A Study Of The Chinese-English Code-switching In The Chinese Popular Songs

Code-switching is a kind of special language phenomenon.Broadly speaking,it refers to the language use in which people choose expressions from two or more languages,two or more dialects or different styles in a language.Since the 1970 s,code-switching studies in the west have begun to become more systematic.There are a lot of achievements in social linguistics,pragmatics,syntax,psycho-linguistics,conversational analysis and so on.But the domestic study of code-switching has started in recent years.Most empirical studies focus on Chinese-English code-switching in news reports,campus life,variety shows and literature.This study addresses the gap by exploring the Chinese-English code-switching in Chinese popular songs in the Chinese mainland.The author adopts Myers-Scotton's matrix language frame model and Jef Verschueren's adaptation theory to analyze the language structure and pragmatic functions of Chinese-English code-switching.The author also analyzes the frequency of code-switching in different periods,longitudinal features and factors causing the change of code-switching.According to the analysis of 585 Chinese popular songs which contain Chinese-English code-switching from 1991 to 2015,the author finds that: 1)in the structure of lyrics,Chinese is the matrix language,English is the embedded language,and there are 1324 instances of Chinese-English code-switching in total.2)In the type of“matrix language + embedded language”,English codes occur mainly in the form of letters or letter clusters and words.Words occupy the highest frequency of 32.02%;on the word level,English nouns occupy the highest frequency of 64.39%.3)In other types of embedded language,English codes occur mainly in the form of phrases,sentences and discourses.Sentences(31.80%)occur most frequently,the phrases(23.72%)take the second place,and discourses(9.06%)are the lowest.On the phrase level,the verb phrase and noun phrase occupy the highest frequency of 19.18% and 15.20% respectively.Interms of the syntactic structure,English code as embedded language,is restricted to the syntactic structure of Chinese language when embedded in the matrix Chinese language.The English phrases lose their inflectional changes and follow the Chinese syntactic structure and word order.However,sentence and discourse still conform to the English grammar and syntactic rules.The pragmatic functions of Chinese-English code-switching in Chinese pop songs can be divided into three types.1)In the adaptation of linguistic reality,the code-switching intends to fill vocabulary vacancy,conform to the principle of economy and construct the rhythm of songs.2)In the adaptation of social conventions,the code-switching is expected to avoid taboos and euphemism expression.3)In the adaptation of psychological motivations,the songwriters use the code-switching to pursue fashion,create humor and emphasize certain feelings.Besides,the author summarizes the frequency and language characteristics of code-switching in different historical period,and analyzes the reasons for the change of structure characteristics.