Introduction

Most recent research on codeswitching is conducted from one of two perspectives. The search for grammatical constraints on intra sentential codeswitching exemplifies the grammatical perspective (e.g. DiSciullo et al 1986; Poplack 1989; Belazi, Rubin & Toribio 1994; Mahootian & Santorini 1996; Myers-Scotton 1993) while the study of the social meaning of particular codeswitches exemplifies the interactional perspective (e.g. Gumperz 1982; Heller 1982, 1994). The present article concentrates instead on the role of codeswitching in the organization of discourse, specifically, with how codeswitching figures in the expression of evidentiality in French-English bilingual discourse. Following Auer (1995), we would argue that codeswitching can be analyzed at the level of discourse relatively independently of any grammatical properties of codeswitching and the immediate social context in which it is embedded. We do turn to consideration of the sociolinguistic situation in order to explain inter- and intracommunity variation.