(Eat faster. You brother went to play already but you’re still eating.)
S1: (to the maid) Yani, kasi satu kopi. Tamau gula sama susu.
(Yani, make me coffee without sugar and milk.)
Topic
In this case, my grandfather was talking to one of his grandsons (my cousin), whose mother was telling us that how weak his standard of Chinese and spoken Mandarin is. He was trying to ask my cousin if he could speak Mandarin.
S1: Ben, come here. Gong gong ask you. You go to school? You teacher teach you Chinese? Ni hui jiang hua yu mah? (Can you speak Mandarin?)
In another case, my grandfather was asking one of my cousins what he could play on the piano.
S1: Ni hui tan Beethoven mah? Hai shi only pop songs? Deng Li Jun songs, you know?
(Can you play Beethoven? Or only pop songs?) Deng Li Jun is a Taiwanese singer.
My grandfather also used certain English proper nouns when on the topic of traveling to the United States.
S1: Le nang ai ke America, dio ke Disneyland. Nou gai dia dio suka.
(If you go to America, you must go to Disneyland. The children will definitely love it.)
Quotations and Reported Speech
Here, my grandfather was asking one of my pregnant aunts if she has gone for a check-up and if she knows the gender of her baby yet.
S1: Le wu ke check-up? Laogun wu ga le da “It’s a boy.” bor?
(Did you go for a check-up? Did the doctor say, “It’s a boy.”?)
In another case, we were watching a television program and it was a scene at the hospital where the surgeon was walking out of the operating theatre. My grandfather turned to my grandmother and predicted what the surgeon will say to the patients family members.
S1: Ai sio su mai? Yi dia diao da “I’m sorry. We tried our best.”
(Want to bet? He’s bound to say “I’m sorry. We’ve tried our best.”)
Subject 2: Uncle (Age: 39)
My uncle can speak as many varieties as my grandfather. English and Mandarin were languages he learnt in English-medium schools (from primary to tertiary level) while Teochew was the language he spoke as a child, at home. Besides being proficient in English and Teochew, he is also proficient in Cantonese because his girlfriend is from Hong Kong. She can only speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English. She understands neither any of the Chinese dialects nor Singlish. My uncle can is also proficient in Mandarin because he has business dealings in China, namely Shanghai. He uses Teochew when speaking to my grandparents and English when speaking to the 2nd and 3rd generations. Most of the time, he converses with his girlfriend in Cantonese and tries to translate anything we say, which she does not understand, in Cantonese. Like my grandfather, he uses Malay only when speaking to the maid.
In my recordings, I found that he only switched between 5 varieties- English, Teochew, Mandarin and Malay. Speaking mainly English, he code-switched very frequently. He also had distinct switched between Singapore Colloquial English and Standard English. This is due to the fact that his girlfriend does not understand some of the Singlish vocabulary and pragmatic particles we use. The nature of the switches was due to the following factors.
Interlocutor
As mentioned, my uncle spoke mainly Colloquial English and switched to Teochew when speaking to my grandparents or Malay when speaking to the maid.
S2: (to his mum) Mother, le ke set mor huh? Gi meh cheng jing nia ley.
(Mother, you went to have your hair set? You’re dressed well tonight.)
S2: (to his mum) Jia eh ba buey? Ay jia teh mai? Wa kio Yani chong.
(Are you full? Do you want tea? I’ll get Yani to make.)
S2: (to the maid) Yani, kasi satu teh. For Mama.
(Yani, make tea for Grandmother.)
Below are cases where my uncle would switch to Cantonese or Standard English when talking to his girlfriend.
S2: (to my cousin) Auntie Winnie don’t know what is “chio” (pretty in Hokkien) la. You ar,
very ba gua (nosey in Mandarin) one, know all the gossips about all the ming xing (actresses in Mandarin).
(to girlfriend) Winnie, “chio” (pretty in Hokkien) hai “leng loi” (pretty girl in
Cantonese). I was calling her “bart guat” (nosey in Cantonese)
Because she knows everything about the celebrities. Gossip Queen!
S2: (to girlfriend) “pontang school” means to skip school without any excuse.
S2: (to my aunt) Cannot make it la, no taste.
(to girlfriend) She has really a really bad dress sense, don’t you think?
Topic
In this case, my uncle was telling us about his recent trip to Shanghai. He was looking for a toilet and when he asked for one, the Shanghainese could not understand him.
S2: In Shanghai, toilet is not “chi suo”(toilet in colloquial Mandarin). You have to ask for the “mao chi” (toilet in Shanghainese).
In another case, when my grandfather was on the topic of the Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng, my uncle suggested my cousin play one of her songs- “The Story of a Small Village.”
S2: Play your mum’s favourite la. Deng Li Jun’s Xiao Chang Gu Shi
(Teresa Teng’s “The Story of a Small Village.”)
In another case, he suggested we go to Crystal Jade restaurant for lunch the next day.
S2: Let’s go Crystal Jade. They have really good “Sui Jing Baos” (Pork Dumplings)
Situation
There were situations when my uncle spoke in English because he did not want my grandmother to know the contents of the conversation. For example, when my aunt asked him when he was going away on business again, he replied in English, telling my aunt not to tell her, but told my grandmother he was not sure yet.
S2: (to my aunt) Leaving for Vietnam next week but don’t tell the old lady yet.
(to mother) Ah buey zai. Zai liao ga le da. (Don’t know yet. Tell you when I know.)
He also deliberately spoke to Teochew to my aunt when she asked about his ex-girlfriend.
S2: Gao ying liao la. Mai da la.
(She’s married already. Don’t talk about it.)
