Motivations For Teachers' English/Chinese Code-switching In EFL Teaching For Non-English Majors

Under the trend of globalization of economy, interactions between nations of diverse cultural background become more and more frequent, so languages or language varieties are getting in closer contact with each other than ever. As a product of continual language contact, the phenomenon of code-switching has been arousing much academic concern from various perspectives. Within the framework of Markedness Model proposed by Myers-Scotton, this thesis makes a preliminary endeavor to investigate the socio-psychological motivations for teachers'English/Chinese code-switching in EFL teaching for non-English majors. Methodologically speaking, this study integrates the qualitative and quantitative approach to analyze teachers'code-switching in a more complete understanding.According to Jacobson, language is above all, as any semiotic system for communication, which only human beings can create and use as a system to refer to and express the objective world. Speakers can not only produce some certain meanings, but also make clear their purpose in speaking through the usage of languages. Being goal-directed at some level, speakers can be viewed as rational actors. A switch in code can convey important meanings over and above the referential meaning; code-switching in itself is not just a linguistic phenomenon, but rather a socio-psychological one. Specific code choices are directed by speaker's motivations. Because the English proficiency of non-English majors is different from that of English-major students, teachers'code-switching between English and Chinese occurs inevitably in EFL teaching for non-English majors. Teachers'code-switching in this study is defined as a kind of unmarked linguistic choice and a teaching strategy that can be exploited by EFL teachers to achieve some specific teaching goals.Utilizing the technique of classroom observation, recording and interview, the qualitative approach is used to probe into the features of code-switching in EFL teaching and teachers'motivations for code-switching. The results of qualitative analysis demonstrate that teachers'English/Chinese code-switching is usually initiated by the following motivations: code-switching for avoidance of ambiguity, code-switching for lexical gap filling, code-switching for topic switch, code-switching for emphasis, code-switching for humor, code-switching for translation, code-switching for status and solidarity, code-switching for generalization, code-switching for understanding-facilitating, etc. On the basis of the results from the qualitative approach, the following hypothesis is generated: As a common strategy used by teachers out of certain motivations, the application of teachers'English/Chinese code-switching in the EFL class for non-English majors is feasible, and a balanced use of native language and target language is realistic and useful for foreign language teaching. In the quantitative study, the technique of questionnaire is adopted to investigate students'evaluations on teachers'English/Chinese code-switching in college English-teaching classroom. The questionnaire statistics demonstrate that more than 50 percent of students take a positive attitude towards teachers'code-switching in EFL teaching, and four kinds of code-switching are specially favored by most students, which include code-switching for translation, code-switching for emphasis, code-switching for humor and code-switching for understanding-facilitating. The results of the investigation have confirmed the hypothesis generated in the qualitative study. The conclusion drawn from the present study is helpful to properly recognize teachers'code-switching in English teaching for non-English majors. As a rational linguistic choice, code-switching should be properly used to serve better for EFL teaching.Due to the limitations of the present study, it is worth noting that the findings and conclusion in this thesis are rather preliminary, which requires further research on a more general level.