| Summary: | The aim of the study is to explore situational, cultural and pragmatic factors that might trigger code-switching during informal conversations outside of the classroom at school among bilingual adolescents in Haparanda, Helsinki and Stockholm. An attempt is made to clarify different functions of code-switching, i.e. why bilingual adolescents code-switch from Swedish to Finnish and vice versa. The conversational data, consisting of video-recorded group and pair conversations, was collected in 2014–2015 at six junior high schools in Haparanda, Helsinki and Stockholm. The analysis of the data is qualitative. The theoretical framework is found in the field of translanguaging, which aims to describe bilingual language use and interactional practices (including code-switching). Similar patterns and functions of switching could be found in Haparanda and Helsinki, e.g. referential function (i.e. reference to culture-specific phenomena), but the relationship between the languages in the switches is reverse. In the conversational data from Stockholm the interlocutors switch more between languages if they use Finnish as a base language. The pupils in Stockholm seem to switch between languages when they introduce a new activity. In that case, the switch has a situational function. Quotation means that the messages are quoted in the language in which it was heard or read. Switching to slang words has a metaphorical and expressive function. It can be assumed that the sociolinguistic factors, such as the language environment of the schools and as a whole in the society, show in the results e.g. in which language the adolescents use in their interaction with each other and in the functions of the code-switching.
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