An Adaptative Study Of Chinese-english Code-switching In Chinese Overseas Students' Blog Diaries

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in language contact and multicultural communication, and scholars have made great achievements under various study approaches, such as grammar, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics and so on. Pragmatics perspective is viewed more convincing for it successfully combines the description of code-switching phenomenon and relative linguistic, social, cognitive and cultural factors together in a dynamic context. Language material for code-switching is abundant and variety. With development of computer technology and internet, internet language becomes hot material for code-switching research.Jef Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory provides a new view for pragmatics study, and based on his theory, Yu Guodong puts forward Adaptation Model for code-switching study. With the combination of quantitative and qualitative study, this thesis makes a preliminary research on Chinese-English code-switching of Chinese overseas students'blog diaries under adaptation theoretical framework. Qualitative study intends to explain reasons of the code-switching performance and pragmatic functions it fulfills, and quantitative study is applied to analyze language distribution of code-switching and questionnaire problems with help of SPSS.(1)Results indicate based on analysis of questionnaire: questionnaire takers of this study are mostly with good education background, and more than a half admit that they switch codes consciously or unconsciously, and a small part apply code-switching unconsciously for staying abroad for such a long time while some mention they avoid switching codes consciously in order to keep close relationship with friends at home; for linguistic units distribution, word holds the highest frequency, and then letter, phrase, sentence and discourse; for communication motivations, a major proportion holds that code-switching are taken for no equivalent expression between Chinese and English and then is for convenience. Some hold code-switching is used just for comfortable; under special language context, most Chinese overseas students hold neutral attitude toward the application of code-switching, rather than holding the idea that it can improve their English competence. (2) Results indicate based on analysis of blog material: adaptability of Chinese-English code-switching mainly shows negative adaptation to linguistic reality, social convention and positive adaptation to psychological motivation. Functioning as a communicative strategy, code-switching can fulfill various functions to help achieve goals, such as explaining and quoting, emphasizing and comprising, conveying feelings, creating humor, fetching a closer relationship, etc; negotiability shows that code-switching is not produced casually nor mechanically, but on basis of highly flexible adaptation principle; variability is presented in terms of linguistic units and the structure complexity and the statistical analysis of the selected blog materials shows the diversity of code-switching.