| Abstrakt: |
In this study the term code-switching is defined as the use of two or more linguistic varieties in the same conversation inclusive of dialect changes and style changes. These changes can occur at any point in the sentence, and they may occur within the sentence or between sentences. The term code-switching here encompasses the strategy of transfer (O'Malley and Chamot 1990), language switch (Tarone 1977) and code-switching (Faerch and Kasper 1983). In other words, the term code-switching in this study is defined in a much wider sense of its conventional meaning. Gumperz (1982) talks of a discourse function code-switching, that is, the personalization function. Under this function of a speaker plays upon the connotations of a 'we code' to create conversational effect. In other words, the speaker is seen to manipulate or to create a desired meaning through code-switching. In this study, code-switching is seen as a strategy employed by the respondents for a purpose. Hence this study sets out to explore the functions fulfilled by this strategy when used by Malaysian pre-school children. A total of sixty respondents were selected for this study. Of the sixty respondents twenty-eight were Chinese and thirty-two were Malay. The breakdown in terms of sex was twenty-five females and thirty-five males, distributed in the following manner according to age, fourteen aged four, twenty-four aged five and twenty-two aged six. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
