Discourse & Youth: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Code-switching In Xiao Yuan Wang

Critical Discourse Analysis has evolved from Critical Linguistics. Fairclough, a representative of Critical Linguists, proposes the three-dimensional framework, namely, description, interpretation, and explanation. Fairclough employs Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar as his linguistic foundation. This thesis studies the code-switching in youth language under the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis for the purpose of disclosing the features of code-switching in youth language and uncovering the reasons of the occurrence of code-switching in youth language. The author collects the data from the book of Xiao Yuan Wang.In the part of description, the author employs Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, including transitivity, the lexical classification, mood, and cohesion. In the part of interpretation, the author tries to answer the four questions,"What's going on?""Who's involved?""In what relations?""What's the role of language?"to give detailed information about the context. In the part of explanation, the author mainly analyzes the social background to explore the social reasons of the occurrence of code-switching in youth language.The originality lies in the presuppositions of the occurrence of code-switching in youth language and the features of it in Chinese youth language. The author puts forward three presuppositions of the occurrence of code-switching: (1) The participants are familiar with the language. (2) The language is easy, convenient, and appropriate. (3) The participants bear some purposes.The study digs out the features of code-switching in youth language. The author concludes that there are four features of code-switching in youth language. The first feature is that most of the code-switching occurs in vocabulary rather than in grammar or pronunciation. The second feature is that code-switching usually occurs under the leisure topics instead of formal ones. The third feature is that the English items embedded in Chinese sentences are easy, convenient and appropriate. The fourth feature is that more and more codes used in code-switching are internetized.The author works out the features and reasons of code-switching in youth language to arouse the teachers'critical awareness of code-switching in their English teaching and attract scholars'general attention to the change of the features of youth language.