An Analysis Of College English Teachers' Chinese And English Code-switching In Class

Over the past decades, increasing interest in code-switching has triggered a variety of investigations and theoretical discussions that have shed light on our understanding of bilingual speech behavior. As a central part of bilinguals' discourse, code-switching has become an important strategy in foreign language teaching and its implication in bilingual classrooms is of great importance. This thesis is a preliminary endeavor to probe into the college English teachers' code-switching between English and Chinese in the classroom for non-English majors, with a focus on revealing the types, functions and teachers' adaptability for code-switching.Theoretically speaking, the thesis clarifies the definitions of code-switching and its related terms, and reviews different approaches to the analysis of code-switching including grammatical approach, the sociolinguistic approach, the psycholinguistic approach, the conversational analysis approach and the pragmatic approach. The thesis focuses on the current theoretical frameworks, namely, Shana Poplack's typology of code-switching, R.Appel and P.Muysken's function model of code-switching, and Yu Guodong's linguistic adaptation model.Methodologically speaking, this study integrates the qualitative and quantitative research methods to show a realistic picture of teachers' code-switching in class and provides a deep understanding of its functions and underlying reasons. It is a case study carried out in four universities in Dalian, based on which, the data was collected through classroom observations, teachers' questionnaires and students' interviews. It was discovered that the majority of the teachers switch to Chinese in class to achieve teaching goals, taking great care to control their Chinese input, and endeavoring to keep this to a minimum. Most of the students are in favor of the teachers' appropriate use of code-switching in class and its positive influence on their English learning.The data collected leads to a typological analysis of the teachers' Chinese-English code-switching in class—tags code-switching, inter-sentential code-switching and intra-sentential code-switching, and among which, intra-sentential code-switching is the dominant pattern. Five basic functions of Chinese and English code-switching in class are concluded. These are switching for quotation, switching for emphasis, switching for clarification, switching for translation, and switching for topic changes. The objects to which teachers' Chinese and English code-switching adapts can be classified into the linguistic reality, the specific features of courses, language proficiency and the teachers' psychological intentions.It is true that with the development of English teaching and learning in China, students' language proficiency has shown vast improvement. Further studies need to be conducted into how to utilize the mother tongue to meet students' new demands. However, the understanding of the types, functions and motivations for code-switching provide language teachers with a heightened awareness of its use in classroom discourse. By discussing its practical implications in English teaching and learning, some suggestions to improve teaching effects are given, such as increasing students' vocabulary, extending their cultural knowledge and adjusting the teaching strategy according to the dynamic context. This will consequently lead to better instruction in the foreign language classroom with an appropriate use of code-switching.