The Code Switching Among Students

The Code Switching Among StudentsThis essay deals finis to codification- shiftinging phenomenon among students in mara College Seremban and the research question is Code smiteing wherefore has it become a wide spread phenomenon among students of MARA College Seremban?. The historical background astir(predicate) the government activity of position spoken communication in Malaysia has been provided and the term encipher-switching has been defined. In Malaysia, code-switching is happening among Malay and face run-in. almost(prenominal) students from the college return been interviewed to get their opinions about what ca engagements the phenomenon to be widely accustomd by students. therefore, seven factors that contri alonee to the phenomenon among students have been identified. A number of 30 students were given the questionnaires in order to get their feedback on how frequent did they code-switched in casual colloquys and to whom they mostly choosered to code-swit ched whether with friends, he atomic number 18rs or family. several(prenominal) motives why students preferred to code-switched in converse have been investigated from the questionnaires. Besides that, a survey about students perceptions towards the phenomenon has been successfully conducted. An example of dialogue in a convocation of friends is provided to show the code-switching happened between them.In Malaysia, Malay style or Bahasa Melayu is the earths starting run-in while face is the act lyric poem. As chip language it has its own impact on the Malaysian society peculiarly in communication between stack. Nowadays chats held between devil good deal or in a group atomic number 18 no long-dated using Malay language tot ally. Most Malaysians prefer to import almost of the side spoken language to expel their reprobates during parley. most slope course worry so, if, beca engagement, after, etc have been utilise by many Malaysian. Today, it is observed that to a greater extent and more teenagers ar riffleing the 2 languages unitedly.Code- switch phenomenon has widely spread among hoi polloi in Malaysia. Besides, the phenomenon has become more popular among the urban society in this millennium era. Beca office it is so popular, hoi polloi from various levels constantly use it in various occasions. From my observation, almost all young people in this country would code switch while conversing among themselves. They withal code switch in any and e very situations such as in assortes, restaurants, libraries and differents. Various lecture from slope atomic number 18 being used in ordinary conversation but they be not using English language altogether and because the phenomenon has become very popular among Malaysians it has raised my interest to conduct a research on it. I decided to focus my study on students of my college, MARA College Seremban . Thus, I come out with my research question Code-switching Why has it b ecome a widespread phenomenon among students of MARA College Seremban?.MARA College Seremban is situated in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Its students be currently undergoing International Baccalaureate Programme and Cambridge Advanced level Programme for two years and most of the subjects learnt atomic number 18 mainly in English.Therefore, the medium of instructions is English. Currently, this college offers foundation programmes for students under MARA scholarship who atomic number 18 pursuing their study in Medicine, Dentistry, Biotechnology, Engineering, Accountancy, Teaching English as encourage Language, and Teaching in Mathematics and Sciences to various universities in Australia, New Zealand, India and Czechoslovakian Republic.In my research, I have conducted a survey to students of MARA College Seremban to go out the number of students who usually code-switch in routine conversations. I have alike interviewed some(prenominal) students to get their personal views about this phenomenon. Besides that, I also studied factors that contribute to code switching, reasons why students like to code switch and how the students perceive the phenomenon among the society. I have prep ard questionnaires to 30 students in this college, age range between 19-20 years old. Through the questionnaires, I was equal to gets dish outs for my research. I have included the historical background about the English language in Malaysia and defined the term code-switching for further understanding about the establishment of English language in Malaysia and the code switch phenomena. to a fault , in order to identify the uses of English lyric in unremarkable conversations I have prepared several examples of every day conversation among Malaysians that involved code switching.Finally, through the research d iodin, I was able to prepare a conclusion at the end of this essay.HISTORICAL BACKGROUND- HOW ENGLISH manner of singing SPREAD IN MALAYSIA?English was fi rst introduced in this country during the colonial empowerment over Malaya 53 years ago before Malaysia obtained its independence in 1957. British empowerment had caused several missionary schools to be reinforced in several places in Malaya (Baskaran, 2002a). From pre-Independence days to post-Independence cadences, English medium schools were the first attempt at education, early(a) than the religious schools for the local Malay (Baskaran, 2002b). As such, English became a coveted language with the Malay language, and all otherwise vernaculars, taking a back seat as fluency in the language would almost guarantee a government position (Normala, n.d.). later on the colonial era in Malaysia ended, the teaching of English is continued by the government of Malaysia. The education system in Malaysia regards English as the snatch important language that should be learnt in schools. Therefore, the emergence of many individuals who are bilingual started since the pre independence ye ar of Malaya. Now, as the national education system in Malaysia make it compulsory for every school in Malaysia to teach Malay as the first language and English as the second