Switching or selecting?

Abstract Discourse Markers (DMs) are particularly susceptible to borrowing between languages and several approaches can provide a framework to analyse speech in multilingual contexts. This paper examines a structural and a pragmatic-functional perspective: Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model and Matras’ Pragmatic-Functional (PF) perspective. It considers how DMs fit into these approaches and how they deal with code-switching in Kreol Morisien-French multilingual conversations. As it is rare to consider the same linguistic data from these different linguistic perspectives, this paper explores whether they are competing models or may offer complementary perspectives. MLF sees languages as distinct entities which are switched between, while PF involves context-appropriate selection of components from a complex repertoire. Matras’ pragmatic-dominance hypothesis is also explored through correlations with language use. Although the approaches emphasise different aspects of multilingual speech, it is concluded that together they can offer complementary perspectives on Mauritian discourse, despite being conceptually difficult to reconcile.