Bilingualism, Code Switch And Formality

It can be widely agreed that Brunei is a Bilingual country, and some speaker did even possess more than two languages. In this community, Brunei Malay is often the L1, while English is L2. However, Standard Malay is the country’s official language and it is widely spoken and written nationwide. The language often spoken at home is Brunei Malay. To add to that, code switching is such a popular trend in conversations, either in writing or speech. Code switching occurs in conversations with close circle, colleague, family as well as with lecturers and tutors. The following study will investigate the Bilingualism community amongst Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) students taking into consideration of code-switching in daily conversations as well as looking at features that determine formality when speakers use Brunei Malay in their daily verbal exchanges within and outside their social circle.

Code Switch

A study by Faahirah regarding code switching conducted in 2016 reveals that code switching of English in Malay conversation is high likely to occur than code switching of Malay in English conversation. The study is conducted based on a Map Task involving 40 female UBD undergraduates. Participants is tasked to explain two Maps one with Malay labels and one with English labels. Participants are voice recorded. The research also reveals that code switching in Malay conversation is often done unconsciously.

Bilingualism

A study by Jones, Martin & Ozog in 2010 reveals that Brunei is undeniably a bilingual community. Standard Malay is the country’s official language used in government building and writing but English is widely spoken in the country. The British Occupation in the past has been one of the heaviest influences that resulted the country to becoming a bilingual community especially in Education system of the country where up to this date, the influence of the British can still be clearly seen. In addition to that, due to the lack of skilled labor, Brunei has to employ expatriates to fulfill these jobs. This highly complement the Bilingual community in Brunei.

Methodology

To collect relevant data to equip the research, the researcher has chosen to conduct a questionnaire. The questionnaire forms are rolled out in a classroom in UBD. The targeted participants are UBD Students majoring in English Language and Linguistics who also at the time taking the module Research Methods. The researcher is targeting to roll out the questionnaire forms to 35 students. The responses will be anonymous. The questions are closed-ended questions, targeting the area of code switching, formality as well as bilingualism.

Results

Thirty-five responses are received of which 10 is from male UBD Students and the other 25 is collected from female UBD students. All of the participants have Brunei Malay as their L1 while English is their L2. The participants range from 20 years old to 31 years old.

Table 1.1 reveals that over 50% of the participants actually code switches all the time on a daily basis in conversations. Where 31% answer often. Meanwhile the remaining 20% answer seldom and sometimes.

Table 1.2 shows that 91% of the participants use Brunei Malay when speaking with family members. Only 9% use English at home. In other area, when speaking with friends, 69% from the research say that they use Brunei Malay, leaving the 31% using English when speaking with friends. Meanwhile when interacting with acquaintances, 57% say that they prefer to use English and only 43% feel comfortable using Brunei Malay with acquaintances. 95% of the participants say that they choose to use English than Brunei Malay when they talk to lecturers and tutors.

Table 1.3 shows that 53% agree that saying aku and kau with family members can be taken as disrespectful. On the other hand, the remaining 47% say that it is fine to use aku and kau at home. In conversations with friends, 77% respondents say that using aku and kau is alright. While 23% say that they are not comfortable using aku and kau when talking to each other. Meanwhile, 79% of respondents agree that using aku and kau to acquaintances, lecturers and tutors is disrespectful. But 21% disagree.

Discussion

Code switching

From the responses received, it can be seen that code-switching plays such an important aspect in conversations. People code switch with almost everyone. There are instances where respondents unconsciously code switch between Brunei Malay and English to non-speakers of either Brunei Malay or English. it is also derived that code switch tend to happen more in speech than in writing. This is due to the speakers’ conscious mind. Where in writing, speaker has more time to pick out the best words to use or to construct better sentences but in speech, speaker speak out the first thing that comes to mind. Formality Most participants agree that addressing self as aku and kau for others is often taken as disrespectful be it in a conversation with family, friends, acquaintances and lecturers and tutors. This also complements as to why most prefer to code switch in Malay conversation as they us ‘you’, ‘me’ or ‘I’ to address themselves and others.

Bilingualism

Bilingualism community complement as to why people tend to code switch in conversations. Most UBD students are bilinguals. Hence why code switch is such a tendency. Despite most classes in UBD are conducted in English, lecturers and tutors sometimes use few Malay words to further fit the lecture and to interact with students.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the study that bilingualism, code switch and formality is tied close to each other and that they all complement each other. Code switch is a product of bilingualism. Meanwhile to be formal in a conversation, code switching is brought in.