language. The teaching of these two languages has caused a phenomenon cognize as code-switching to materialise among Malaysian. As more people are bilingual, they actually prefer to mix the two languages in many occasions. In this research, I will focus on students of MARA College Seremban. rule-SWITCHING- WHAT IS CODE-SWITCHING?Laura (2004a, p.5) writes thatCode switching is the use of dustup and social systems from more than cardinal language or linguistic variety by the same mouther system within the same diction situation, conversation or utterance. There are two different types of code switching mentioned by which is conversational code-switching and situational code-switching. Conversional code-switching is the use of two languages by the same coverer within the same speech event and situational code-switching as language alternation by the same let looseer in different speech situations, though the turn toers utterances within each situation are monolingual.Laura (2004b, p.11) states code-switches were used for reasons other than just to fill lexical gaps.Most students in Malaysia have the ability to communicate bilingually. Therefore, the code switching will occur between these two languages. Roberto and Jeffrey ( n.d.) also states thatSpeakers of more than one language (e.g., bilinguals) are known for their ability to code-switch or mix their languages during communication. Traditionally, code-switching has been viewed as a outline to compensate for diminished language proficiency. The premise behind this theory is that bilinguals code-switch because they do not know either language completely. This argument is also known as semi-lingualism, which underscores the notion that bilinguals almost speak both languages correctly.FACTORS CAUSING STUDENTS TO CODE-SWITCH IN DAI LY CONVERSATIONS.Graph 1 Factors that cause students of MARA to code-switch in daily conversations.The graph bar described Factors that entranced the students of MARA College Seremban to code-switch in everyday conversations.The first bar showed portionage of student go by their friends to code- switch in daily conversations. The bar showed that, 100 percent or all the students nurse that peer pressure influenced them to code-switched during their conversations. Friends is one of the major factors that influence the MARA College Seremban students to code-switch during conversations. Friends are people who the youth interact with most of the times.Friends plenty be considered to be the most influential elements in the youth world. Therefore, the youth is touch on by the culture adopted among their friends.The second bar displayed that about 73.3 percent concur that their own interest brought them to code-switch during talk of the town with others whereas another 26.7 perce nt dis concord. Several people are interested to code-switch in their conversations with others. They uprise the language interesting to them so they use it in multiple conversations with people. They believed that by practising they could improve so they dexterous using several English lecture and they averageally include the playscripts when verbalize with others. In my opinion, self interest is a drive from oneself without the influence of others to study and understand the foreign language that is English.The third bar presented that 66.7 percent disagreed English materials caused them to code-switch when speaking. However, 33.3 percent admitted that English materials have caused them to code-switch. Through reading, one can find many recent contrives and people who read English materials such as English novels or magazines everyday will find more new words through their reading. Thus, many like to use these words in their everyday conversations. Most of them believed tha t reading English materials make them to speak more appropriate English with less(prenominal) grammatic errors therefore, they speak it completely rather than code-switch.For the fourth bar, it displayed that about half of the students agreed that they are affected by English movies, tv series, dramas etc to code-switch when speaking while the other half disagreed. English movies, dramas and series influence their viewers from various aspects. Students are attracted to their way of speaking and mimicked them in their daily conversation. Students would find mimicking the actors or actresses free rein andentertaining. This is the way that it may influenced the students to act or use certain words in their daily conversation.However, other students said they are not affected by the English movies as the accent is hard to get along and students scarcely pronounce words like the US or British do. Besides, they run across movies for entertainment so they did not put much fear to the words in the dialogues among the actors.The fifth bar, described about 46.7 percent of students agreed that advertisings influence them to code-switch in daily conversations whereas 53.3 percents of them disagreed. Many advertisements in Malaysia use mix check into language to promote their products and merchandise. The advertisement use English with Malay language to do their promotions as for example Indah Water. This brand name belongs to a community in Malaysia. They used the word Indah in Malay and Water in English. Students would read the advertisements or watch it on television and the words or sentence used in the advertisement would be captured by their minds peculiarly catchy words. Many would use the words when speaking with people and so agreed that advertisement influence them to code-switch. Whereas there are students who feel that advertisement would not affect them as the advertisement promotes brands not words. They would remember entirely the brands not the w ords used during the advertisements.The sixth bar, presented that 50 percents of the students agreed that family influenced them to code-switch when talking with others, while the other half of the students disagreed. Conversation in a mix of languages such as Malay and English among family members influence the youth to speak the same way. Youth spend a