A Study On Students’ Code-switching In The College English Classroom In China

Code-switching plays a significant role in the process of language learning, which was sadly neglected in research for a long time. Linguists considered the idea of CS contravened a strong expectation that only one language would be used at any given time. Up to the1980s, researchers such as Gumperz and his students subsequently demonstrated convincingly that CS was subject to pragmatic and interactional conditioning. At the same time, CS in EFL classrooms is controversial by scholars. Different opinions are stated by supporters and opponents. Supporters hold that the moderate CS in EFL classrooms can lubricate properly the input of target language, with the effective processing of teaching tasks. While opponents consider CS deprives students of opportunities to receive the target language, resulting in the teaching interference.Most studies of CS at home and abroad focus on teachers’ CS and its influence on language teaching. In recent years, researchers abroad readjust the studying perspective, and students’C S gains its attention from scholars. However there is a lack of studies on students’ CS at home. This study takes the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis to explore the functions of students’ CS. Besides, teachers and students’ attitudes toward.CS are also investigated.At first, the author develops the questionnaire for students’ CS in EFL classrooms on the basis of the review of the literature. Factor analysis is used for guaranteeing the reliability and validity. And SPSS17.0is used to analyze the statistical data.167freshmen majoring in software engineering in Taiyuan University of Technology are chosen as the subject of this research. The author collected6class recordings from students’interactive communication, then the recordings are transcribed by the author. The conversational analysis and Yu’s Adaptation Theory are the theoretical framework in this paper, which aims at three problems:(1) teachers ’and students ’attitudes toward CS;(2) the functions of students ’CS in EFL classrooms;(3) whether the CS could be a strategy applied for language learning. With data collected, students ’attitudes toward CS were analyzed through the descriptive statistics. And teachers ’attitudes toward CS were analyzed through interviewing. In the meantime, the four functions of students ’CS are also explored:the function of language acquisition, the interpersonal function, discourse function and the function of adaptation. The study and the subsequent analyses point to the conclusion that CS is utilized intentionally or unintentionally by students, who also hold positive attitudes toward CS in EFL classrooms. The moderate CS helps students with the advance of communicative tasks, and serving a role of activating the class.