JURNAL PENDIDIKAN TIGAENF 1998 JILID 2: BIL.

CODE-SWITCHING AND TRANSFER IN EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE

EXCHANGED BETWEEN FOUR MALAYSIAN WOMEN

Rekha Jayantilal
Unit Pengajian Inggeris
Jabatan Bahasa

1.0 Introduction

In multilingual societies like Malaysia, bilingualism is a common

phenomenon and code-switching is a characteristic feature of bilingual
interactions. Spoken and written communication, especially in the urban areas of
Malaysia, would baffle many a foreigner. This is because, consciously or
unconsciously, Malaysians tend to use more than one code in a communicative
event. I am interested in the subject of bilingualism and code-switching in
particular, for I am myself a bilingual speaker and I have now had the opportunity
to reflect on my experience and read research in this area. I am also interested in
achieving an understanding of code-switching in written discourse, email in
particular. Thus, I have chosen to focus on informal bilingual interaction in
writing because not many studies have looked at this phenomenon and, as far as I
know, there have been no studies on bilingual Malay-English email messages. The
messages included in my corpus for this study are of a personal and informal
nature.

2.0 Aims Of The Study

This study aims to offer insights into the characteristics of the code-switching
behaviour of four bilingual Malay women who habitually alternate between Malay
and English in their email correspondence with each other. They are both highly
educated women and predominantly urban Malays. This group of people often
code-switch intra-ethnically and inter-ethnically, largely in informal situations,
alternating between their ethnic language- Malay and an international language-
English which has official standing in Malaysia. The phenomenon of code-
switching among the elite in urban communities in post-colonial contexts has
been attested to extensively in the literature. Researchers working in urban
contexts in Africa have drawn attention to this phenomenon. The following
observation is based on research in the African context : (Agheyisi, 1977 cited by
Kamwangamalu,1989):

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Interlarded speech is a characteristic feature of most

educated urban dwellers and it is commonly used in
advanced educational institutions. This educated
elite of urban communities constitute a highly
influential social group whose values and patterns
of both social and linguistic behaviour serve as a
model for the aspiring masses.

(Kamwangamalu,1989:324)

It is with the above views in mind that this study aims to:

a) examine and describe the patterns of code-alternation in the

correspondence of four bilingual Malay women and to identify interactive
functions which the code-alternation performs.

b) interpret the socio-cultural meanings and values generated by the code-

alternation.

3.0 Research Approach

Here, I would like to describe briefly the nature and scope of my data and
the approach used for the analysis of the data. I will also include brief
sociolinguistic profiles of the writers in the study.

3.1 Description Of The Data

The data for this study consists of thirty-five, written email messages. The
source of my data is a friend, who is doing her Ph. D. in Lancaster University. In
order to give a more extensive corpus a number of email messages were collected.
The thirty-five email messages were collected over a period of three months
(from March to May, 1998). The messages are very informal and they are written
by four bilingual Malay women. The selection of the messages for the study was
based on two criteria :

a) a message had to have substantial switching in it and

b) the writer of the message had to be fluent in both English and
Malay.

Email is a new and multifaceted medium. It can be used for both formal and
informal situations and has the capacity to connect many people at the same time.

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Also, this new medium of communication has characteristics of both the

written and spoken genres. According to Lloyd (1996) “the advent of electronic
mail (email) has introduced a new mode of communication that resides
somewhere between the oral (speech) and the written (ink on paper)” . Email lies
somewhere along the continuum between spoken and written discourse. It shares a
common feature with writing since it is ‘written’ on the computer screen and, at
the same time, it is like an on-going conversation or a spoken activity because of
the speed of its delivery. However, unlike speech, email messages can be
recorded and kept in a file, if the writer wishes to do so. What I have established is
that my corpus of email messages has the characteristics of both the ‘written’ and
‘spoken’ form of communication.

3.2 Sociolinguistic Profiles Of The Writers

The study focussed on adult bilinguals whose language repertoire is

relatively ‘stable’, that is they are people who are neither in the process of
acquisition nor attrition of any of the languages used in their communication. As I
have already indicated, the data for this study came from four adult bilingual
Malay women. All the writers have similar linguistic and educational
backgrounds. They have all received education in both English and Malay while
still at school and in the English medium at the tertiary level. Thus, it can be said
that they are equally competent in both the languages, hence the use of English
and Malay in their everyday communication. In addition, all four women are
Muslims and are familiar with Qur’anic Arabic.

