It is found that bilinguals associate themselves with individuals from the same community in different ways. Seven circumstances of language use stood out, and affiliation takes place when one wishes ‘to exclude others’, ‘to maintain the
conversation flow’, ‘to adapt’, ‘as a result of the trigger effect’, ‘for solidarity’, and ‘external influence’.
5.5.1 For exclusion
This reason for language switches only emerged from the friendship group. In Extract 5-51, N was eyeing and trying to direct his friends’ attention to a man in the café. In line 1, having moved on from the previous topic, he continued in Sarawak Malay. After successfully getting T’s attention, N alternated to English to refer to the man more generally, but upon seeing how his friends were unsure as to who he was referring to, he reverted to Malay to specify the man’s shirt colour (line 6). With that, T and B instantly knew who N was talking about. For N, and the same applies to T, in situations where they are talking about people secretly and do not want the other
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party to know or hear, Sarawak Malay would most likely be used. In this sense, Sarawak Malay could be regarded as being exclusive to N and T, which is used to symbolise their identity as members of the friendship group.
Extract 5-51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
207 N: Summer term. Oh… nanga ya, nanga ya, nanga ya. 208 (look at him, look at him, look at him.) 209 T: Nanga apa, nanga apa, nanga apa. Oh ya ka. Huh? 210 (Look at what, look at what, look at what. Oh really.) 211 N: Not that one, right?
212 B: Which one? 213 T: Is it that one? 214 N: Ah… baju putih. 215 (white shirt.) 216 T: Oh counter ya.
(at the counter.)
B: No no, he’s still sitting down.
5.5.2 For maintenance of conversation flow
Extract 5-52 begins with H admonishing her son (Y) for his plan to participate in the 42 kilometres marathon. In making her stand clear, H went back and forth between English and Mandarin (lines 1 and 2), while Y kept to the use of English. The significant bit in this extract starts from line 6 when H replied in Mandarin to her daughter’s (X) questions in line 5. Subsequently, that elicited a response from Y, who also switched to Mandarin (line 7). As evident from the extract, Y continued in
Mandarin in his following two turns (lines 9 and 12), which was in line with H’s utterances in the same language.
Here, a longer extract is used to show the change in Y’s state, where in line 3, he seemed rational as he corrected his mother (H). However, as H continued to stress her disapproval (lines 4 and 6), Y made a full alternation to Mandarin in consecutive turns, which not only might have enabled him to associate more closely with his mother, but also to appeal to her by implying that he was aware of the side effects.
134 Extract 5-52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
245 H: I think 21 will be quite, just nice ei… ni de body zhen yang qu pao wu 246 (how can your body endure a run 247 liu ge xiao shi oh…
248 that lasts for 5-6 hours…)
249 Y: No, the cut-off point is seven hours.
250 H: No lah, cannot lah. Really too tired, too too that one, too… 251 X: Ni hui shu na ge meh? Qi shi wu sui de ren meh?
252 (Are you not better than someone who is 75 years old?) 253 H: Aiya, ni na li dong. Hui qu zhe bian tong na bian tong. Chei…
254 (how do you know. You’ll start aching here and there when you 255 go home.)
256 Y: Yi ding hui tong de… 257 (I’ll definitely ache…) 258 H: Yea la. He ku le.
259 (Why do you want to suffer like this?) 260 Y: Bu yao jin o… ( )
261 (It’s alright…) 262 X: He ku.
263 (Why do you want to suffer like this?) 264 H: Bu yao zhe yang ba.
265 (Don’t do this.) 266 Y: Jiu jiu yi ci er yi o... 267 (Once in a blue moon.)
5.5.3 For clarity
Extract 5-53 shows how the mother (H) accommodates her son (Y) as she switched from Mandarin to English for “ointment”. By doing so, the mother was connecting with her son by being sensitive to his language needs, considering the fact that he is proficient in the English language. As demonstrated in the brief extract below, such language choice normally brings about a good outcome as the interlocutor would have no trouble in understanding what is said.
135 Extract 5-53
1
2
268 H: No, I say, if, oh oh ni you dai dai ointment hui lai gei J ho. 269 (you brought) (back for)
Y: Yeap.
