IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jfr/elr111/v11y2022i2p8-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Code-switching and the Construction of Identity in Where Are We Going, Dad? Season V from the Socio-psycholinguistic Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoying Fang

Abstract

This study investigates the code-switching in people’s daily interaction in the outdoor parent-child reality TV show Where Are We Going, Dad? Season V from the socio-psycholinguistic perspective. The main purpose is to reveal how the social meanings of dialogues and identity construction enact in parents’ and their children’s daily interactions. Based on both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study analyzes daily conversations in different situations from three aspects, including speech accommodation, language attitude, and psychological motivation. The findings indicate that code-switching from Mandarin to English plays a more central role in the show. Moreover, code-switching used in the show is regarded as a language choice as well as a way to signify the speaker’s conscious shift of self-identity in a different situation. Language convergence denotes parents’ and their children’s adaptation to local environments and respect for local culture, meaning that speakers try to establish a common identity with the local people. Chinese and English code-switching has been associated with a shift between a soft one in Chinese and a forceful one in English, implying that there is a submissive self in Chinese and an authoritative self in English. The psychological motivation reveals the sense of belonging to the mother tongue and national identity of language users. Therefore, code-switching reveals complex ethnic identities, including the self as a show performer, cultural lover, father, or mother, which are consciously or unconsciously influenced by the speakers’ language repertoire, social background knowledge, and their intention of building ethnic identity.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoying Fang, 2022. "Code-switching and the Construction of Identity in Where Are We Going, Dad? Season V from the Socio-psycholinguistic Perspective," English Linguistics Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 11(2), pages 8-21, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:jfr:elr111:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:8-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/elr/article/download/22545/14104
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/elr/article/view/22545
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jfr:elr111:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:8-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sciedu Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://elr.sciedupress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.