The socio-economic variables of the participants are controlled such that the
writers are all ethnic Malays, both educated and urban. The key writer is doing her
Ph. D. in Lancaster University and the other three writers are working in tertiary
institutions in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. The key writer is
related to one of the three KL - based writers that is, they are sisters. In this
correspondence, the intimate term of address ‘Klong’ (sister) is used to show their
relationship. Out of the total of thirty-five email messages, ten of the email
messages (or 29 %) are between the two sisters. The other two writers are close
friends of the key writer. The communication among all the four writers is
therefore informal. Also, I would like to mention, I did inform the key writer
beforehand of the nature and purpose of my study and assured her of
confidentiality. Consequently, all the names and instances that could reveal my
friend’s identity have been deleted. Finally, I would like to point out that the four
women writers in my study form a fairly homogeneous group in terms of
educational background and socio-economic status.

3.3 Approach To The Data Analysis

The data consists of thirty-five informal email messages . They are in

regular English orthography and in chronological order. The switches to Malay
have been identified in bold. One other interesting phenomenon is that there are
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switches to Arabic too and these are identified in bold italics. When parts of the
data were used for exemplification purposes in data analysis, the switches into
Malay were italicized and the translations were given in square brackets.

For the purpose of this study, the analysis of the data is based on the
approach developed by Gumperz (1984) and supplemented by others like Auer
(1984, 1991,1994) and Scotton (1993). Gumperz’s (1984) framework refers to the
conversational functions and the ‘we-they’ code distinction. As Gumperz
(1984) explains that in any particular instance of code-switching speakers deduce
what is communicated by an information processing procedure based on the
participants, setting and topic.

The analysis of data also draws upon Scotton’s (1988) ‘Markedness Model’.
Finally, Auer’s (1984,1991,1994) concept of ‘transfers’ and ‘contextualisation
cues’ at both the ‘discourse-related’ and ‘participant-related’ is also used to
explain the code choices made by the participants when they use Malay or English
as the matrix languages.

4.0 Data Analysis

4.1 Introduction

In this study, I have analysed the various stylistic and pragmatic

characteristics of language alternation that I have observed in my data. The
stylistically and pragmatically-motivated switches occur for a number of different
reasons. The nature and extent of this diversity is related to extra-linguistic
characteristics such as age, sex, social status as well as differences in the
relationship between speakers, their goals in their written interactions and the
settings in which the communication takes place. The writers’ choice of
interaction strategies revealed a dynamic connection between the language code,
the speakers’ goals and the participant structure in specific situations. Although
switches cannot be interpreted individually all the time, there are likely to be
recurring patterns in the ways in which writers draw on code-alternation as a
meaning-making resource. Thus, these are some of the pragmatic considerations
that I wish to discuss in the following subsections.

In Section 4.2, I will describe the overall style of the email correspondence
where the participants modulated between codes and then go on to describe the
specific recurring features, or ‘transfers’ in Auer’s terms. These features include
switching into Arabic, Arabic-Malay and Arabic-English for openings/salutations
/greetings, closings and other formulaic expressions. Another recurrent feature is
the use of English pronouns for the first and second person -‘I’ and ‘you.
Another interesting way in which code-alternation is employed is to describe
‘untranslatable concepts’ or ‘mots justes’.

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In Section 4.3, I will describe how participants manage interactive

communication in two languages. Here, I will look at the use of code-switching
as a contextualisation cue to emphasize a point, to quote someone else’s words
and to reiterate for clarification of specific items. I will also look at how code-
switching is used to signal topic shifts and finally in Section 4.4, I will look at
how code-alternation is related to the academic world of the writers. Examples
will be given wherever possible.

4.2 The Modulation Between Codes

The data consists of thirty-five informal email messages. The email

messages range on a continuum from a predominantly English code to a
predominantly Malay code. Twenty-four out of the thirty-five messages (or 69%)
are in a predominantly English code. Six out of the thirty-five messages (or 17%)
are in a predominantly Malay code. There are no purely monolingual messages in
English or Malay. All of them have some elements of other languages such as
Arabic, English and Malay. Code-switching is therefore a salient characteristic of
the data. A further five out of the thirty-five messages (or 14%) are characterised
by frequent alternation between codes. In some of the email correspondence, the
pattern of code-alternation creates an overall stylistic effect.

This is the phenomenon that researchers have referred to as ‘code-switching

as a discourse mode’ : that is the alternation does not serve any particular
pragmatic function. The overall effect is a stylistic one. It is an informal style and
a way of sounding friendly. The writer is also affirming different identities or
different personae.

