Citation
Sathiah, Kavitha and Veeraputhran, Veeramohan and Mani, Manimangai
(2025)
Language choice among Malaysian-Indians in speech repertoire of Tamil and English language.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 15 (2).
pp. 146-159.
ISSN 2222-6990
Abstract
Multilingualism is a common occurrence in Malaysia, which is a pluralistic society. The
Malaysian-Indians, are commonly exposed to three languages; Tamil language (mother
tongue), Malay language (National language) and English (Second language). This study
focuses on Malaysian-Indians with Tamil language astheir mother tongue above the age of 21
years. After school education, Malaysian-Indians mainly use either English or Tamil language
to communicate while in intra-ethnic group conversations. The language choice of
predominantlanguage in daily speech repertoire was investigated. In daily conversation,some
speakers givemore preferences to English language and less importance to Tamil language;
while those who prefer Tamil language, withdraw from speaking in English language. This
study is to create awareness in the usage of both Tamil and English Language among
Malaysian-Indians. The study compared language choice among Malaysian-Indians speakers
by comparing their Tamiland English language usage in social context within the same ethnic
group. A descriptive comparative design using mixed research method of quantitative and
qualitative were employed in this study on a group of 82 Malaysian-Indians from three major
states in the central region of peninsular Malaysia. The results revealed that majority of the
respondents were aware of the importance of Tamil language as mother tongue and their
language choice. However, the results also showed that the importance of English language
as global language is undeniable. Therefore, Malaysian-Indians in recent years have resorted
in code-mixing in their speech repertoire to create a win-win situation to uphold their mother
tongue as well to progress in career and education.
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