The Functional Study Of Code-switching

Code-switching refers to the alternative use of two or more languages or language variants in communication.With the development of the society,code-switching,as a special language phenomenon and social phenomenon,plays a very important role in daily communication.Therefore,since the 1970s many scholars have attached great importance to study the phenomenon of code-switching from different perspectives,such as the perspective of sociolinguistics,conversational analysis,psycholinguistics,bilingual teaching,etc.and they have made remarkable progress.The previous studies seldom pay attention to the consciousness of code-switching,and most studies are synchronic ones,without focusing on diachronic study in their research,and the study of code-switching from the perspective of function is not sufficient.Therefore,based on Lyons's research of language marker in 1972,this paper tries to classify code-switching into conscious code-switching which facilitates communication and unconscious code-switching which marks sociocultural factors and changes of society,and constructs a framework of functional study of code-switching based on the context theory and interpersonal function.In this paper,code-switching mainly realizes two functions.The first function is marking function realized by unconscious code-switching.Speaker sometimes use code-switching unconsciously in communication,which reveals some sociocultual factors and changes of the society.The sociocultual factors consist of the characteristics of the speaker and the language,including the speaker's professional identity,education background,language proficiency and the reality of the language.As the progress of the society,language is constantly developing,and one of the outstanding features is the frequent appearance of code-switching.So code-switching marks the change of society.The second function is facilitating function realized by conscious code-switching.In communication,the speakers sometimes regards code-switching as a communicative strategy,and use it consciously to achieve facilitating functions.Though code-switching,speakers can adjust the role relations to shorten and alienate the social distance,identify social identity to display power and pursue solidarity,and express strong emotions such as excitement,distain and anger.This paper selects the examples of code-switching in movies,TV series,novels and so on.The purpose of the paper is to discuss how code-switching achieves the marking function and facilitating function in actual context from the perspective of function through exemplification.Code-switching,as a unique language form,appears more and more frequent in modern society.The study of code-switching will enable speakers to pay more attention to the marking function and facilitating function of code-switching in communication,and have better understanding of sociocultural factors.