4.2.1 The Use Of Idiomatic Or Fixed Expressions

In this present study, I have observed that switching provided the writers
with the apt expression which is often shorter, more succinct and more
expressive. As observed by Tay (1989), I agree that the degree of personal
involvement is a possible determining factor. The choice of code is based on
‘which code has the most colourful, most expressive and most economic way of
repeating or elaborating what was said earlier’ (Tay,1989:407-418). Writers
switch from Malay to use an English expression or they switch from English to
use a Malay idiom. Below are some examples to illustrate this motivation.

Example 1

The writer is describing what she will be doing in London.

Then we will ronda-ronda kat London and watch

Anastasia, a new Disney movie. Lepas tu I ikut dia
balik Croydon (where they live). This way, aku tak
lah terkial-kial find my way to their place. Rasa
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macam country bumpkin lepas kat bandar pulak!

[Then we will go around London and watch

Anastasia, a new Disney movie. After that I will
follow her back to Croydon (where they live). This
way, I will not be confused to find my way to their
place. I feel like a country bumpkin let loose in the
city.]

Example 2

The writer is describing her daughter’s growth.

Anyway, she’s grown taller since the last time you

saw her. Her shoe size is 9!!! Sahlah kaki kapal.
Actually quite scared jugak tenguk kat dia, elongated
macam French bread.

[Anyway, she’s grown taller since the last time you

saw her. Her shoe size is 9!!! It’s confirmedlah that
she has big feet. Actually quite scared to see her
growing, elongated like French bread.]

The use of English fixed expressions such as ‘country bumpkin’ in

Example 1 and ‘French bread’ in Example 2 add a cosmopolitan touch to the
writing. Also these expressions are short phrases and lexical items that are easily
transferable between English and Malay. At the same time, the use of Malay
idiomatic expressions such as ‘kaki kapal’ in Example 2 express the writer’s
intentions in a formulaic way. The expression ‘kaki kapal’ means having big feet.

4.2.2 The Use Of Abbreviated Forms Of Malay

Another pattern observed in my data is the writer’s desire to economize or

abbreviate. It is usually marked by a switch from English to Malay. In addition,
the use of colloquial Malay rather than the formal, standard Malay marks the
degree of friendship, solidarity and intimacy the writers share with their
addressees. Examples of such abbreviated forms of function words abound in the
data. In fact every email message contains some of these expressions. The most
common expressions found are ni - ini [ this ], dah - sudah [ past tense marker ],
kat - dekat [ at, by, in, to ], tu - itu [ that ], tak - tidak [ do not, did not ], nak -
hendak [ to want, to get ], yg. - yang [ which ] and mau - mahu [ want, get ].

These abbreviations do not affect the subjects’ understanding of the

discourse. They reduced the ‘processing load’ of encoding and decoding and in
fact enhanced intimacy and solidarity.

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In the next subsection, I will go on to describe code-alternation which takes

the form of ‘transfers’. Here, I will be using Auer’s (1984,1991) concept of
transfer.

4.3 Transfers

4.3.1 Switches Into Arabic, From Malay And From English

As Islam is the religion of the women correspondents in my study, some

Islamic terms are inserted into their written discourse. The writers often switched
into Arabic for openings or salutations when beginning their email messages or
for closings or endings and formulaic expressions. Bhatt, Barton and Martin-Jones
(1994) observed a similar practice in an ethnographic study of literacy, based in
Gujarati households in Britain. Some of the adults in these households were
Muslims, who observed a similar practice in the openings and closings of letters.

The two expressions most commonly used for salutations in Arabic are
‘Assalamualaikum’ and ‘Waalaikumsalam’. The first expression appears ten
times and the second expression is mentioned four times. These salutations are
equivalent to ‘Peace be with you’ in English. Some examples to illustrate this
observation are given below.

Example 3

Assalamualaikum (name)
How was your sojourn in London. I hope you
managed to get enough good weather to see enough
of the city ......

Example 4

Waalaikumsalam
Welcome Back!
Kalau sunyi sangat, datanglah sini tukar angin.
We’d love to have you here.

[If it is lonely, come over for a change of air. We’d

love to have you here.]

One interesting instance to note is when the writer uses both the Arabic and
English salutation together and the email is written predominantly in Malay, as in
Example 5 below.

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Example 5

Assalamualaikum dear (name)

Maaf kerana baru sekarang dapat menghantar
berita. You tahulah sistem birokratik kat UKM ini ...

