Language Choice in Multilingual Community Loo Mee Yee Remesh Dayanandan Pooveneswaran Nadarajan
Linguistic Repertoire • The varieties or codes that a person uses in his or her community • For example: Amin is a Kelantanese. He uses Kelantanese Malay (which is a variety/dialect of the Malay language) in his house. In his workplace, he uses the standard Malay in the written and spoken form. So, Amin’s linguistic repertoire consist of standard Malay and Kelantanese Malay.
Domain of Language Use • Typical interaction between typical participants in typical settings (Domains) • For example: Anita is a TESL lecturer in UPSI Anita speaks with the priest at the church in English (Religion) Anita uses standard Malay with her colleagues in UPSI (Administration) Anita uses English with her students in her classroom (Education) • The ones in brackets are the domains which influences code/variety used
Diglossia • Two distinct varieties of a language is used in a community with one regarded as High(H) and the other a Low(L) variety. • Each variety has distinct functions that complements each others • No one uses the ‘H’ variety in daily conversation • Example: Ramesh uses Manglish (L) whenever he meets his friends but in his workplace he uses standard English (H).
Polyglossia • Used for situation where a community regularly uses more than two languages. • The two languages are used for clearly distinct purposes or in clearly distinguishable situations. • Example: Karen is a Malaysian living in Singapore. Karen speaks Tamil with her neighbors who are Indians. She speaks English with her Chinese friends and she speaks Malay with her friends from Malaysia.
Code Switching & Code Mixing • The action of switching code/codes within a domain or social situation • Usually noted with obvious changes in a conversation with one dominant language combined with words, phrases or even sentences of a different language • Determined by various factors: – Participants, Solidarity & Status – Topic – Affective Functions
Participants, Solidarity & Status • People tend to switch to another language as a signal of group membership, shared ethnicity and solidarity with the addressee • For example: (A friendly conversation between TESL students in UPSI) Poovenes: Good morning Jack. How was your holiday last weekend? Jack : It was great. How about yours? (Suddenly Ramesh enters in their conversation) Poovenes: Vanakam Ram. How are you? * Also could be seen as ‘Tag- switching’ – Simple code switch for interjection, a tag or a sentence filler in other language which serves as an ethnic identity marker.
Topic
• Switching codes also occur according to:
– Topic in discussion: technical or chit-chat – Role/relationship to be intended in conversation • For Example: (A man meets his friend Azrul, a police officer in the station) Farid: Hey Zul. What are you doing here man? Azrul: Hai Farid. I just came to file a complaint lah. So, could you please help me to file a complaint? Farid: Sure. Please have a seat first. I’ll be with you in a
moment.
At first, the two men were greeting each other as common friends bumping into each other. But after that, their technical topic of discussion made them to code switch to a more formal conversation, between an officer and the public.
Affective Functions • There are certain code switch that is referential oriented and also affective oriented • People code switch occasionally to quote somebody or something (famous quotes) in its original language, to make sure the exact meaning and wording is conveyed (Referential) • But code switch could also occur where the it is used to express affective function (feelings) more than the referential (information) • For example: An Indian man is ignoring an advice from a Malay boy about his action of parking illegally in ‘OKU’ parking lot. Tengku: Sir, it is wrong to park at this spot if you’re not entitled to. Remesh: Poda dei!!! Mind your own business. (Walks out annoyed) The Malay boy might not understand the Indian word used by the man, but he could sense the affective expression of that code switch that shows that he doesn’t care for the boy’s advice and is angry of his interference.
Metaphorical switching • Switching between codes in order to draw association to both codes. Where each code functions as it’s own representation of social meaning. Where, the speaker associates or identifies the function of the language to a social meaning and uses it for that context. • For example: Ali is a Malaysian born entrepreneur. He uses both Bahasa Malayu and English in his meeting. • Ali uses Bahasa Melayu to emphasize his membership of him as a Malaysian and a member of the community. He also uses English in his speech to recognize his role as a entrepreneur and his knowledge and experience as a man of the wider world. • Ali does metaphorical switching in order to convince his audience that he is a reliable and trustworthy businessman, he does so by switching between codes to convey certain messages.
Lexical Borrowing • Lexical borrowing is also known as lexical switching where people tend to switch certain words, usually nouns from their mother tongue, due to their lack of vocabulary of the second language. • For example: • Mahmud : “ I am going to the pasar later. Do you want anything? • Here we can see that Mahmud has borrowed the word Pasar from Bahasa Melayu to convey his message. This may be due to the reason that Mahmud lacks vocabulary in the English language