The Study On The Adaptability Of English/Korean Code-switching

This thesis is a pragmatic analysis of English/Korean code-switching, which is understood as a realization of human beings' adaptation to the general purpose of the successful communication and survival in the long run. The focus of this study is to make a detailed analysis of the pragmatic functions that the English/Korean code-switching can fulfill and testify the validity and feasibility of the Adaptation Model.The present paper generalizes the existing literature on the study of code-switching from many perspectives. Some of the studies have exposed the linguistic constraints on code-switching from the pure linguistic point of view, but they are too superficial to reveal the profound motivations under the cover of syntactic constraints. Some other studies have put the social and cognitive factors into the research of code-switching from the sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic aspects. But they are still not completely satisfactory as a mature research paradigm. Although the conversation analysis approach has added the dynamics of communication to the study, it's more descriptive than interpretative and fails to give us convincing explanations only by means of the structural analysis. Only Yu Guodong's Adaptation Model from pragmatic approach is more covering and revealing because it makes full use of the existing theoretical, methodological and terminological diversity.The theoretical model of the present study is the AdaptationModel based on Jef Verschueren's theory of linguistic adaptation (1999). In terms of the general framework of the communication study from a pragmatic perspective, code-switching is defined as a kind of language choice and a communicative strategy that can be applied by bilinguals to realize some of their communicative aims.In the analysis of the adaptability of code-switching, the various pragmatic functions that the English/Korean code-switching can perform are explored. The Adaptation principle is testified to be an important pragmatic principle in interpreting human being's language use because the communication is a rather dynamic process, and all the choices are made according to highly flexible principles instead of form-function correlations. This can prove the negotiability of English/Korean code-switching. The code-switching manifested in the linguistic units and discourse types involved in the performance of the English/Korean code-switching can testify the variability of the code-switching. Through the analysis of the data, A conclusion can be drawn, that is the English/Korean code-switching can be used as a realization of the adaptation to the linguistic context, the social conventions and the psychological motivations.Linguistic reality is the first factor to which the communicator must make adaptation, because it can provide the source for the communicator to make language choice. The adaptation to the linguistic context includes the adaptation to the linguistic cohesion and sequencing. The cohesive and sequencing means are employed to realize the textual and the semantic correlation in the English/Koreancode-switching.The social convention is the second factor to which the communicator must make adaptation, because communicators are socialized individuals and their behaviors naturally have to be in agreement with social expectations. English/Korean code-switching is also made as an adaptation to obey social conventions. Korean is a language which has honorific forms but English is an egalitarian language which has no honorific forms. According to the Korean social conventions in language use, the honorific form of Korean must be used to show the respect in the formal situation or when talking to the senior. Therefore, in English/Korean code-switching the correct language choice must be made to ensure the success of communication.The psychological motivation is also one of the factors to which communicators must adapt in communication, because communicators normally enter communication with a certain motive that will control or at least influence the commun...