Communications in Humanities Research

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Communications in Humanities Research

Vol. 29, 19 April 2024


Open Access | Article

Pragmatic Motivations of Code-mixing in Oral Context among Local Chinese Employees in Foreign Companies: A Case Study of a Chinese Subsidiary of an American Company

Mitian Chen * 1
1 Peking University

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Advances in Humanities Research, Vol. 29, 300-308
Published 19 April 2024. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Mitian Chen. Pragmatic Motivations of Code-mixing in Oral Context among Local Chinese Employees in Foreign Companies: A Case Study of a Chinese Subsidiary of an American Company. CHR (2024) Vol. 29: 300-308. DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/29/20230890.

Abstract

Foreign company employees (FCEs, meaning local Chinese employees who work for foreign companies) have become a considerable social group in China. One of their salient characteristics is the language they use in their speech community: mixed language of Chinese and English, which is a classic case of code-mixing. Although some scholars have already noticed this phenomenon, few focused research has been found yet. Thus, this present research aims to look into this code-mixing case from an apparent-time, sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on the pragmatic motivations of this code-mixing. Accuracy, efficiency, emphasis, emotion softening and strengthening are the main motivations found in this case study. The present research also calls for more attentions on this code-mixing case in this special social community in the future.

Keywords

code-switching, code-mixing, pragmatic motivation, multinational company

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the International Conference on Global Politics and Socio-Humanities
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-365-4
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-366-1
Published Date
19 April 2024
Series
Communications in Humanities Research
ISSN (Print)
2753-7064
ISSN (Online)
2753-7072
DOI
10.54254/2753-7064/29/20230890
Copyright
19 April 2024
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated