Social Motivations Of Code-Switching In Family Talk

Nowadays, with the development of economy and the improvement of the educational degree in our country, many families have been moving from one place to another, and in such economic and political context, many persons can speak two or more languages or Chinese language varieties. As a result, code-switching frequently occurs on many occasions, one of which is family occasion. And family is the minimal unit of the society. Therefore, the analysis of social motivations of code-switching in family talk is an indispensible part in the field of CS. Up to now, there is only one influential paper that studies the social motivations of CS in family talk is'Analysis of Code-Switching in Family Talk' written by Zhu Wanjin in 1997. Therefore, the present study of CS in family talk has an important role in the field of CS.The present study analyses the social motivations of CS between mandarin, Henan dialect and English in family talk on the basis of markedness model, contextualization cue from the perspective of sociolinguistics and discourse strategy from the perspective of conversation analysis. Specifically stating, the aims of the present study are:on the one hand, finding the general patterns of CS (default code) between mandarin, Henan dialect and English in family talk. Every member's language preference, competence and the role he or she plays in family are different, so their language choices on general occasions are varying. On the other hand, finding the social motivations of CS between mandarin, Henan dialect and English in family talk. Family members often switch codes in order to achieve special communicative effects. The aim of the present study is to illustrate the social motivations of code-switching in family talk.For the research method of the present study, the author adopts the method of case study. It involves the qualitative method and quantitative method. The qualitative method is used for the analysis of the social motivations of CS between English, mandarin and Henan dialect in family talk, and the quantitative method is exploited for generalizing and summarizing the collected data. The author analyses the social motivations of CS in family talk from three ways:first, collecting data from the following three sources:observation, recording and taking notes; analysing the collected data, and find the default codes of family members; and last discussing the social motivations of CS between English, mandarin and Henan dialect in family talk with first-hand samples. All the collected data is naturally occurring. The data of the study is collected in a traditional family in the city of Xinxiang, in Henan province where the author was born and raised. There are three generations in the family:grandfather, grandmother; son, and daughter-in-law, daughter, and son- in- law; granddaughter and grandson.The social motivations of CS in family talk have been analysed with samples in the present study. The author studies the social motivations of CS between English, mandarin and Henan dialect in family talk by combining Myers- Scotton's markedness model, Gumperz's contextualization cue from the perspectives of sociolinguistics, discourse strategy from the perspective of conversational analysis, with the collected data. In this way, the author gets the following conclusions:(1) Now, the situations of language choice in family talk are rather stable. The third generation, who is the children, tends to speak in mandarin. The frequency of using mandarin and English is significantly higher than their parents and grandparents. The first generation, who is the grandparents, tends to speak in dialect. The second generation, who is the parents, switches codes most frequently. The situations correspond to the political, economic, educational factors in China.(2) There is an important relationship between the language choice of speaker and the role he or she plays in the interaction. A speaker may play two or more roles in his or her family. The speaker often chooses different codes according to the role he or she plays in the interaction.In the present study, the main social motivations of CS in family talk:authority, age, quotation, convergence and divergence, addressee specification, preference marker and repair are illustrated with first hand samples of CS in family talk.