VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- DƢƠNG THỊ HỒNG THẮM AN INVESTIGATION INTO CODE SWITCHING ON FACEBOOK SOCIAL NETWORK BY ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE BILINGUAL USERS IN THE AUTHOR’S FRIEND LIST FROM SOCIO-LINGUISTIC APPROACH (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ HIỆN TƢỢNG CHUYỂN NGỮ TRÊN MẠNG XÃ HỘI FACEBOOK BỞI NHỮNG NGƢỜI THÔNG THẠO HAI NGOẠI NGỮ ANH-VIỆT TRONG DANH SÁCH BẠN BÈ CỦA TÁC GIẢ THEO ĐƢỜNG HƢỚNG NGÔN NGỮ HỌC XÃ HỘI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- DƢƠNG THỊ HỒNG THẮM AN INVESTIGATION INTO CODE SWITCHING ON FACEBOOK SOCIAL NETWORK BY ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE BILINGUAL USERS IN THE AUTHOR’S FRIEND LIST FROM SOCIO-LINGUISTIC APPROACH (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ HIỆN TƢỢNG CHUYỂN NGỮ TRÊN MẠNG XÃ HỘI FACEBOOK BỞI NHỮNG NGƢỜI THÔNG THẠO HAI NGOẠI NGỮ ANH-VIỆT TRONG DANH SÁCH BẠN BÈ CỦA TÁC GIẢ THEO ĐƢỜNG HƢỚNG NGÔN NGỮ HỌC XÃ HỘI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr. Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “An investigation into code switching on Facebook social network by English-Vietnamese bilingual users in the author‟s friend list from socio-linguistic approach” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions. I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research. September, 2016 Dƣơng Thị Hồng Thắm i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to show my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I have sincere thanks to all of the informants, or the people on my friend list on Facebook for giving me permission to to use, analyze as well as cite their comments and statuses.
Especially, they were all enthusiastic, helpful, and gave me valuable answers. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, whose encouragement, guidance and support enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject and to accomplish the final version of the thesis as expected. This thesis would not have be possible but for my lecturers in the M.
course, namely Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân, Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến, Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ, Dr.
Ngô Hữu Hoàng, and Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn. I would like to thank them for their interesting lectures, devotion, assistance and valuable hints. Especially, I owe my deepest gratitude to my family, friends, and colleagues whose encouragement helped me finish this work.
Last but not least, I offer my regards to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Nowadays, with the outburst of computer-mediated communication (CMC) like the social network Facebook, or Twitter, English language gets many variables. One of the most interesting phenomena is that bilingual speakers usually tend to switch some words or phrases from one language to another during conversation or written form, which is called code-switching. This research looks at the status updates and comments which contain tokens of code switching and are published on Facebook site of its users in the author‟s friend list.
The thesis aims to investigate the types of and reasons for code-switching found in conversations between the participants, using the typology suggested by Poplack (1980) and reasons proposed by Malik (1994). Results show that instances of intra-sentential code-switching were dominant and the most common reason is habitual expression. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATIONS L1: First language L2: Second language SNS: Social network sites CMC: Computer-Mediated Communications TABLES Table 1: Breakdown of detected code-switching instances according to Poplack‟s (1980) typology. 25 Table 2:Breakdown of intra-sentential code-switching by syntactic category.
26 Table 3: Breakdown of other word classes. 27 Table 4: Switched nouns and noun phrases by semantic category. 30 Table 5: Switched verbs, phrasal verbs and verb phrases by semantic category. 31 Table 6: Analysis of sentence-boundary inter-sentential code-switching.
37 Table 7: Breakdown of specific reasons for code-switching (proposed byMalik 1994). 29 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration. iii List of tables and abbreviations. iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Purpose of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Outline of the thesis.
3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Code, code-switching, code-mixing.Types of code-switching .Why do people code-switch?. Code-switching and code-mixing. Code-switching and lexical borrowing.
Linguistic constraints on code-switching. Language on Facebook. 20 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data corpus description.
Methods of data collection. Methods of data analysis. 25 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS. Research question 1: What are the types of code-switching found in the data.
Classification of detected instances of code-switching according to Poplack‟s (1980) typology. Estimation of instances of intra-sentential code-switching by syntactic category. Description of intra-sentential code-switching by syntactic category.Nouns and noun phrases .Verbs and verb phrases. Prepositions and prepositional phrase.
Rules violated cases. Vocabulary transcribed from English into Vietnamese .The use of qualifier and to-infinitive. Vietnamese switched words. Extra-sentential code-switching.
