code switching , Chinese international students in USA

CODE SWITCHING: CHINESE INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE

Code Switching: Chinese International College Students in

American Classroom

Suihan Zhang

University at Buffalo

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Abstract

In this paper, I examined the predispositions of code switching

(CS) among Chinese international college students(CICS) who

choose to study in English medium in classroom setting. My

results are quite different from the most pervasive factor of CS

(second language deficiency) due to a special group of subjects.

Effectiveness of communication between Chinese international

students and native students in classroom is closely related to

the phenomenon of CS. Through CS between English and Chinese, a

comfortable and academically beneficial atmosphere is created.

Further, students gain confidence and comfort by demonstrating

understanding and professionalism in certain circumstances. On

the other hand, the understanding of new input is enhanced. In

this paper, the inducement of code switch back to native language

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(Chinese) is traced back to three big categories: demonstration

of understanding, mediation and socialization. They serve Chinese

international students’ thinking process, increase confidence,

bring authenticity to conversation, avoid understanding gaps, and

ease classroom atmosphere. Yet all factors behind code switching

are in an inseparable package. One can accomplish several goals

during CS. Finally, I touched on the implications for educators

and institutes in terms of the common concerns about code

switching in classrooms.

Key words: codes switch, Chinese international college students

1. Background

In general, there is no agreed definition of code switching among

researchers. Due to its involvement of diverse branches of

linguistics, psychology, ethnics, culture, and so on, the

definitions are formed depending on different emphases in

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different fields, including educational settings, business

occasion, family communication, and international encounters.

According to Heller (1988, p. 1) code switching is when a person

mixes two languages in a single sentence or a conversation.

Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain (2005, p. 234) stated that non-native

students in USA switch to first language when faced with

obstacles in the target language. Some believe that code

switching only exists in bicultural society, however, the

attention has been brought up in code switching in foreign

classroom diffusively. The most universal explanation of it is

the failure of second language for appropriate expression.

However, as a foreign student in US, I could not agree more that

code switching is far more than a result of the Language

deficiency. Especially in my paper, the subjects are advanced

second language speakers of English, with at least five years of

English learning experience and two years of living experience in

America( Subjects are senior undergraduates, so they have been

living in USA for two years or more). Admittedly English

deficiency contributes to their CS but not as salient for highly

advanced speakers in this case. For them, code switching

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functions as a manifestation of understanding of input, agreement

with peers, and sense of secureness and belonging. College

students who acquire two or more languages demonstrate

interesting yet confusing phenomenon in classrooms. An estimated

900,000 foreign students were enrolled in American higher

education institutions this year(2013) , and about 235,000 of

them were from China, with a twenty-one percent annual

increase. Classrooms nowadays are mixed with frequent switch

between languages more than ever. During the last decade, there

has been an exponential increasing demand of systematic study on

various situations of code switching in order to facilitate

classroom communication. Given the fact that Chinese

international students make the largest portion of non-native

learners in American colleges, to understand the switch between

Chinese and English in classroom is worth a great amount of

attention.

In the past few decades, researchers have explored various

strategies and behaviors of switchers in bilingual linguistic

environments. Yet, my paper focuses only on one type of bilingual

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group in one setting: Chinese international college students in

classrooms.

2.Method

Participants

This study includes ten Chinese international students( five

males and five females) in undergraduate schools of Computer

Science, Engineer, and Education. They are all Chinese native

speakers and able to communicate on daily basis in English. The

four classes I observed and were Into to Media Analysis, Data

Structures, Transportation System, and Early Childhood

Theory&Practice.

Procedures

First ,The class observed was small class made of ten to twenty

pupils and one teacher. The observer sat in the back of the

classroom with permission. Five times of forty-minutes classes

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were recorded and Transcribed. Second, I interviewed each of the

participant face to face for ten minutes individually afterwards.

The questions included when and why they switched from English to

Chinese in different situations. According to students’

responses, I organized those responses into eight types. ( see

chart I)

3. Results

In this section, I am going to refer “why” as the factors of

Chinese international students’ switch to first language. In

general, the eight types of situations from participants’ self-

report of belong to three big categories of “why” :

reinforcement, self-mediation and socialization. However, there

is no total deactivation of one language and total activation of

another. The interweave of the two languages takes place between

single words, phrases or sentences. Proportion of English and

Chinese in classroom conversation varies, depending on the

content of conversations, interlocutor, personality, proficiency,

sitting arrangement and classroom atmosphere.

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The chart below illustrates students’ intentions of code

switching to Chinese in their original words in the interviews.

