The Adaptive Analysis Of Codeswitching In Postgraduate Class

Since the 1970s, with the rapid increase of international communications and closer contact of languages and varieties, codeswitching has been becoming a heated topic as a linguistic phenomenon. Classroom codeswitching occurs in a particular environment, especially in postgraduate class.This thesis, based on Verschueren's theory of linguistic adaptation, is a pragmatic analysis of tutor's Chinese English codeswitching in postgraduate class. This multi-case study is carried out in College of Foreign Languages of Hebei Normal University, where five English linguistic tutors and their postgraduates were chosen as subjects. An analysis was made on the data collected from classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews, and then the adaptive model for tutor's codeswitching in postgraduate class is presented. It is found that codeswitching is an effective strategy that the tutors make use of for the postgraduates. The codeswitching, which the tutors use to adapt for psychological motivations, is considered as an active adaptation to realize their unique instructive or communicative goals.Most tutors favor the positive role of the mother tongue when they use it consciously, and most postgraduates also accept the usage of Chinese by tutors in class. Both tutors and postgraduates think that codeswitching should be applied in adequate quality and quantity, compared to the usage of codeswitching used by teachers who teach undergraduates, and it is found that the tutors use more Chinese and have more distinctive intentions.It is indicated that the codeswitching in postgraduate class is specific and necessary. Moreover, the tutors do have some psychological motivations to adapt in order to achieve the special goal of instructing the postgraduates, such as providing the way of thinking, helping students do investigation, and improving the ability of scientific study, etc.