| With the development of technology, Internet plays a more important role in communication today than any other time. Human beings rely on computer-mediated communication (CMC) to exchange messages of many kinds through various channels, such as chat-room, BBS or E-mail. And a new kind of language form---Internet language gradually appears to meet the requirement of the CMC. Internet language, which measures up with the Internet communication, is a particular form used by participants in Internet. And "the Internet is an association of computer networks with common standards which enable messages to be sent from any central computer (or host) on one network to any host on any other." (David Crystal, 2001: 2). Internet first appeared in 1960's. And since then, many scholars have been researching Internet language. One of the early observers is Naomi Baron who began to probe into the effects of computer-mediated communication on language change in 1980's. And many scholars, like Susan Herring, Rodney Jones, have analyzed the special features of the Internet language, as the result of the general acceptance and adoption of the new form by more and more people in CMC.English dominance is an obvious phenomenon in CMC (David Crystal, 2001; D.E.Murrays, 1999). The domination of cyberspace by English is the result not only of the global expansion of English as a lingua franca but also of the historical development of the technology itself. So in China, the language that is adopted by Internet users contains many English abbreviations and expressions: ASAP= as soon as possible, VG= very good, AFSIK= as far as I know, BF= boy friend. This language phenomenon, in linguistic perspective, is defined as' Code-switching' (CS), which is a useful concept to expound the language features in CMC. The research of CS began in 1960's. By reviewing the researching achievement of CS, we find that three branches and four approaches have been investigated: 1.CS definition 2.CS category; 3. CS function. And the four approaches are: grammatical approach, sociolinguistic approach, pyscholinguistic approach and conversation analysis approach. But up till now, just a few scholars (Verschueren, He ziran) have investigated CS in Pragmatic perspective. In fact, Pragmatic perspective can reveal the full complexity of code-switching,which comprehensively includes the four approaches as a whole. By analyzing the materials I collected, I find that most CS researches only focus on either face-to-face communication or written language in the real social communication; few of them involve in computer-mediated discourse (CMD), which is insufficient to explain the CS phenomena in the 'virtual world'.In my thesis, I will combine Internet language and CS research together, and expound the language features which are different from real social communication in CMD by adopting Verscheren's theory of adaptation from a completely new angle---pragmatic perspective. Nowadays, Internet communication is so crucial that it has become part of people's life. More and more people have realized the importance of the Internet Language. They use this special form to satisfy their communicative needs. Through investigating the data and materials in CMD, I have drawn the conclusion that CS in Internet language is a communicative strategy adopted by participants to fulfill their communicative purposes, which helps to keep the conversation or communication on.With the popularity of both English and Internet communication in China, we must keep in mind the preponderant role the Internet language possesses, and the significant functions CS plays in computer-mediated discourse. This new perspective of approach can afford an insight into the CS research and it also provides implication for those who are interested in the CS research.
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