A Study On The Adaptability Of Chinese-english Code-switching In E-commerce Advertisements

In recent years,with the vigorous development of e-commerce,online shopping has become a well-known way of consumption.Therefore,the study of Chinese-English code-switching in e-commerce advertising,on the one hand,can not only deeply analyze the dynamic use of language,but also reveal many pragmatic features of code-switching;on the other hand,various linguistic,sociocultural and psychological factors can be reflected through the study,which is of positive guiding significance to design advertisements.As a general phenomenon of intercultural communication,code-switching has attracted wide attention in different fields.Scholars have carried out a lot of researches on sociolinguistics,grammar,psycholinguistics and conversational analysis,etc.But code-switching research from the angles above has limitations,thus,a broader and more explanatory theory is needed.Verschueren ?s adaptation theory is a pragmatic view to explain code-switching phenomena from most factors concerning language,socioculture and psychology in a full scale.On the basis of adaptation theory,Chinese scholar Yu Guodong puts forward the adaptation model of code-switching,in which he believes that code-switching as adaptation to linguistic reality,to social conventions and to psychological motivations is a pragmatic strategy used by advertisers to achieve communicative purposes.Based on Verschueren?s adaptation theory and Yu Guodong?s adaptation model of code-switching,this thesis collects 295 pieces of Chinese advertisements with English codes by random sampling at JD.com and TMALL.com.These examples cover a broad range,including advertisements concerned with clothing,food,shelter,means of travel and others;and involve a wide variety of products with high,medium and low price.To ensure that the data is accurate and effective,15 advertisements with grammatical mistakes are eliminated and finally 280 advertising samples are retained.This paper tries to use statistical met hods to quantify and analyze the adaptability of Chinese-English code-switching advertisements,and summarizes the features and motivations of Chinese-English code-switching.The results show that Chinese-English code-switching as adaptation to linguistic reality is realized by the metafunctions of language,such as reference function,emphasis function and convenience function;Chinese-English code-switching as adaptation to social conventions is achieved by advertisers to make the social distance between consumers and commodities close,to elevate consumer?s social status or to avoid social taboos;Chinese-English code-switching as adaptation to psychological motivations indicates that advertisers actively adapt to consumer?s psychology aiming at seeking identification,pursuing fashion and enjoying life.Theoretically,this study extends the research scope of adaptation theory and enriches the research contents of code-switching,which provides a new perspective for future code-switching research.Practically,this study is beneficial to the diversity of advertising language.The adaptation of Chinese-English code-switching can help e-commerce advertisers achieve greater publicity,so that code-switching can really become an effective advertising pragmati c strategy to realize the objective of e-commerce development.