Code Switching In Iban-Speaking Radio Programme

• Main Author: Petronella Langita, Felix
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2022
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/40132/2/Petronella%20Langita%20%28ft%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/40132/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Radio broadcasts is one of the most formal platforms to receive and deliver information alongside providing entertainment for the matrix language-speaking community. This descriptive qualitative research aims to study the types and functions of code-switching in the utterances of announcers of the Iban-speaking radio programme, Ngela Tengahari WaiFM. A total of 187 code-switching cases were analysed by using Poplack’s typology and all three types of code switching were present in the announcers’ utterances, the most frequent type being intra-sentential switching (82.89%), followed by inter-sentential switching (12.30%), and tag switching (4.81%). The results also showed multiple types of code-switching in a single utterance. The functions for the code-switching were analysed by employing Gumperz’s (1982) and Appel and Muysken’s (2005) models. The findings showed that the most dominant functions are referential function (59.26%), reiterations (15.34%), and addressee specification (12.17%); some of the data also showed multiple functions for one case of code switching. The findings shows that the code-switching instances in the Iban announcers’ utterances are very minimal, but most cases involved single-word intra-sentential switching to another language for referential functions to account for the lack of equivalent word or concept in the Iban language.