Research On English Teachers' Code-switching In English Majored Postgraduates' Classroom

Code-swiching, as an aspect of linguistic studies, arose in the 1970s. At that time, however the research mainly aimed at the code-switching appeared in the bilingual society. With the development of English teaching, the researchers start to study code-switching in the classroom, especially code-switching in the middle and primary school. In recent years the studies of code-switching in the college students'English classroom has been increasing, but the researches for code-switching in the English majored postgraduate students'classroom are very few.This paper conducts a research on the professors'code-switching in English majored postgraduate students'classroom. In this paper the author has conducted a research on the code-switching in the English majored postgraduate students'classroom on the basis of Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory and Krashen's input hypothesis model. This research mainly adopts observation research method, quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis methods. The author as a participant in the postgraduate students'class has conducted the observation for one year and recorded six teachers'classroom discourses. In the thesis writing process the author transcribes part of the record and does the quantitative and qualitative analysis on the basis of these data.The author finds that code-switching in the English majored postgraduate students'classroom is more frequent. Among the types of code-switching, alternation and insertion are in the majority and the professors make extensive use of L1 in their teaching, which is different from our imagined English majored postgraduate students'teaching activities. The basic reason for this phenomenon is the change of the teaching goal. The professors pay more attention to the linguistic method teaching rather than the second language competent improvement. How to make the students digest and absorb these theories is the key point of the teaching activity, so the professors often use code-switching. In addition some linguistic theories are difficult to understand, so only a guarantee of a huge amount of comprehensible input can make the students grasp these theories effectively.The professors'code-switching in the English majored postgraduate students'classroom has its unique features. The author summarized the five main functions: quotation, expounding, translation, giving examples and enlivening the classroom atmosphere. The author also analyzed the reasons for code-switching using the linguistic adaptation theory. Through the studies the author found that the main reason for code-switching in the postgraduate students'classroom is to adapt to the linguistic reality.