An Analysis On The Interpersonal Meaning Of Code-switching In Novel 《Wei Cheng》--From A Functional Perspective

Code-switching refers to the fact that anyone who speaks more than one language chooses between them according to circumstances. It is a common phenomenon of linguistic interaction, and has become the central issue in bilingualism. Since 1970's, many linguists have done a lot of researches on this subject, and received distinguished achievements.The first chapter reviews the prior research done on code-switching. Three different perspectives are offered: 1) the structural analysis, in which linguists attempt to discover regularities of code-switching. The representatives are Poplack, DiSciullo and Myers-Scotton. Poplack(1980) put forward two 'constraints': one is "the equivalence constraint', the other is 'the free-morpheme constraint'. DiSciullo and other linguistics(1986)develop 'the government constraint', a traditional grammatical notion which has received a formulation within the theory of Government and Binding of Chomsky. Myers-Scotton (1993b) proposes the Matrix Language Frame model. 2) The social functions of code-switching, in which the researchers study the interlationships between social factors and code-switching. They illustrate the reasons why we use code-switching in utterance and emphasize the social functions of code-switching. The representatives are Blom, Gumpers and Myers-Scotton. 3) The pragmatic functions of code-switching. Linguistics think code-switching is closely connected with contextual features. In chapter two I discuss the feasibility of analyzing code-switching from systemic-functional perspective . Register theory is a common field between sociolinguistics and systemic-functional grammar. Code-switching belongs to language variety, while language variety is one of the topics in register theory. From one of the three dimensions-'tenor', I analyze the interpersonal meaning of code-switching. In chapter three, I state the general framework ofinterpersonal metafunction and the appraisal system . The interpersonal metafunction refers to the fact that we use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them, and to influence their behaviour and attitude. The appraisal system is concerned with evaluation梩he kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text. It appreciates the relationship between interpersonal meaning and social factors. It's an extension of interpersonal metafunction. In chapter four I adopt the above theories to analyze the interpersonal meaning of code-switching at three levels: lexical, clausal and textual. The examples I use are all from this novel. On lexical level, I mainly adopt the appraisal system to explain the interpersonal meaning of single lexical choice or phrases, On clausal and textual level, I use the interpersonal metafunction to analyze their interpersonal metafunction. From the analysis, we see the functions of code-switching are multi-leveled.