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Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies

Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and i...

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Main Authors: Treffers-Daller, Jeanine, Majid, Sheikha, Thai, Yap Ngee, Flynn, Naomi
Format: Article
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/101375/
https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/4/299
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spelling my.upm.eprints.1013752023-09-22T23:44:06Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/101375/ Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies Treffers-Daller, Jeanine Majid, Sheikha Thai, Yap Ngee Flynn, Naomi Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and informal situations, and the available literature reveals that there is a great diversity in switch patterns in this language pair. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Malay-English code-switching is the high frequency of switches of function words (pronouns, modal verbs, demonstratives, etc.), which is very unusual in most code-switching corpora. Here, we analyse the structural properties of Malay-English code-switching, which have received less attention than functional analyses in the academic literature on code-switching in this language pair. We first summarize the literature on the different types of code-switching that are found in a range of sources, and then analyze the code-switching patterns in the speech of two teachers of English in Malaysia. We conclude with a discussion of the variables that can explain the diversity found, in particular structural factors (similarity between the word orders of both languages, and the limited number of inflections), and bilingual optimization strategies, as well as strategies of neutrality and efficiency. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022-11-23 Article PeerReviewed Treffers-Daller, Jeanine and Majid, Sheikha and Thai, Yap Ngee and Flynn, Naomi (2022) Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies. Languages, 7 (4). art. no. 299. pp. 1-38. ISSN 2226-471X https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/4/299 10.3390/languages7040299
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
description Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and informal situations, and the available literature reveals that there is a great diversity in switch patterns in this language pair. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Malay-English code-switching is the high frequency of switches of function words (pronouns, modal verbs, demonstratives, etc.), which is very unusual in most code-switching corpora. Here, we analyse the structural properties of Malay-English code-switching, which have received less attention than functional analyses in the academic literature on code-switching in this language pair. We first summarize the literature on the different types of code-switching that are found in a range of sources, and then analyze the code-switching patterns in the speech of two teachers of English in Malaysia. We conclude with a discussion of the variables that can explain the diversity found, in particular structural factors (similarity between the word orders of both languages, and the limited number of inflections), and bilingual optimization strategies, as well as strategies of neutrality and efficiency.
format Article
author Treffers-Daller, Jeanine
Majid, Sheikha
Thai, Yap Ngee
Flynn, Naomi
spellingShingle Treffers-Daller, Jeanine
Majid, Sheikha
Thai, Yap Ngee
Flynn, Naomi
Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
author_facet Treffers-Daller, Jeanine
Majid, Sheikha
Thai, Yap Ngee
Flynn, Naomi
author_sort Treffers-Daller, Jeanine
title Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
title_short Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
title_full Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
title_fullStr Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
title_full_unstemmed Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
title_sort explaining the diversity in malay-english code-switching patterns: the contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies
publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publishDate 2022
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/101375/
https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/4/299
_version_ 1781706693983338496
score 13.211869

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