Language choice and code switching of the elderly and the youth
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2009
Abstract
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. © 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.
Keywords
Language Use, Managerial Practices, Acculturation
Divisions
FLL
Publication Title
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
Volume
2009
Issue
200
Publisher
De Gruyter