A Research On Code-switching In Amy Tan's Novels

Code-switching, as a natural consequence of frequent language contact, has been a central part of analysis since about 1970 s. A good deal of studies at home and abroad have been carried out in details with various focuses from different perspectives. According to the aspects they concentrate on, all the code-switching studies fall into five categories: the grammatical, the sociolinguistic, the psychological, the conversational analysis and the pragmatic ones. Among the list of the five, the pragmatic approach is considered to be the most exposing and convincing one for the matter of fact that it takes all those structural, social, cultural, and cognitive elements into consideration. Therefore, the theoretical framework the present study employs is the Adaptation Model, which is developed from Verschueren's original model(1987) that is well known as a general framework of the communication study from a pragmatic perspective.The samples used for the code-switching analysis here are screened out from two of Amy Tan's most famous novels, The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife. Methodologically speaking, the preceding study integrates both the qualitative and quantitative methods so as to present a better understanding of how code-switching is used by the Chinese-American characters in the two novels. In terms of the qualitative study, under the guidance of Adaptation Model, the collected code-switching data is defined as a specific linguistic choice which is made by adapting to three elements, namely, the linguistic reality, the social conventions, and the psychological motivations. The code-switching performed as adaptation to the former two, that is, the linguistic reality and the social conventions, belong to passive ones, while code-switching as adaptation to the psychological motivations of communicators are active ones. As to the quantitative study, all the code-switching are systematically scrutinized and classified by the characters. Several tables and bar charts are made on the basis of the group classification, in which the structural features of the two generations' code-switching performance are demonstrated intuitively. Features such as the grammatical levels on which the code-switching occurs and the diversity in parts of speech that the lexical code-switching manifests are covered. The discrepancy in code-switching conduction as a representative of language use between the mothers and the daughters could be clearly presented by the visual comparison which lays a foundation for the further identity analysis.On the ground of all these indispensable factors, the following major findings of the code-switching structural features are made:(1) The one type of Chinese-English code-switching in Tan's novels is actually presented in four forms: code-switching between Chinese dialect and Standard English; code-switching between Standard English and Pidgin English, code-switching between Chinese pinyin and Pidgin English, and code-switching between Standard English and Chinese pinyin.(2) The code-switching in The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife could occur at word level, phrase level, sentence level, as well as discourse level among which the lexical level takes an overwhelming higher percentage of frequency.(3) The lexical code-switching is concerned with eight categories, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, interjections, numerals, classifiers, and onomatopoeias, among which nouns take the highest percentage of frequency.The significance of the code-switching study in The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife could be illustrated from several aspects. Firstly, by analyzing the language usage, especially the code-switching performance so as to deconstruct the characters' ethnic identity, a new perspective of studying Chinese-American literary works is introduced. Secondly, figuring out what code-switching as a means of communicative strategy realizes could help the readers to achieve a better understanding of the authors' intention. Thirdly, as has been demonstrated, pinyin as a distinct characteristic of Chinese could be used to spread the Chinese culture, which provides a new thought to the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.