The sociolinguistic realignment in the Chinese community in Kuala Lumpur: past, present and future

Abstract

The language situation in the Malaysian Chinese community has undergone great changes in the past century. This paper aims to account for such changes in the framework of sociolinguistic realignment, which is both descriptive and predictive. The triglossic situation in the colonial period (1859–1957) is described; with the support of a language survey in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in 2008, the current triglossia in the Chinese community is presented. Furthermore, the future development of the language situation in KL is predicted based on the hypothesis of sociolinguistic realignment theory.