[Sorry because I am only able to send some news

now. You knowlah (particle) the bureaucratic system
in UKM ....]

In the case of closings, the most commonly used expressions are ‘Salam’
and ‘Wassalam ’. The expression ‘Salam’ is used six times while the expression
‘Wassalam’ is used only once Both terms mean ‘regards’. The examples which
follow illustrate this point.

Example 6

OK, I’ll email bila balik nanti.

Love to (name) and salam to (name) and (name).

[OK, I’ll email when I come back.

Love to (name) and regards to (name) and
(name)]

Example 7

Mail me the Inter Library forms whenever you can.

My kisses for the children and salam [regards] to
(name).

Example 8

Okaylah (particle) gotta go now.

Wassalam [regards]

Other formulaic expressions are also written in Arabic. The most common
terms are: ‘alhamdullilah’ which means ‘Thank God or Thanks be to God’ and
‘InsyaAllah’ which means ‘God willing or if it is God’s will’. The first expression
is used four times and the second expression appears eight times in the data. Some
examples of these kinds of transfers are given below.

Example 9

The writer is informing the addressee that her work

is going on fine.
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My work is going on, alhamdullilah [Thanks be to

God]. I spent the whole of last week with my
supervisor (name).

Example 10

I’ll save my congratulatory wishes for (name) though

please pass on one to (name). You know (name)
sometimes the difficult path is one that is most
enriching. InsyaAllah [God willing] (name) will get
there: he just needs to go through a few more
hurdles.

All the examples of transfers above suggest that the writers are projecting a
Muslim identity in their communication with each other. This type of expression
of in-group identification can be attested in bilingual or multilingual communities
across cultures and languages (Kamwangamalu,1992).

4.3.2 Switching To English On - 1st. And 2nd. Person Pronouns

A major feature of the code-alternation in this data is the use of the English
first and second person pronouns in almost all the email messages. The women
frequently employed English pronouns to flag or downplay their attitudes towards
seniority and status. The Malay pronoun system is complicated and has
hierarchical connotations. The choice of pronoun is determined by complex
factors of age, rank and status. For instance, in face-to-face interaction, a superior
or senior might use personal pronouns when addressing a junior but the reverse is
considered unacceptable. The social implications of these choices are similar to
those described by Brown and Gilman (1972), in their study of the “pronouns of
power and solidarity”.

With the increasing breakdown of the traditional Malay society and the
growing importance of ‘achieved’ rather than ‘ascribed’ status, there is an
increased ambiguity in ranking and addressing people (Nor Azlina,1979). Thus, it
is easy to see why English pronouns have acquired such popularity and have
become such a striking feature in code-switching among bilingual Malays. By
inserting these English pronouns, power relations or seniority are neutralized.

This code-alternation on pronouns carries social as well as linguistic

meaning. It represents a rejection of the traditional hierarchical values signalled by
the use of the Malay pronouns. The frequency of the code-alternation could lead
one to the conclusion that these items are examples of borrowing rather than
switching. This is often a difficult point to resolve, especially with the single
lexical items we have here. However, the fact that the bilinguals manipulate these
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pronouns for social as well as linguistic reasons supports the notion that these
items are switched rather than borrowed. Whatever the reason for the switching,
this has become a consistent and predictable feature in bilingual Malaysian code-
switched discourse.

Conversely, code-alternation on terms of address may also be used to signify

politeness or to show respect to superiors or elders. In this study, two of the
writers are sisters, hence the use of the expression ‘Klong’ that is ‘Kak Long’
which means ‘elder sister’ in informal Malay. As I have mentioned earlier, that
out of a total of thirty-five emails, ten messages (or 29 %) are between the two
sisters. This expression is used twenty-three times in the ten email messages. The
Malays are brought up to address their elders and superiors appropriately
according to their positions in a social group.

4.3.3 The Use Of Malay Words For Culturally Untranslatable Concepts (mots
justes)

The writers in this study frequently alternated between codes for proper
names for food items, professions, clothes, organizations and buildings. When
there were no exact equivalents to a Malay word or phrase, the writers used Malay
to fill the lexical gaps. This occurred mostly in culture-bound topics such as Malay
weddings, festivals and other forms of Malay celebrations. The example below
illustrates this function.

Example 11

The writer is agreeing with the addressee that an air-

conditioner as a wedding gift sounds reasonable to her.

Air-cond. as hantaran [wedding gift] sounds

perfectly reasonable to me; better than jewellery
even!

