Abstract
Code-switching is an inevitable and interesting topic in a multilingual and multicultural educational setting. However, few studies in the United States have been investigated Chinese/English alternation among young students. This qualitative case study examined the code-switching practice among four second-grade Chinese-English bilingual students studying in a weekend Chinese language school. This study brings a new perspective to code-switching between an alphabetic language and a non-alphabetic language. The conversations between students, teachers and among students themselves were audio-recorded. Nine data collection sessions were implemented in class and each session was about two hours. Interpretative analysis was the main data analysis method. Four types of code-switching were found in this study, specifically, students used tag-switching, intra-sentential switching, inter-sentential switching, and borrowing. Five functions of code-switching were observed, declarative/question shift, crutching, translation, clarification/emphasis, and expressive. The research shows that in the case of Chinese American bilingual children’s code-switching usage for social identity, desire, expression, and emotion, code-switching functions observed in this Northern California case study are found to be similar to other code-switching populations. This research indicates that students in this Northern California case study code-switched less than other code-switching populations, for example, English-Spanish bilinguals.