English-Malay Code-Mixing

Innovation in Facebook Among

Malaysian University Students
Nurul Iman Ahmad Bukhari (UMK)
Azu Farhana Anuar (UniKL)
Khairunnisa Mohd Khazin (IKIP)
Tg Mohd Farid Tg Ab Aziz (UiTM)

Presented by:
N Nor Hanim Ayuni Baharom
819282

Background
Previous studies of language alternation in CMC
settings:
Chatroom, email, online discussion forums
The study investigated the occurrences of codemixing insertion of English morphemes into
Malay lexical items in FB postings by students
from a few universities in Malaysia
The areas include:
o Language alternation between Malay and English
o Reasons of English-Malay alternation

Introduction
FB has become one of the main communication
media used by university students
The spoken-written language on FB can be used
to identify code-mixing trends

Language alternation
According to Wei (1998),
Attraction
Emphasis on
points

CODE-MIXING
(Below clause level)

Register
Identity (Malik,
1994)

Speaker stopping using language A and using

language B-speakers have a genuine choice about
which phrases/words to be used
CODE-SWITCHING
(at or above clause level)

Research Questions
1. What are the areas in which language alternation
is achieved among university students, where Malay
and English grammar display lack of congruence?
2. What are the reasons for English-Malay language
alternation in online postings via FB by university
students?
LIMITATIONS:
Participants are selected based on their postings.
Only 3 universities involved

Methods
The data was collected from FB (80 postings
January 2011-January 2012)
through participants profile page
The participants were Malaysian university
students
Focus: ML-E (ain language English) with some
Malay
ML-M (Main language Malay) with some English
2 areas of lack of congruence between English
and Malay
o Pluralizations of nouns
o Verb inflections (-s in Malay Nouns and ing in Malay verbs)

Results
LANGUAGE
CLASSIFICATION

NO OF POSTINGS

ML-E

53

66.25

ML-M

27

33.75

There is predominance of English over Malay.

Students possess high proficiency of English that
leads to the alternation (McLellan, 2009)

Analysis
Plural Marking

Tokens

Malay Nouns with English plural s in 16

main language-Malay context
Malay Nouns with English s plural in 24
main language-English contexts

Examples of Malay Nouns with English plural s in

main language-Malay contexts
A) Seri pengantins nampak?
B) Aunty-aunty Yahs! Yey dapat baby boy!

 Examples of Malay Nouns with main languageEnglish contexts

A) Survey bajus for raya. Yey!
B) For those who are going to take convo
jubahs,-kindly please register with us.
C) To all my sayangs, congratulations on your
C-day!

Verb Marking

Tokens

Malay Verbs with English ing in main 21

language-Malay contexts
Malay verbs with English ing in main 19
language-English contexts

Examples of Malay verbs with English continuous

tense in main language-Malay contexts
A)Lepaking kat rumah kakak ku!
B) Merindu-ing him ini malam!

 Examples of Malay verbs with English continuous

tense in main language-English contexts
A) Enjoy lepaking!
B) I am not tiruing you!
C) I am not available for lepaking during the
weekdays!

Reasons for Code-Mixing (Malik, 1994)

FUNCTIONS

NO OF
OCCURRENCES

Lack of facility

Lack of registral competence

Mood of the speaker

14

17.5

To amplify and emphasize a point

44

55

Habitual expressions

Semantic significance

19

23.75

To show identity with a group

To address different audience

6.25

Pragmatic reasons

To attract attention

82

Emphasizing points
a mix at the end of argument helps to end an
interaction and emphasizes points (Gal,1979)
Semantic significance
Switching at particular position in a sentence
expresses significant information (sayang-s
dearests), makaning)
Mood of speaker
Tired or angry
Marah+morpheme ing
Address different audience (kawading)

Discussion
The insertion of English verb morphemes into
Malay lexical items is to emphasize points (55%)
where the Malay grammatical units lack of the
function
It does not reflect lack of proficiency of the
language users (McLellan, 2009)

Intelligence (Kim, 2006))

VS
Corruption (Thomas, 1991)

Conclusion
Code-mixing does occur in spoken-written
discourse similar to spoken discourse
The language alternation among university
students achieved is an innovation in areas where
Malay and English grammar has lack of
congruence
The main reason is to amplify and emphasize a
point (Gal, 1979)