Co-authored paper presented at the Going Romance Conference, Braga, Portugal. [PDF]

This study investigates how language dominance impacts acceptability ratings of Spanish-English intra-sentential code-switching (CS) among 22 highly proficient adult early bilinguals. While overall language dominance did not significantly predict differentiation between grammatical and ungrammatical switches, self-reported proficiency and language use were significant predictors, with balanced use and higher proficiency leading to greater consistency in structural acceptability ratings. These findings suggest that navigating structural constraints in CS is less tied to being “balanced” in dominance and more connected to proficiency, language use, and exposure, aligning with prior research that emphasizes the role of community norms and frequent CS experience.