lot of their time with family members. The language used by the family members most probably affects thestudents. Therefore, the way they speak would follow the way their family members speak because the time spent with family members is much longer than time spent with other people.The final bar showed that 90 percent of undergraduates agreed that the norm of the society influenced them to code-switch in daily conversations. Only 10 percent of the undergraduates disagreed. Most Malaysians usually code-switch or have their conversations in mix- match language and it can also contribute to the use of mix- match language among the you ngsters in Malaysia. Almost all the correspondence agreed that it is the norm of society that influences them to speak mix-match language. The use of goods and services of mix-match language has become a norm among adults, teenagers and even children. The usage has spread widely that people assumed it to be a indispensable behaviour among them. Therefore, the youngsters are also following this trend as their friends and people living round them are speaking the mix match language. Usually, Malay youth will mix English and Malay words together in their conversation as it has become natural to them.PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS CODE-SWITCH WITH FRIENDS, instructor AND FAMILY MEMBERSPie graph 1 Number of students of MARA College Seremban who code-switch in daily conversation.The pie chart above showed the number of students of MARA College Seremban who code-switch in their everyday conversations.From the pie chart, it is observed that 87 percent of the students frequently code-switch in t heir conversations while only 13 percent seldom code- switch the words in their conversations. From the results, students from this college highly code- switch when communicating with friends and teachers in the college, family members while at home, or in any other situations.PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS CODE-SWITCH WITH FRIENDS, TEACHER AND FAMILY MEMBERSGraph 2 Percentage of students of MARA College Seremban that code- switch (with English words) in daily conversations.I also compare the conversation between the students and their peers, teachers, and family members to show to whom the students code-switch mostly. The bar charts showed the dower of students in the three categories.Firstly, about 99 percent code -switch when talking with their friends while only one percent of the students did not.Secondly, about 70 percent of students code- switch in everyday conversations with their teachers while 30 percents of students did not.And thirdly, it shows that about 50 percents of the stu dents code-switch when conversing with family members.From the results, students from this college most probably code -switch during informal talks with friends such as in group discussions, chatting, or gossiping. In some situations, sometimes students spontaneously code -switch in group meetings or informal events among students. Therefore, students showed great interest to use English words with friends because they feel it is ordinary phenomena for them.Sometimes students prefer to use simple English words which are very short and easy to pronounce to complete their conversation.Most of the students felt comfortable to code -switch when having conversations with teachers. This shows that code-switching trend has become common among the students and teachers and one of the ways students can communicate with teachers to discuss or to talk about their studies or to express their opinions during classes or other situations.In my opinion, most students prefer to code -switch when t alking with teachers because they felt shy to speak appropriate English. This is because, they are not well exposed to English speaking milieu and English is not their mother tongue but most students learnt English through their studies. In English classes, Malay students usually are very shy to speak English during English classes because outside of English class they use more Malay words.Bahiyah Abdul Hamid (1992) had also made some several conclusion out of her students behaviour in classesIt can be cogitate that their silence is due to several possible reasons which are they dont know the answer or answers to questions asked, they lack the necessary language to communicate effectively in the English language and thus find it difficult to say what they cannot nevertheless say at all, they feel insecure about their level of English and prefer to say little or nothing at all for fear that their mistakes would make their classmates or teacher laugh at or look down on them, they find it difficult to quickly switch from their mother tongue, or another language that they can communicate effectively in, to the English language. And they are following the appropriate and highly receiveable ethnical behaviour of showing respect.1For those students who did not code -switch during their conversations with their teachers it may be because they prefer to use a more formal language or speak with proper usage of the language. Code -switch would involve words from Malay and English and most probably the sentence structure has a lot of grammatical errors.Among family members most students would usually be talking in the language of their mother-tongue. The reason they prefer to speak in Malay is because they are used to the language since their childhood. Priming is the term used to describe the phenomenon that prior exposure to something influences subsequent responses to the same or related things (Alessandro G, 2009a). Language can be primed, so that exposure to a linguistic feature ininfluences subsequent drive on of responding to that feature, often called the reaction time or response latency (Alessandro G, 2009b). However, some families members speak with today trend which most people favour to code-switch during their conversations. The sentence structure will change when English words are used to replace words in the mother tongue language.REASONS WHY STUDENTS CODE SWITCHEDThis is an example