A Study Of Code-switching In Snow Flower And The Secret Fan From The Perspective Of Language Variation

Language variation theory is a kind of sociolinguistic theory,which regards language as a "heterogeneous and orderly" system,and emphasizes the fresh and diverse real life language as the starting point to explore the phenomenon of language variation in pragmatics.Code-switching refers to the use of two or more different languages or dialects in the same conversation.With the increasingly globalized cross-cultural communication,code-switching has frequently been used in spoken and written language.At present,most of the literature on code-switching in different social-cultural contexts focuses on its manifestation in movies,TV dramas,advertisements and news discourses.However,there are few studies on code-switching in literary works,especially in Chinese American literary works.Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of the representative works of Lisa See,a Chinese-American writer.The novel takes nu shu as the clue,and tells the story of the gratitude and resentment of Lily and Snow Flower in the patriarchal society.There exist a lot of code-switching phenomena in the novel.Based on Labov’s theory of language variation,this thesis studies the code-switching phenomenon in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and then analyzes the functions of code-switching in Chinese American literary works by adopting a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods.The results show that the distribution of code-switching exists in each chapter of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and the frequency of code-switching in each chapter of the novel is different.There are two main types of factors that affect language variation: internal factors and external factors.Internal factors include lexical,phonetic,and graphological factors whereas external factors include social factors,dialectical factors and styles.These factors lead to the variation of the characters’ language in his novels,resulting in code-switching.The application of code-switching in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan realizes the functions of building the character,pushing story line and creating tense atmosphere.Understanding the two major factors that impact on language variation and the functions of code-switching can help people better analyze the character features in the novel and achieve effective communication among people.It is hoped that this study can enrich and expand the scope of the application of language variation theory,facilitates people to better understand the cultural connotations behind the use of language in Chinese American literary works and also provides a new perspective for the study of code-switching in literary works.