An Investigation Into Chinese/English Code-switching In BBS

This thesis is a preliminary investigation on Chinese/English code-switching in a BBS (http://alumni.Chinaren.com), with a focus on how the speakers realize rationality by employing these various functions. The center of this study is to prove that people are rational actors in the sense that they perceive selecting one way of speaking over another as a means to optimize their outcomes and minimize costs. Methodologically speaking, this study is a qualitative study based on Myers-Scotton and her associate's revised Markedness Model (Myeres-Scootton & Bolonyai 2001, Myers-Scotton 2002).To start with, the present thesis removes the barriers set up by code-switching terminological disputes through a clarification of related terms adopted in this thesis and reviews the related literature in order to locate the present study. Then an introduction of the theoretical framework and the data and methodology followed.After an analysis of the data, eight basic functions of Chinese/English code-switching in this BBS are concluded. At the same time, how BBS code-switching users achieve rationality consciously or subconsciously by employing the functions of code-switching in order to choose the "best" choice subjectively is analyzed. The corpus reveals few counterexamples to the claim of the revised Markedness Model that speakers are rational actors and they are purposive when they switch codes.However, there are few evidence to prove code-switching is a means to negotiate identities in the data. Although that is partly due to the special community from which the data are collected, slight modification to the revised Markedness Model is proposed for the flexibility of it, i.e. to regard the negotiation of identity as one of the functions of code-switching in certain situations.This thesis is attempted to prove that code-switching is unavoidable nowadays in China. It might not be considered as a degradation of language, but evidence to study language change. And we should employ it to increase the understanding of Chinese/English code-switching as a social-cultural phenomenon as a result of China's integration to the international community.