Mixing or Translanguaging?

This chapter discusses the regular switching between English and Malay in informal language in Brunei. In an on-line English discussion forum, mixing of Malay terms occurred in 40% of postings, another 20% were entirely in Malay, and only 40% were in English with no mixing. Some reasons for mixing involve: inability to think of a word, explaining something, use of religious terminology, reference to food and other cultural items, and direct quotations; but in reality, in many cases people mix two languages simply because they can, even though mixing is sometimes condemned by the authorities. It is now the norm in Brunei for interactions to switch freely between English and Malay, as evidenced from the recently acquired conversational data. What is more apparent now, and not so much over a decade ago, is the higher incidence of English lexis than Malay ones in conversations among the young Bruneians. Also pervasive is Englishisation, a bi-directional process where English is localised and non-English elements are anglicised, and this is found to occur at the phonological and morphological levels. This chapter concludes with the postulation that the alternation of languages, or translanguaging, is a social activity with language preference acting as a categorisation device to express the multifaceted identities of Bruneians. Through the use of Malay and English as well as other languages such as Arabic in their social interactions, different identities are invoked and negotiated.