“Why” refers to their self-explanations of code switch.

Chart I

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"why"

I wondered if he knewI did not know the English wordsI wanted to show that I get the idea( I understand)I did not realize I was speaking ChineseI was memorizing my notes and the professorI wanted to be nice to Chinese classmateswe are friends(chinese peers)other

1 I wondered if he (Chinese peers) knew 8%

2 I did not know the English words 15%

3 I wanted to show that I get the idea (I understand) 25%

4 I did not realize I was speaking Chinese 12%

5 I was memorizing my notes and the professor 20%

6 I wanted to be nice to Chinese classmates 10%

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7 We are friends (Chinese peers) 5%

8 Other 5%

3.1 Demonstration of understanding/Clarification

During group talk with native speakers, English was used for

unity on a basic level. On the other hand, CICS switch to their

first language in the aim of demonstrating their understandings

of the interlocutor and class content. This type of CS is the

most salient situation and takes up the largest proportion (25%)

in the pie chart. Chinese international students created

comfortable environment by showing their academic ability (“I get

the idea”). Further, another goal of CS is clarification or

reinforcement. It was accomplished through repetitions in Chinese

when pausing and stuttering. CS functions for smooth

communication interpersonally as an on-record speaking, on the

contrary to the second category-------mediation, which is an off-

record speaking. This type of CS, due to language deficiency,

takes place more frequently among speakers of less fluent

(beginning, intermediate, and low advanced).

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Type 1, 2, and 3 in the pie chart belong to the big category of

indication of understanding and clarification. Here are the

general situations where CS happens:

1 Demonstration of understanding

2 Seeking for help from Chinese peers

3 Seeking the equivalence of English

To better illustrate the factor of demonstration of

understanding, the following is a partial transcript of the

recording of an CICS during a group talk in class( underlined is

his first language Chinese with English translation in the

bracket after):

I think I follow what he said. The benefits of digital media in modern society, we

sometimes can say what we think, the government cannot control it, it is like, um, a

freeway, free from the government . You know what I mean? We are not afraid of the

government anymore. I forgot the term in the article. (Looking at another

Chinese peer). 政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政政一，。（Before digital media, the government was like a janitor, but

now we can speak up without their permission ）. Anyway, in a word, the digital media

serves as bypassing the traditional gatekeeper.

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In this utterance, the speaker inserted one Chinese sentence

when looking at Chinese peer, followed by a conclusive English

sentence. Here is a transcript of the interview with him later

after class:

I: interviewer C: Chinese international college student

I: Can you tell me why you spoke Chinese to your Chinese peer in your remark after

Mark( a native speaker in the group talk)?

C: I did not want classmates to think that I did not understand what Mark said, that

would make me stupid. But I could not think of the English term to say it.

Plenty of this type of examples suggested the main reason of CS

for CICS was showing their academic professionalism, in another

word, to “look smart”.

2.1 Self-mediation/ Review

Chinese students murmured in native language for meditation and

review of their utterances. It is a subconscious strategy of

comprehension. Contrastive to the reinforcement of interpersonal

communicative purpose above, this is an off-record intra-personal

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procedure. In the field of social cultural theory, mediation is

a cultural tool of learning process during which second language

speaker internalize new information. In English classroom, second

language speakers of English unintentionally speak patchy phrase

and sentences in first language pondering thoughts internally.

Mediation serves as a checking tool to see if their utterance is

correct. Meanwhile it sends out signals of degrees of

satisfaction of language performance. It happens when CICS

murmured incomprehensible phrases in the equivalent Chinese. The

utterances were usually grammatically incorrect private speech.

Afterwards, they switched back to English and re-utter the

content immediately, only more accurately and native-like. That

was where the switch works as a buffering process of

understanding or self-clarity. Further, crystallization of

advanced input in English took place in self-muttering . In other

words, their simple mutter after the teacher is a transmission of

taking in the information as a secondary operation. Even outside

group talking in class, CICS are never quiet. The following are

types of murmuring in Chinese:

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1 comments and questions on class content

2 renaming (terminologies, names of people and places)

3 self-confirmation phrases, for sense of secureness. (Eg : “ I

got it” “ it sounds weird”)

4 detail elaboration( Eg: “ so, Invisible Children’s KONY 2012

video, was also fueled by social media, and has been shared more

than 2 billion times on social media” )

Here is part of a conversation between a Chinese international

student and me during the interview:

I: Interviewer C: CICS

I : Can you tell me why you murmured some Chinese when you were not participating

the group discussion or taking notes of the teacher?