The use of the word hantaran refers specially to the wedding gift given by
the bridegroom to the bride. Hence the writer uses this phrase for it describes
exactly what she means and it also establishes the solidarity since both the writer
and the addressee belong to the same ethnic group.

Example 12

The writer is advising her friend on what to look for in a marriage.

Both of you need to have space to grow and be

yourselves even when you’re together. ....... But I
think this is my quirk (name). I’m so used to being
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myself that I find it hard to be like ‘belangkas’

[dependent] with another person.

In both the examples above, the switched words have much broader
connotations. In Example 12, the word ‘belangkas’ captures the meaning of total
dependence on another person. Thus, the examples of switches here illustrate the
notion of ‘mots justes’ as mentioned by Poplack (1988).

In the next subsection, I will go on to describe how code-switching is used as

a contextualisation cue by the writers in managing interactive communication in
two languages.

4.4 Managing Interactive Written Communication In Two Languages

I turn now to the second type of code-alternation identified by Auer (1984),

that is code-switching. This is code-alternation where the point of return to the
original language is not predictable. Most of the examples below are instances of
discourse-related code-switching.

4.4.1 Code-Switching To Mark Quotations Or Reported Speech

In many instances, the writers switch codes to quote or report their own or
others’ words. According to Gumperz (1984), this is a common use of code-
switching as a contextualisation cue. In the example below, the code-switched
extract marks an instance of quotation, almost like quotation marks in
monolingual writing.

Example 13

The writer is reporting to the addressee the outcome of her

request for an extension to complete her studies.

Dia kata Ketua Jabatan kata you tulis surat tidak

melalui ketua jadi, ini akan melambatkan proses
permintaan you. What she suggests is that you write
to batalkan surat yang mula itu dan tulis all over
again this time melalui ketua dan melalui Dekan. Or
you could just wait it out ... for Sumber Manusia to
find the time to pull out your file and then ask Ketua
for surat sokongan. So that’s the message.

[ She said that the Head of Department said that you

did not forward your letter to her, this will slow down
the processing of your request. What she suggests is
that you write to cancel the first letter and write all
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over again this time forwarding it to the Head and the

Dean. Or you could just wait it out ... for the Human
Resources department to find the time to pull out
your file and then ask the Head for a
recommendation letter. So that’s the message. ]

From the example above, it can be deduced that the subject switched codes to
preserve the originality and authenticity of the message. The writer could have
restated the message in English but she did not. Perhaps she felt that the message,
which was originally said in Malay would not have the same impact on the
addressee if it was translated into English. The above example can also be seen as
‘personalization versus objectivization’. This distinction made by Gumperz (1982)
involves issues such as the degree of writer involvement in or distance from a
message or an addressee, whether a statement reflects a personal opinion, feeling
or knowledge or refers to a specific instance or whether it has the status of
generally known fact. Here Malay is the language that interprets the personalized
message and reflects the writer’s involvement whereas English is used to indicate
the objectivized message.

4.4.2 Switching To Mark A Topic Shift

In a few instances in this study, the writers switched codes to signify a

change in topic in the midst of their discourse. Gumperz (1982) says that topics
may be discussed in either code but the choice of code adds a distinct flavour to
what is said about the topic. Each choice encodes certain social values and has an
affective dimension to it. Sometimes writers changed codes to redefine the
situation from formal to informal, official to personal, serious to humorous. They
also switched to convey politeness or solidarity.

Example 14

The writer is informing her addressee about her daughter’s outing.

(name) spent a night at her friend’s place in Gastang

and she’s gone with them to a fair. I’m so lonely. Tak
tahulah macam mana nanti I cope bila dia
eventually leave home.

[(name) spent a night at her friend’s place in Gastang

and she’s gone with them to a fair. I’m lonely. I do
not know how I will cope when she will eventually
leave home. ]

The writer switched codes to redefine the situation to something more

personal. Here, she is expressing her inner most thoughts. The switch is probably
also used as a solidarity marker between the writer and the addressee.
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4.5 Code-Alternation Related To The Academic World Of The Writers

Earlier I pointed out that code-alternation was used in this correspondence to

avoid making social distinctions (for example the use of English pronouns instead
of Malay ones). However, code-alternation is also used as an indicator of the
socio-economic status, the educational background of the interlocutors and the
world in which the writers are living and/or working. This is because particular
social prestige is attributed to English. Nayar (1989), working in a South Asian
context, noted that code-switching into English from one’s mother tongue was a
sociolinguistic device used in that context to establish one’s credentials. An
example in my data to illustrate this phenomenon is given below.

