Peluasan penggunaan pilihan bahasa dalam wacana formal pengalaman masyarakat Malaysia

Abstract

Recent observations at formal meetings in Malaysia seem to suggest that in addition to the monolingual speech in bahasa Melayu, a bilingual variety of Malay-English discourse can be identified as an option considered appropriate for linguistic intercourse in some situations. Some Malaysian researchers have referred facetiously to such speech as Holey English when the English language used contains a series of holes that are filled with Malay words, phrases or even entire sentences. Others have labeled it bahasa rojak (broken language) when the Malay language exhibits English insertions of various kinds. In addition, the English variety used shows signs of nativization, hereby pointing to the presence of a number of mesolectal features. Whereas the occurrence of mixed language is a common phenomenon in formal speech all over the world, it is unusual to occur informal situations. Code alternation is best viewed as a continuum that stretches from the occurrence of loan words to the insertions of entire sentence blocks. This article reports on a recent project on code switched speech informal settings in Malaysia.