Studying Language Variation in Singapore Essay
This daily news is a study of code-switching in one Singaporean Chinese home (my own). It will consider the hypothesis that grow older correlates substantially with effectiveness and/or usage of more than one code. To test this kind of hypothesis, three subjects, from your household, showing three diverse generations experienced their speech recorded. The topics S1, S2 and S3 are my grandfather, my uncle and my relative respectively.
Basic information on the topics such as their particular ages, occupations and medium of education can be found in Table 1 (see appendix). Data Collection Your data for this study was gathered through recording recording of spontaneous discussions during a calm and relaxed family gathering held at an aunt’s home. Extracts through the recordings were then properly selected intended for analysis such that they will help quantify the nature and quantity of code-switches.
In order to keep as close as possible to actual terminology usage, all unnatural cases of code counterchange, such as strategic code-switching caused by an over-consciousness of the tape-recorded or a want to impress, had been excluded. Standard Terminology Code-switching is the circumstance of multilingual speakers producing switches between different different languages or kinds depending on viewers, setting and purpose; or the juxtaposition in the same talk exchange of passages of speech belonging to two distinct grammatical systems or sub-systems’ (Gumperz 1982: 59) The verbal show of each subject matter, including the distinct languages or varieties communicate, can be found in Table 1 as well (see appendix).
Subject you: Grandfather (Age: 69) My personal grandfather can speak more than 4 several varieties- Teochew, Mandarin, The english language, Malay and most of the other China dialects. Teochew is the dominant Chinese vernacular which my grandfather speaks. He is extremely proficient in Teochew and uses it quite often, with family of the first (grandmother) and 2nd (father, mother, future uncles, aunts) years. He uses the other Chinese dialects only together with his friends of any different language group or when talking to hawkers or shopkeepers.
He communicates together with the 3rd generation (myself, cousins) in Mandarin and sometimes in English, which in turn he is not very proficient in. This individual uses Malay only when speaking to the maid, as she is from Dalam negri and can only figure out minimal English and no various other languages or perhaps dialects. During my recordings, I discovered that this individual only changed between four of the varieties- Teochew, Mandarin, English and Malay. I guess it was not necessary to speak in a other China dialect as it was a relatives gathering.
Speaking mainly Teochew, he code-switched quite frequently, but not as much as S2. The nature of the switches was mainly, but not solely, as a result of his interlocutor. I will talk about the various factors further.