Inter-sentential code-switching. 38 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research question 2: What are the reasons for the use of code-switching in general and in specific instances?. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further studies. XIII vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE English which is widely considered the international language and spoken by innumerable people has become the primary communication tool for many purposes. The ISO 3166-1 code lists 83 countries and regions with English as "official language".
(ISO 3166-1 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions.) At present, up to 1.8 billion people around the world speak English, thus it is the most widely used "second" and "learning" language in the world used for international communication in various fields like aviation, business, internet, science and technology to name only some. Therefore, learning English is now becoming more popular than ever before in Vietnam. One of the most interesting things to note is that for people who know English, especially those studying, living abroad or using different languages other than their mother tongue have a tendency to mix the two languages, i. English and Vietnamese, in conversation as well as in written contexts.
Code-switching, the practice of moving back and forth between two languages or between two dialects or registers of the same language, therefore is inevitable and sometimes unconscious, especially when people, especially youngsters, join social networks. For example, it is not surprising to see a status update on Facebook which contains switched words, phrases, or sentences. Moreover, the frequency of finding code-switching practice on Facebook sites is quite high and the influence of language use on Facebook users is becoming much greater. Therefore, this thesis aims to provide some background knowledge about the patterns of code switching used on Facebook, the reasons why bilinguals code-switch and lay foundation for further studies.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Nowadays, when English is required as a second language in our society, Code Switching occurs in every field of daily life: from daily conversation to news, interview, discussion on television, on radio as well as newspapers, magazines and so on. The special phenomenon had been previously researched as the matter of bilingualism. Therefore, once choosing and carrying out this study, I have two main objectives as follows: 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. To find out what type of code-switching is most commonly used by English- Vietnamese bilinguals in the author‟s friend list.
To investigate the reasons for code-switching. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The study aims at seeking answers to the following questions: 1. What are the types of code-switching in bilinguals‟ Facebook status updates and comments? 2. What are the reasons for the use of code-switching in general and specific instances? 1.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Sociolinguistics studies the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why people speak differently in different social contexts, and concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the way it is used to convey social meaning. Examining the way people use language in different social contexts provides a wealth of relationships in a community and the way people signal aspects of their social identity through their language. Moreover, in a bilingual or multilingual society, it is normal for people to be in the situation where a change between two or more languages has to be made.
That phenomenon is called code-switching. For bilingual speakers, code-switching is a valuable tool for various reasons. The alternation between two languages in the form code switching is widely observed in many settings and in many speech communities. However, it is an under-researched and rather new issue on Facebook which the paper attempts to look into.
Thus, once completed, its outcome may offer benefits to entities involved, namely English-Vietnamese bilinguals, linguists and teachers in general; and Facebook users who are in favor of code-switching, in particular. This study partly helps them to get better understanding of code switching, the phenomenon that they often use but have little idea about. Moreover, the study helps find out the practice of switching between the two languages Vietnamese and English, how these users employ code switching mechanism to organize, enhance and smoothen their writings. More importantly, the paper helps figure out the reasons why Facebook users code-switch.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In addition, researchers of the related fields can use the current paper for reference and carry out further and deeper investigation as it will add to the existing literature on code-switching, specifically on computer-mediated written form. It is important as bilinguals will then be aware of the phenomenon that may occur during online communication via social net-working websites such as Facebook. SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study focuses on the phenomenon of code-switching used on Facebook sites of ten bilinguals in the author‟s friend list. Although there are several applications for Facebook users to communicate on this social network such as private and public message, status, comment, note, chat, voice and video call and so on, some of them are hard to elicit.
As a result, only status updates and comments have been taken into consideration, which means this work only examines patterns of code- switching in written form. OUTLINE OF THE THESIS The rest of the study consists of four chapters which are as follows. Chapter two, Theoretical Background, reviews prominent literature directly relevant to the topic being discussed. Chapter three, Methodology, presents the methods used for data collection and data analysis as well as justification for these methods.
Chapter three is followed by the fourth chapter, Results and Discussion, in which the findings of the study are discussed to answer the research questions. Finally in chapter five, recapitulation of the whole study is presented before limitations of the study; suggestions for further studies and a conclusion are given. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW A-THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2. Code, code-switching, code-mixing 2.
Code The term “code” is used by sociolinguists as a less popular name for “variety of language”, or just “variety” for short, which can be defined as “a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution” (Hudson, 1996, p. The very general notion “variety” includes languages, dialects and registers (Hudson, 1996).