Quotations and Reported Speech
There was also an instance where my uncle was telling the rest of my cousins how naughty one of the girls was when she was a child. He tried to imitate how my grandmother would nag in Teochew back then.
S2: She was really naughty, always climbing the gate and ringing the doorbell non-stop.
Then Mama would take the cane and start screaming at her to get down, “Meh meh ga wa lot lai. Dang bua lot lai le mai kua ar. Le mai lot lai, ah mah eng ding pa le ar.”
(“Come down now. If you fall down, you better not cry to me. If you don’t come down, I’ll hit you with the cane.”)
He also told my grandfather that if my cousin finished eating his food, he should praise him and say, “Very good!”
S2: Father, yi zai liao, le dio ga yi da “Ben, very good!”
(Father, when he has finished eating, you must praise him by saying “Ben, very good!”)
Subject 3: Cousin (Age: 9)
My cousin’s 1st language is English. He takes Chinese as his 2nd language in school but is not very proficient in Mandarin. There are also a few Malay words he learnt so as to communicate with the maid. He speaks Standard English buts sometimes breaks into colloquial English when the person speaking to him speaks in Singlish or dialect or when he’s repeating when someone said. He can neither understand nor speak any of the Chinese dialects so he speaks to our grandparents in Mandarin only. He made very few code-switches and the nature of the switches was due to the following factors.
Interlocutor
As mentioned, my cousin spoke mainly Standard English and switched to colloquial English when speaking some of the uncles, aunts or children who often speak Singlish. He spoke Mandarin with my grandparents or Malay when speaking to the maid.
S3: (to his dad) Dad, can I go to the playground with the rest?
(to cousin) My daddy say can go. Let’s go now.
S3: (to his mum) I need to get my book from the car. Can I get Uncle Mike to fetch it?
(to uncle) Uncle Mike, can help me take my book from my Daddy’s car. Thank you ar.
S3: (to grandfather) Gong gong, ni yao zhuo zhi li shi mah? Wo gai ni zhuo.
(Grandfather, you want to sit here? I’ll give you my seat.)
S3: (to grandmother) Mama, wo de mummy shuo wo ke yi chi ice-cream.
(Grandmother, my mummy says I can have ice-cream.)
S3: (to the maid) Water please. Minom (drink). For me and Ben.
Topic
There were a few instances where my cousin used Mandarin in his speech when talking about Chinese homework, his Chinese teacher or Chinese as a subject in school.
S3: I brought my homework along to do. I haven’t completed my xi zhi (Chinese writing).
S3: Lu lao shi (Mrs Lu) says that if I get full marks for my ting xie (Chinese spelling), she’ll
give my a star.
S3: Mummy, I forgot to bring my shuo chi (Chinese book), I can’t do my work.
Quotations and Reported Speech
As this cousin of mine and his brother are very weak in Chinese, we often talk about this problem of theirs and this cousin would tell us stories of what happens during Chinese class and what his teacher would say to him. Because he is so poor in Chinese, his parents bought him a set of Chinese educational software and he would humorously imitate some of the characters and what they say.
S3: I hate my Chinese teacher. She’s always shouting at me, saying, “Zhong Rui Zhi, ni
ke yi bu ke yi zuan xing yi dian? Bu yao yi zhi jiang hua.
(“Matthew Tjeong, can you please pay attention and stop talking to your classmate?”)
S3: We all can’t stand her. We gave her a few nick names like “Mu Lao Hu” (Tigeress) and “Fei Puo Lu” (Fat Lady ‘Lu”).
S3: I play it on my computer. The songs are quite silly. And there’s this stupid monkey
who is always saying, “Xiao peng you men, ni men xue hui le mah? Xiao peng you men, ni men xue hui le mah?” (“Little kids, have you all understood well?”) So irritating!
Conclusion
Although the home is a fruitful area of research in code-mixing, there are certain limitations of a study like this one. Firstly, conversational rather than situational code-switching is given prominence as the setting is kept constant. Secondly, the study is only focus on the three selected subjects and a handful of conversations.
From the data collected, we can see that they are many factors and reasons for code-switching, namely to suit the interlocutors, the topic, the situation, the and also when using quotations or reported speech. It is also evident that S1 and S2, who are older, use more codes than S3. However, it is also evident that S2 has a verbal repertoire of the most number of codes and is proficient in 4 different codes, as opposed to S1 who is only proficient in Teochew and S3 who is only proficient in English. Hence, the hypothesis that age correlates significantly with proficiency and usage of more than one code might not necessary hold in view of the study I have carried out.
However, I would like to suggest that proficiency and usage of codes are not only dependent on age, but also on the education level of the subject, the type of education he received (English-medium or non-Englsih medium) and most importantly, his social network.
I learnt the concept of network analysis in Milroy’s 1980 Belfast study and based on my findings, I feel that a network analysis would help to achieve a more insightful understanding of code-mixing. By definition, network analysis focuses on the various kinds of social contacts that actors establish in the course of their regular routines and on the norms governing behaviors in these contacts.
As we can see from my findings, S2 has had an English-medium education and is therefore proficient in English. Moreover, he has a wider job scope which requires him to meet with people from all walks of life and from different countries, speaking different languages. Thus, he has had to opportunity to pick up many different varieties and codes. Due to business dealings, he has to learn to be proficient in many of these languages as well, making him the one (out of the three) who has the most significant proficiency level in terms of usage of different codes. The oldest S1, on the other hand, has a much smaller social network, explaining his lack of proficiency in the codes even though he has a rather large verbal repertoire.
References
Tan Peck Tung
A Description of Patterns of Code-Mixing and Code-Switching in a Multilingual Household
John Platt
Multilingualism, Polyglossia, and Code Selection in Singapore