C: I was just speaking to myself, and I did not really know what I was saying. But I felt it

is easier to speak to myself first in Chinese. Sometimes I felt myself more clear on the

topic after that.

I: Did you do that more of on purpose as a strategy or you did not realize you were

doing it (code switch back to Chinese)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&noredirect=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&noredirect=1


C: I did not make it happen on purpose. I guess sometimes my Chinese just came out

like that.

3.3 Socialization

It is a common phenomenon that in multicultural classroom,

students tend to more easily bond with the same ethnic group.

Halliday (1975), views code switching as fulfilling the

interpersonal function of communication In English-based

classroom. Chinese students have a pre-concept that they are

supposed to communicate with “one of them”, as a phenomenon of

group favoritism. Thus, there are cases where Chinese happens as

mutually showing friendliness within Chinese peers. They included

referring the utterance of the professor, asking for help in

English expression, asking for help for assignment and non-class-

related chat.

First, native language functions as brain relaxation from the

tension of speaking English publically.

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Maclntyre(1998) defines foreign language anxiety as the worry and

negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a

second language. Anxious students can feel distracting self-

consciousness when revealing themselves in the presence of other

native speakers. Therefore, Chinese interweaving with English in

classroom is a relief from the nervousness and anxiety of the

awkwardness of speaking English.

For instance, here is a transcription of the interview with a

Chinese senior:

“I feel tired talking in group with native speakers. My mind hurts. I felt I needed a break,

a break from English for a while. So, I asked my Chinese classmate about the

assignment, of course in Chinese.”

Second, switching to native language (Chinese) gains favor among

same cultured group and builds up friendship. The reason for the

switching behavior presented by Crystal (1987) is the alteration

that occurs when the speaker wishes to convey his/her attitude to

the listener. Therefore in this case, CICS show their preference

towards compatriots by switching language. It is an

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understandable cultural phenomenon. This kind of with-in group

interaction provided them with identity secureness.

4. Implications

For educators and policymakers, to understand the situations and

reasons of code switching to native language, in this case,

Chinese, facilitates classroom running. Teachers do not need to

panic about the unknown language in classroom.

First, there is no need to regard the occurrence of Chinese in

classroom is a signal of the loss of attention. There have been

reflections from native teachers that they are confused and try

to get attention when they hear a second language in classroom.

The negative link between students’ involvement and the frequency

of native language is fallacy. The positive influence from switch

to native language benefits smooth classroom communication.

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Besides, non-native speakers use first language as a defensive

mechanism for communicative fluency.

Second, “don’t talk to your neighbors” is a frequent phrase by

teachers. Though this case is centered in Chinese international

college students, it is worth considering that if this type of

restriction of native languange objects classroom communication

amongst younger multilingual students. A growing body of

researches have high lightened that pluralingual interaction may

also be a resource facilitating the construction of non-language

knowledge( Gajo 2007). On the other hand, code switching easily

escapes teachers’ eyes yet functions significantly as a path of

collective learning. In this case, collective learning happened

among Chinese students during confirming, reiteration, and

reinforcement. Peer assistance and development for multilingual

students requires code switching during collective interactions.

For teachers, “talk to your neighbors” might work more

efficiently.

Smoother international communication in educational settings

needs a comfortable atmosphere for speakers. Native Chinese

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speakers gain confidence and assurance during peer talks in

native language. Through switch to Chinese, the purposes of

reinforcement and mediation are accomplished, only implicitly.

Moreover, the socialization function of native language in

classroom is inevitable. It matches the initial purpose of

diverse cultural backgrounds of international colleges. How to

balance cultural bonding and assimilation in educational setting

is a weighing math problem for schools and educators.

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References

Crystal, D. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.

Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Gajo, Laurent. 2007. Linguistic Knowledge and Subject Knowledge:

How Does Bilingualism Contribute to Subject Development?

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 10(5): 563-581

Heller, M. ed., 1988. Code-switching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic

Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Liebscher, G. and Dailey-O’Cain, J., 2005. Learner Code-switching

in the Content-Based Foreign Language Classroom. The Modern

Language Journal [e-journal] 89. Available through: Academic Search

Elite. [Accessed 4 November 2010].

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Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the

Development of Language. London: Edward Arnold

Maclntyre, P. D. (1998), Language anxiety, A review of the

research for language teachers. In D.

J. Young (Ed.), Affect in Foreign Language and Second Language Learning (pp.

24-45). Boston: McGraw-Hill

.

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