use of Spanish because they didn't even realize they were occasionally using Spanish.

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