Code switching in Korean-Chinese online chat

• Main Author: Piao, Zhenhua
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Code switching (Linguistics); Code switching (Linguistics) > Korean; Code switching (Linguistics)-Chinese; Online chat groups; Language and Literacy Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/3502; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/10340/viewcontent/CDTG004272_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Code switching is one of the most frequent communication strategies used by bilingual speakers. Korean-Chinese also use both languages in their online communication. Analyzing transcripts of on-line chatting communication from 50 Korean-Chinese- English multilingual participants in Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, the study examined the code switching patterns from on-line chat data which included intersentential, intra-sentential and tag-switching. The study also tested code switching functions from 25 internet online chatting written transcripts. Results indicate that Korean-Chinese participants prefer to use 15 types of inter-sentential switches that occurred between a turn. These include predominantly English to Korean, Korean to English and Korean to cognate-English inter-sentential code switching. Eight main types of intra-sentential code switching occurred mostly in Korean and cognate-English. Five categories of tag switching were found where majority are the English tag switching. The study also observed the use of cognate code switching such as Korean to cognate-English inter-sentential code switching, Koran and cognate-English intra-sentential code switching and cognate-English tag code switching. In addition, twelve different code switching functions were found where turn accommodation, style, discourse markers, emphasis were predominant. Meanwhile, person specification, question, topic shift, clarification occurred with moderate percentage. The high percentage of the style code switching function implies that Korean-Chinese-English multilinguals intend to make their conversation more interesting and lively. Meanwhile, most of the cognates such as cognate-English and cognate-Chinese occurred as a function of style. iii The study therefore provides evidence that code switching is a linguistic device which is also used for written on-line communication, even among speakers of more than two languages. Theoretically, the study contributed to Poplacks (1980, cited in Romaine, 1995) three types of patterns by specifying categories for each code switching pattern and added style function to Reyess (2004)s study.