English-Malay Code-Mixing Innovation in Facebook among Malaysian University Students

Abstract

evelopment, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Malaysia. Azu Farhana Anuar, Student Development and Campus Lifestyle Department, University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Khairunnisa Mohad Khazin, IKIP International College, Malaysia. Tengku Mohd Farid Bin Tengku Abdul Aziz, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi Mara Kelantan, Malaysia. ABSTRACT This study investigated the occurrences of code-mixing insertion of English morphemes into Malay lexical items in Facebook postings by university students from a few universities in Malaysia. A collection of 80 postings dated between January 2011 and January 2012 were analyzed to ide ntify: 1) areas of language alternation where Malay and English grammar display lack of congruence; and 2) the reasons for the English-Malay language alternation in online postings via Facebook among university students. The findings suggest that the two a reas where Malay and English grammar display lack of congruence are pluralization of nouns and continuous tense. In conclusion, the most dominant reason for this language alternation among the students is to amplify and emphasize a point. This study proposes that the phenomenon of code-mixing insertion of English morphemes into Malay lexical items is indeed an innovation towards English language usage in Malaysia.