A Study Of Code-switching Between Mongolian And Chinese From The Perspective Of Register Theory

Code-switching is basically a natural consequence of contact by bilinguals (Hornberger,2005; Reyes,2001). This phenomenon has been studied from different perspectives, including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, and syntax.In China, studies on code-switching involve both spoken and written discourse. The area of study is mainly in Chinese and English code-switching, Chinese mandarin and local dialect code-switching. There are few studies on the language of ethnic minority groups and mandarin. Although in recent years researchers in Xinjiang have studied Uygur and Chinese code-switching, studies on Mongolian and Chinese code-switching are still rare. People in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region live in a bilingual environment. Mongolian people, in particular, have to use Chinese to communicate with those who cannot understand Mongolian. This study aims to apply register theory to analyze code-switching between Mongolian and Chinese. Mongolians who live in northeast part of Inner Mongolia are observed in this study. By participants observation, records of13Mongolians’natural spoken language were collected, amounting to131recordings which last approximately386.20minutes. Code-switching between Mongolian and Chinese is first studied in terms of types of code-switching, distributional features and reasons for code-switching. Inter sentential and intra sentential code-switching were both categorized according to the collected data and then the distributional features of Mongolian-Chinese code-switching were analyzed from the perspective of word classes. The phenomenon of code-switching in the communication of Mongolians is not at random. Mongolians use code-switching in their interaction for many reasons and purposes. As the three dimensions of register theory, field, tenor, and mode have great influence on the appearance of Mongolian-Chinese code-switching.The results of the study have shown that in Mongolian-Chinese code-switching, intra-sentential code-switching occurs more frequently than inter-sentential code-switching. In intra-sentential code-switching, noun and noun phrases occur most frequently, followed by numerals. Mongolians use code-switching for many reasons to make the communication more convenient and effective. However, code-switching is restricted by three dimensions of register:field, tenor, and mode. The occurrence of code-switching is closely related to the situation of conversation, the participants involved in the communication and the role of language.