Example 15

The writer is explaining to the addressee about her email system.

Sebenarnya my office server selalu down ....rosak.

Kadang-kadang pagi je elok. Tengah hari sikit dah
jammed. Kadang-kadang dapat terima mail aje tak
dapat hantar keluar. Sekarang ni dah OK sikit ...

[The truth is my office server is always down...

spoiled. Sometimes it is alright only in the mornings.
During the day, it gets jammed. sometimes it can
receive mail but not able to send out mail. Now it is
OK a little.]

The use of English lexical items which summon up an image of the academic
world of the writers in the above examples is quite a prominent feature in their
Malay- English discourse. One other interesting phenomenon is that all throughout
the email messages the word ‘email’ is used in English only. The use of items like
‘office server down, jammed, mail’ in Example 18 shows the increasing use of
English terminology especially in the spheres of education, science and
technology, not just in the discourse of these writers but in the writings of others
too. Nayar (1989:28) points out that English expressions are often more direct or
precise, less cumbersome or more elegant ‘mots justes’ in areas like academia,
politics, medicine, science and technology.

In Malaysia, English is associated with the registers of education, science,

technology, medicine, law and higher level administrative bureaucracy while
Malay is associated with religion, culture and custom. When one wants to sound
more knowledgeable or authentic or precise in discussing a specific topic, one
tends to mix elements from the language commonly associated with that topic.
The examples revealed that the participants were more familiar and functional
with English terminology than the Malay equivalent. Scotton (1993) notes that this
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type of switching is the most frequent and is characteristic of situations where

speakers or writers wish to present their more than one identity.

5.0 Summary And Conclusion

In this study, I have looked at bilingual, informal Malay-English email

messages and have attempted to analyse the various stylistic and pragmatic
considerations in written code-switching. Code-switching is neither random nor an
instance of individual idiosyncratic speech or written behaviour. It is not a
uniform phenomenon in that motivations to switch vary from group to group and
code to code. What I have observed from my data is that the bilingual writers
actively construct and display a dual identity in their most informal
correspondence with each other: their Malay identity on the one hand and their
identity as an educated person who is equally proficient in English on the other
hand. Code-alternation is for them a discourse mode which makes written
communication informal.

Speaking for the Malaysian context as a whole, I have reservations about

making a distinction between Gumperz’s notion of the ‘we-they’ code and
interpreting code-switching mainly along those lines. As can be seen from my data
the distinction between the use of the ‘we’ code for personal involvement or
opinion and the ‘they’ code for objectivity and non-involvement is not always
applicable. There are instances when the writers do not adhere to the ‘we-they’
distinction. In effect, the writers switch to English to express their personal
feelings and opinions. Sometimes they switch to English to emphasize their
personal feelings and opinions or even involvement in the message. As Martin-
Jones (1995:98) has pointed out, Gumperz’s notion of the ‘we-they’ code
distinction is too simplistic and cannot explain all instances of code-switching.

The code-alternation in the bilingual correspondence of the four women in

my study is like a linguistic variety in its own right, where there is smooth
juxtaposition of linguistic components from two separate language systems. The
switches do not seem to violate the syntactic structure or rules of the two codes
employed. The code-alternation is systematic and adheres to its own grammatical
and appropriacy rules, thus ruling out negative generalizations about code-
switching being ‘gibberish’ or ‘jargon’ often made by non-linguists Grosjean,
(1982:146).

In conclusion, I would like to say that even though this research was done on
a very small scale, there are resonances in my data with wider patterns of bilingual
communication among Malay-English bilinguals. Language choice is motivated
by socio-psychological considerations such as role-relationships, topics, attitudes
and values. Code-switching serves to negotiate meanings even in written discourse
especially when the writers are proficient bilinguals. I would therefore like to
recommend that more research work be carried out with regards to code-
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alternation, especially on code-alternation and code-switching in written discourse

in the multilingual context of Malaysia.

Kajian ini dijalankan oleh Pn. Rekha Jayantilal, pensyarah Unit

Pengajian Inggeris, semasa beliau mengikuti kursus Sarjana
dalam bidang TESL di United Kingdom. Pn. Rekha telah
meninggalkan MPSK dan sedang berkhidmat di Maktab
Perguruan Ilmu Khas pada masa ini. Beliau boleh dihunbungi
melalui e-mail: rjayantilal@hotmail.com

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