Language contact between Maltese and English : codeswitching and crosslinguistic influence

Abstract

The use of Maltese and English in Malta, and crosslinguistic influence between the two languages is overviewed in this paper in three ways. A brief sketch of some social domains of language use (after Fishman 1972) is first presented to illustrate how Maltese and English are used by Maltese society. Then, three extracts of classroom transcripts are used to illustrate how Maltese and English are meaningfully juxtaposed in classroom talk, serving several communicative and pedagogical purposes. Finally some observed instances of crosslinguistic influence between Maltese and English on various linguistic levels inside and outside the classroom are presented. This is followed by some theoretical implications for such language contact phenomena as observed in the Maltese context.