An Analysis Of Code-switching In WeChat Communication Among English Majors

With the coming of Internet era,computer-mediated communication(CMC)has become an integral part of people's daily life.As a result,language use in computer-mediated communication has drawn scholars attention,especially code-switching has become a focus of researchers in linguistics.In linguistics,the main approaches to the analysis of code-switching are psycholinguistic approach,sociolinguistic approach,grammatical approach and conversational analysis approach.The thesis is a preliminary investigation of the phenomenon of code-switching in WeChat communication by approach of sociolinguistic,there are three questions:(1)how many linguistic forms of code-switching mainly occur in WeChat communication,which form occurs most frequently?(2)What structure patterns do frequently occurring code-switching take?(3)How do English majors utilize the frequently occurring code-switching to realize the social motivation of code-switching in WeChat communication?The subjects of the thesis are the English majors,because they can better meet the need of bilingual community and prerequisite for code-switching.Thus the data collection is from the WeChat friend circle of English majors.Concerning methodology,the study is of a qualitative study,a quantitative research method is assisted in a qualitative research method in order to present a more objective analysis of the data.The theoretical framework of the thesis are based on Thamson's typology(2001)and Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model Theory(1998,2001).In terms of linguistic form and structural pattern of code-switching,Thamson's typology is adopted,according to Thamson(2001),the structural patterns of code-switching in WeChat communication can be divided into intra-sentential switching and inter-sentential switching,intrasentential switching can be subdivided into morpheme switching,letter switching,word switching and phrase switching.In terms of social motivation,Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model Theory is adopted.According to Markedness Model Theory,social motivations of code-switching can be classified as follows: code-switching as a sequence of unmarked choices,code-switching as the unmarked choice,codeswitching as a marked choice,code-switching as an exploratory choice.The thesis is centered on the social motivation of code-switching as the unmarked choice and social motivation of code-switching as a marked choice.The findings of the thesis are as follows: first,there mainly exist five linguistic forms of codeswitching in WeChat communication among English majors,namely,code-switching between Chinese and English,local dialect and Mandarin,local dialect and English,CMC cues and Chinese,CMC cues and English.The switching between Chinese and English is the frequently occurring code-switching in WeChat communication among English majors;second,in terms of structural patterns of code-switching,the frequency of intra-sentential switching is higher than the frequency of inter-sentential switching,among intra-sentential switching,the frequency of word switching is the highest;third,concerning social motivation of code-switching in WeChat communication among English majors,eight specific social motivations of code-switching are identified in the thesis,namely,the use of unmarked code for clarification,citation and principle of economy;the use of marked code for humor,agreement,gap-filling,personalization and tone-softening.Suggestions for further studies are listed as follows: first,participants in the study can be expanded to non-English majors,the contrastive study can be made between English majors and non-English majors;second,the study is on the analysis of written form of code-switching,the spoken forms of code-switching could be included in further studies;third,further studies can be made in quantitative method or mixed method so as to present more objective and scientific analysis of code-switching.