Conversational code-switching among Mandarin-English bilinguals in Brunei

This study investigates Mandarin-English code-switching by Chinese bilinguals in Brunei. Based on the interviews with 20 speakers (10 females and 10 males), 286 tokens of Mandarin-English code-switching were retrieved and classified to examine the patterns of code-swiching in Brunei Mandarin. The findings suggest that women engage in code-switching more than men, though the difference is not significant. Nouns (common nouns and proper nouns) and noun phrases account for more than 50 % of the total instances of code-switching. In addition, discourse markers are the second frequent mixed items among Chinese bilinguals in Brunei