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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 962

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

A case study of language use and code-switching in Computer-Mediated Communication, focusing on MSN Messenger, in Taiwan

Authors: Huang, Li-jung Daphne (1); Shih, Kai-yi Stacy (2)
Submitted by: Huang, Li-jung Daphne (Providence University, Taiwan, Republic of China)

This study describes a language contact phenomenon – code-switching – in a synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), that is, MSN Messenger, among a group of Chinese/English bilinguals in Taiwan. The aim of this research is to reveal how different languages are employed in MSN Messenger and how different writing systems are used creatively to represent various languages. Five participants, including three females and two males, volunteered to participate in the project. The main data include a corpus of conversations between the five participants and between the participants and the researcher. Data collection started since November, 2010, for a period of six months. In addition, a questionnaire was designed and delivered to the five participants to confirm the observations made by the researcher and to see whether the description and interpretation correspond to the actual language use by the MSN Messenger users.

The data were analyzed in terms of (1) code-switching between different writing systems including SWC, English alphabet, and Chinese Zhuyin; (2) code-switching between languages including Mandarin, Taiwanese, Taiwanese-Mandarin, and English; (3) idiosyncratic and distinctive online features of English including versatile English letters, capital letters, onomatopoetic words, abbreviations, and (4) the socio-pragmatic functions of code-switching. This paper presents results of the distinctive online features of English used in MSN Messenger and the functions of code-switching in MSN Messenger in comparison with previous studies (e.g. Gumperz, 1982).