Language choice and code switching of the elderly and the youth

Bibliographic Data

ID4178403
AuthorsMaya Khemlani David (0000-0002-5569-3591, University of Malaya), Wendy Yee Mei Tien (0000-0003-0726-8221, University of Malaya), Ngeow Yeok Meng (University of Malaya), Gan Kah Hui (University of Malaya)
Year2009
Volume2009
Issue200
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ijsl.2009.044
OpenAlexW2055257763
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited3

The language of the aged has not been given as much attention as that of the youth. Hence, the aim of this research is to compare the language choices and discoursal features of the aged with that of the youth. This study focuses on the Chinese community from Tangkak, Johor, in Peninsular Malaysia, who use the Hokkien dialect. The older informants preferred to speak in their dialect while the younger informants preferred Mandarin. Older informants seldom code-switched but when they did, the codes in their mixed discourse were Hokkien and Mandarin, while that of the younger informants were Mandarin, Malay, and/or English. On the basis of an analysis of the audio recordings, observations, field notes, and informal interviews, the features are identified in the discourse of the aged, i.e., off-target verbosity (OTV), painful self-disclosure (PSD), and self-handicapping talk. The study shows that the discoursal features of the aged are clearly different from that of the youth

Code-switching · Linguistics · Malay · Mandarin Chinese · Sociology · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology

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