Multilinguals in a Monolingual Community: The Influence of Non-linguistic Switching Cost and Awareness of Language Environment on Intentional and Unintentional Language Switch

Abstract

Multilinguals who live in their native multilingual communities are constantly switching between languages, whereas those who live in monolingual communities need to constrain their code-switching. Malaysia is a multilingual country in which people mix languages on a daily basis, whereas, in Taiwan, Mandarin is predominately used and people are more cautious about code-switching. Therefore, in the current study, we investigated what factors might facilitate Malaysian-Chinese students to reduce the unintentional switching between languages to adapt to the language environment in Taiwan. Malaysian-Chinese who live in Malaysia (MIM) and Taiwan (MIT) were recruited to investigate whether and how non-linguistic code-switching and their awareness of language environment (ALE) influence their intentional and unintentional code-switching experiences. Participants' non-verbal code-switching was measured by a color/shape switching task, whereas ALE and code-switching experiences were measured by questionnaires. The multiple regression analyses of MIT's responses showed that the moderation of non-linguistic switch cost and ALE significantly predicted MIT's unintentional code-switching. Moreover, the simple slope analysis showed that MIT with high executive control have a dynamic unintentional switch in which the higher level of ALE is associated with lower unintentional switch. However, MIT with low executive control have a static unintentional switch, uninfluenced by their level of ALE. These results suggested that multilinguals' executive control along with their awareness of the language environment help them adapt to living in a community with a predominant language.