Language mixing among Malay-English bilingual children : A case study in an informal art class / Farina Abdul Jabar
There have been many studies conducted regarding the use of code-switching in language contact. However, case studies on the communicative intents of switchers and the ends to which these speakers seek in a particular setting are few and far between, especially with regards to childhood bilingual...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2011
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| Online Access: | http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14925/ http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14925/1/TM_FARINA%20ABDUL%20JABAR%20ED%2011_5.PDF |
| Summary: | There have been many studies conducted regarding the use of code-switching in language
contact. However, case studies on the communicative intents of switchers and the ends to
which these speakers seek in a particular setting are few and far between, especially with
regards to childhood bilingualism in Malaysia. Therefore this research was conducted to
explore the functions of code-switching among Malay-English bilingual children as
described by Gumperz (1982), Halliday (1975), Kow (2003) and Malik (1994), via the
discourse analysis of two Malay-English bilingual children and identifying the
communicative strategies employed by these children in discourse. All the findings of this
study which were obtained through qualitative means (discourse analysis) showed that
children employed language mixing (with particularly interest in code-switching) to fulfill
several communicative functions such as to facilitate expression, to communicate meaning
when there is a lack of register, to emphasize a point, to imply semantic significance, in
response to habitual experience and as repetition. However there are limitations to this
research in that it could present generalized findings since the study will focus on a limited
number of children in a specific setting. The implications of this study should provide
educators with insight on their role in the development of bilingual curriculum materials
and construction of bilingual instructional methodology implicit in second language
learning. |
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