A Study On The Structural Features In Mongolian/Chinese Code-switching

Language contact causes code-switching between different languages. Mongolian/ Chinese code-switching is a common phenomenon in Inner Mongolia autonomous region. However, researches on Mongolian/Chinese code-switching are scarcely found.This study intends to investigate the structural features of Mongolian/Chinese code-switching in light of Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame model. Besides, by comparing Mongolian/Chines, Korean/Chinese, and Chinese/English code-switching, this paper attempts to explore the similarities and differences among various types of code-switching and further probe into the reasons for the similarities and differences.This paper is a data-based empirical study. The data are collected from daily conversations in the northern part of Inner Mongolia. The subjects are bilingual Mongolians who have a relatively good master of Chinese language in this area. In the process of data collecting, tape-recoding is the major method. Recordings are carefully coded and analyzed to make sure the accuracy of the study.Through the analysis of data, this paper finds that in Mongolian/Chinese code-switching, intra-sentential switching is in dominance, and words are the most frequently switched elements in contrast with phrases, clauses and sentences. And content words are switched far more frequent than function words. Among the different parts of speech of words, the occurrence rate of nouns predominates, with verbs and adjectives next to it. The embedded languages play important roles and observe the grammatical rules of the matrix language just as the Matrix Language Frame model suggests.Based on the results of Mongolian/Chinese code-switching research, a comparison of Mongolian/Chinese, Korean/Chinese, and Chinese/English code-switching is made to find out the similarities and differences. The similiarities include: the occurance rate of content words is much more frequent than function words; the switching of nouns is in dominance; and the functions of inter-sentential code-switching are similar in these three pairs of switching. The differences principally lie in the different word order and switching of different parts of speech. And different language families, socio-cultural factors and language variations account for these similarities and differences.The above findings enrich the researches on code-switching; however, researches from other perspectives and researches on other code-switching pairs are needed to reveal the universal principles underlying the phenomenon of code-switching.