An Empirical Study of Language Use and Code-mixing in Amis

Abstract

This study investigates Amis language use and Amis-Chinese code-mixing using naturally occurring data and inferential statistics. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between age and language use. The younger an Amis person is, the less Amis he or she speaks. This shift becomes apparent from the birth cohort of 1961 to 1970, and their language ability in Amis and their frequency of speaking Amis sharply deteriorates as age decreases. Among all types of code-mixing defined by Muysken (2000), insertion is the most common among Amis-Chinese bilinguals, irrespective of their age or generation. This is typical for two typologically different languages as Amis and Chinese. The insertion of Chinese into Amis structure is more prevalent than inserting Amis into Chinese structure, and a significant difference is found between age and preferred structure. The most typical elements used in noun phrases referring to things, followed by name, time, and kinship.

Keywords

• code-mixing
• language contact
• sociolinguistics