of a daily conversation between students in the college. There are four students Anis, Hafiz, Kamarudin, and Aziz. They were planning to study at discipline program library on weekends. The dialogues between friends were held in Malay and English languages.DialoguesMeaningAnis Jom pergi National Library this weekendAnis Lets go to National Library this weekendKamarudin Bila on the dot?Kamarudin When exactly?Hafiz Hari Sabtu or sunlight?Hafiz Saturday or Sunday?Anis Sunday? tutup tak silap.Anis Sunday? The library is closed if Im not mistaken.Ha fiz My aunt kata Isnin baru tutup.Hafiz My aunt said it closes on Monday.Aziz Tak bolehlah, holidaying with family.Aziz I cant go, Im on holiday with my family.Based on the dialogues, there are many reasons that cause the students to code-switched. Through my research, I have find 10 reasons as to why students code-switch in their daily conversations.Graph 3 Students reason to code-switch in daily conversationThe bar chart displayed the percentage of the students reasons to code-switch in daily conversations.Most students wanted to have conversations with others and they prefer to use simple English words such as English conjunctions so, then, but to code-switch because they are easy to pronounce and most people understand the usage of these words in the sentence structure.They also believed that using English words in conversation can enhance their confidence when talking with others especially with teachers and friends. Besides, English words are used by people to sieve points t hat are more understandable in the English language or to accurately describe the points because sometimes they could not find the right word with the same meaning from the mother- tongue language.Several students like to gain attention from others. They used English words when speaking with various people so that he or she is noticed by people to have his or her way of talking. Besides, some students love to pronounce the English words harmonise to their favourite Hollywood or English artists so the words perish more interesting. Students also believed that they look more ameliorate when using English words during conversations whether in college or outside the college.Talking in the mix of the two languages could also close the status gap between two people because it makes their conversations less formal with classmates, family members, and lecturers.STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS THE CODE SWITCHING PHENOMENONGraph 4 Students perception toward the code-switch phenomena.The pie chart above displayed the students perceptions towards the code-switching phenomena in daily conversation.About 60 percent of the students have good perception toward the phenomena. They believed that code-switching in conversations encourage them to use English words more frequently in conversation so that they become used to the words and eventually they can speak in full English sentence. In addition, they feel more confident when having conversation with people because code-switching make a person look more educated in front of people. Student feel much better when code-switching in conversation because the can speak smoothly as they care less about their grammar.However, about 40 percent of the students have negative learning ability about this phenomena. They think that conversing to others using mono-language is much better than code-switching. People who are speaking to others in Malay have proper sentence structure when speaking. A number of students expressed that the mot her-tongue language will soon be tarnished when more English words are used in conversations. They also believed that using mother -tongue language is actually showing that they are high of their nationality.CONCLUSIONBased on the results, there are found to be at least seven influential factors that cause students of MARA College Seremban to code-switch in their daily conversations which are peers pressure, self- interest, English materials, English movies drama series etc, advertisements, family members and the norm of the society. The most influential is peer pressure followed by norms of the society and self- interest. The least influential factor is English materials. The students are greatly affected by people around them including friends and society that they lived in. If the society promotes the speaking trends, people around them will spontaneously follow the trend.Most students frequently code-switch in their daily conversations. The trend has blended into the society. I t is also accepted by most students and it is normal to code-switch in informal conversations. The conversations are believed to make them friendlier and less formal when speaking with others.The results also showed that students code-switch with friends, teachers and family members. The do it most with friends as they are closer to them and also they are more feel more comfortable with them. Students also code-switch when talking to teachers because they spend time during classes and discussion because they could not find the right word to use. In the family among family members, students do not code switch so much. They usuakky speak to one another in their mother tongue language.There are several reasons as to why students prefer to code-switch in everyday conversations. Several students said they want to pronounce the words like the Hollywood artist, close the status gap, making the conversation less formal and simple etc, as mentioned earlier in my essay.The code-switching phe nomenon has widely spread among the students in the college and also among todays youth. Some see this as positive while others see it as negative. So, is code-switching a positive phenomena to students or maybe to the youth? Obviously, most people accept the phenomena. Does that mean it code-switching benefits them during conversations? Can code-switching be accepted as a new kind of a language or is it seen to tarnish the languages involved? I think we should look at this phenomenon seriously as it would affect the language pattern of the next generations.