Teachers' Chinese/English Codeswitching In Classroom: An Adaptation Approach

This thesis is a pragmatic analysis of teacher's Chinese/English codeswitching, which is understood as a realization of teachers' adaptation to the general purpose of successful teaching and communication in the foreign language classrooms. The core of this study is a detailed analysis of the pragmatic adaptability that teachers' Chinese/English codeswitching can fulfill. Methodologically speaking, this study integrates the qualitative and quantitative research methods to support the presentation of a more complete understanding of the codeswitching study.The theoretical framework of the present study is based on Yu Guodong's adaptation model on codeswiching (2001), utilising Jef Verschueren's theory of linguistic adaptation (1999). Teachers' codeswitching in the present study is defined as a kind of linguistic choice and a strategy that can be exploited by foreign language teachers to achieve some pedagogical goals.We classify the objects to which teachers' Chinese/English codeswitching adapts into the Linguistic Reality, the Teachers' Roles, and the Teachers' Psychological Intentions. The teachers' Chinese/English codeswitching as an adaptation to the Linguistic Reality and the Teachers' Roles are called passive codeswitchings, and teachers' Chinese/English codeswitching as an adaptation to the Teachers' Psychological Intentions is named as active codeswitching.The various pragmatic functions that the teachers' Chinese/English codeswitching in classroom can perform are explored in the analysis of the adaptability of codeswitching. Teachers' codeswitching utilized as a strategy in the process of teaching must have some influence on the students' language learning, so we have a statistic analysis of 54 students' evaluations on teachers' codeswitching so as to lay a foundation for further study.