Language Choice of Urban Sino-Indians in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Language choice in mixed marriages plays a crucial role in language maintenance. It helps in maintaining at least one or two languages from generation to generation. In this study an examination on the language choice of some Sino-Indian Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is explored to find out the language choice in a range of domains and with different speech partners. Sino-Indians are the offspring of marriages between Indians and Chinese. There were 30 participants consisting of 14 males and 16 females who took part in the study. A questionnaire consisting of 89 items was administered to the participants who were working or studying in Kuala Lumpur at that time. The findings reveal that language choice in some Sino-Indian families is influenced by factors such as age, domains of communication, attitudes towards the language, and identity. Age plays an important role in language choice, particularly in the home domain. Some older Sino-Indian speakers are bilingual in English and Malay, the middle-aged speakers are trilingual and speak more in English and some Ta-mil and Chinese, and the younger speakers are multilingual but favour the use of English. This study has also examined how the Sino-Indian respondents viewed their dual heritage.