5.5.4 Trigger effect
Language alternation as a result of being triggered by one’s interlocutor does not only appear under the ‘Cause’ theme (see 5.4.3), but it could also be a direct way to associate with other speakers. In Extract 5-54, the wife (H) was recounting the conversation she had with an employee at a furniture shop concerning something W said. As always, Foochow is used to converse with each other, and in this extract, switches have been made to Mandarin. Here, the husband’s (W) switch in line 3 had been triggered by his wife who said ‘wife’ in Mandarin as “tai tai” (line 2), a term he would otherwise have no difficulty expressing in his first language, Foochow. Extract 5-54
1 2
3 4
270 H: Ni kau mui pu gen, ee hie jiak nerng gu kong, nu nu ni ni ni mama, nu 271 pu kong ni tai tai. Wo tai tai. Herh! Ma si ya li ni jia cho wa.
272 (After that you still told her, your mother, then you said your wife. My 273 wife. You are the one who made it up.)
274 W: Wei tuh mo hu wang kong a. Si nu jia kong tai tai oh. Wei dian wa 275 tuong uh hu wang kong.
276 (I didn’t say that. You’re the one who said wife. When did I say that on 277 the phone?)
5.5.5 External influences
For this circumstance, an example consisting of one line was used (Extract 5-55); and in this context, B was stating her beverage preferences. She could have uttered the second sentence in English easily as, ‘Not tasty/ delicious’, but she chose to say it in Sarawak Malay, which happens to be the language normally used by her friends for this expression. Hence, through her language choice, she was making a
136 Extract 5-55
1
278 B: I want this one. Sik nyaman. 279 (Not tasty.)
5.5.6 For adaptability
The following extract is an extension of Extract 5-37, with the focus again on B’s recount of what her mother said in lines 7 and 8. The switch that is the primary highlight here, however, is the noun “adik” in line 8. Taking into account the slim probability that B’s mother used BM to refer to her younger daughter shows that on B’s part, the single alternation was made purely because she was together with her friends. During that time, B felt that the change in language was fitting as she wanted to show her connection with the group whose common language is Sarawak Malay. Having said that, she also seldom hears her friends using English when mentioning their siblings, so instead of ‘younger brother or sister’, they would say ‘adik’, which was what B did in this excerpt. On the whole, B’s efforts of adjusting her language behaviour to her friends’ could be seen from the way Sarawak Malay is incorporated in her speech, which is normal practice when she is with N and T.
Extract 5-56 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
B: That day my Mommy beli cherry nak, and then macam… (bought cherries, right, and then like…) T: No I mean, tangan B. (B’s hand.) B: Oh. N: Oh. B: T pun. (It belongs to T.) T: Oh…
B: And then the cherry macam sikit jak, and then mahal so nya belah, 10 (was very little) (expensive, so she divided it)
for you, 10 for adik, 10 for Daddy. Macam ya. (little sister) (Like that.)
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5.5.7 For solidarity
Throughout the whole study, this reason for switching only came up twice. It is alike to the extract in 0, in the sense that it features the same words for the main switch (“Mei you” which means ‘No’), and the same interlocutors. Lines 1 and 2 have been included to show how the mother (H) is also a participant of this conversation. The point of interest in this extract is in line 6, where X who only speaks to her older brother (Y) in English wanted to affiliate with him by using the language, but at the same time, she also wished to acknowledge their mother’s (H) presence. Therefore, this explains X’s switch to H’s more dominant language, Mandarin, at the beginning of line 6 which was so that H knew she was still part of their conversation. From this short extract, there is a clear pattern of language use between these three speakers; the mother (H) and daughter’s (X) primary language is Mandarin, while with X’s older brother (Y), it is English. Although the Mandarin switch (line 6) has been singled out due to its markedness, if viewed from another perspective, X was also showing solidarity with Y when she chose to alternate back to English to answer his question in line 5. If X did complete the rest of her sentence in Mandarin (“Mei you, tai duo
ren”), then it could be said that the switch was made solely for their mother as
English is the unmarked choice for X and Y. Extract 5-57 1 2 3 4 5 6 280 X: Even L su ni ah…
281 (can’t beat you…)
282 H: Bu neng, mei you, mei you, mei you ke neng. 283 (Cannot, no, no, impossible.)
284 X: But L said on the way, on her way back, right, she also started walking. 285 Walked all the way.
286 Y: Why?
287 X: Mei you, too many people. 288 (No)