Cognitive Mechanism Of Chinese/English Codeswitching: Motivation And Constraints

As the exhibition of linguistic variation and social development, codeswitching (CS) has been observed in psycholinguistics, pragmatics, systemic functional linguistics, and conversation analysis with great achievements since it was first put forward in 1970s by sociolinguists. Although there are potential cognitive factors involved in codeswitching, the cognitive study of codeswitching has been rarely intact. Therefore, the present study tentatively explores codeswitching from the cognitive perspective, focusing on two objects: (i) the motivation of Chinese/English codeswitching is interpreted by figure/ground theory and prominence view; (ii) morphosyntactic constraints on Chinese/English codeswitching are described in the configuration of prototype theory.Based on the distinction of codeswitching, borrowing and diglossia, we propose that codeswitching simply refers to the kind of language performance phenomena that there are units of two or more linguistic codes in the same conversation or utterance. And we claim that there are general three phases of codeswitching study in China, (i) introduction of fundamental theories, (ii) exploration of codeswitching. (iii) establishment of new theories of codeswitching.While reviewing the literature of CS both at home and aboard, we find that there are cognitive factors in some existing CS theories or models, which provide theoretical background for the motivation of and morphosyntactic constraints on Chinese/English CS. Figure/ground theory derives from psychology and is used by cognitive linguists to analyze the meaning of linguistic stractures based on prominence view. And the principle of figure-ground segregation is one of the basic cognitive principles by which language organizes its concepts. Chinese/English CS is usually displayed by two models according to Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF) and Markedness Model (MM): (i) Matrix Language Chinese + Embedded Language English; and (ii) Matrix Language English + Embedded Language Chinese. Based on figure/ground theory and prominence view, these models can be demonstrated as (i) Matrix Language Chinese (ground) + Embedded Language English (figure); and (ii) Matrix Language English (ground) + Embedded Language Chinese (figure).The kernel of prototype theory has three aspects: (i) prototype could be the best example or most salient examples of the same category; (ii) prototype could be combination of typical features; and (iii) prototype is a schematic representation of the kernel concept of a category. Therefore, this thesis discusses morphosyntactic constraints of Chinese/English CS mainly from two angles: (i) the distribution of embedded language words and islands both in written forms and spoken forms; and (ii) the prototype of morphosyntactic features of embedded language words and islands.And the analysis of prototypes of embedded language words and islands in Chinese/English CS not only proves the hypothesis of ML but also corresponds with prototype theory. To conclude, there are 6 prototypes of Chinese/English CS.(i) instead of mixing codes randomly in the sentence, C/E intra-sentential CS follows certain grammatical rules;(ii) the Matrix Language (ML) Chinese plays a dominant role in C/E CS;(iii) nouns and nouns phrases enjoy the greatest chances of being switched in C/E CS. And usually adjectives, verbs rank the second and third.(iv) the morphosyntactic features of the intra-sententially switched sentences are determined by the ML Chinese;(v) nearly all the EL islands are obligatory and have important syntactic functions;(vi) the structure of C/E intra-sentential CS is formed in a process of insertion. Admittedly, there are a few limitations in this thesis, especially those with data collection. The statistics mainly relies on Fortress Besieged, 6 newspapers, daily conversations and net-speak in Southwest University. As a result, there are defects in terms of the validity and reliability. Therefore, we advocate to set up a corpus of Chinese/English codeswitching in order to obtain a comprehensive and deeper investigation of this phenomenon. Because this study only touches upon a small slice of Chinese/English codeswitching from cognitive views, we hope that more cognitive theories could be adopted to research Chinese/English codeswitching.