Malaysian English: a mechanism for social connectedness among Malaysian Third Culture Kids / Nur Fatima Wahida Mohd Nasir

In the sociolinguistic study of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), social connectedness is frequently cited as one of the primary goals and challenges upon adaptation to new environments. However, literature in the field shows that there is a lack of research focusing specifically on Malaysian Third Culture Kids (MTCKs), especially in regards to language. To address this gap, the current study aimed at exploring respondents’ perspectives of the Malaysian English (ME) mesolectal variety and gain insights on the role of ME as a mechanism for them to achieve a sense of social connectedness with the Malaysian speech community. Based on a semi-structured interview method among 10 respondents in their youth, results of the study revealed that not only MTCKs view ME as an extremely significant mechanism for social connectedness, but it is also an important marker for social identity, suggesting the intricate association between language varieties and social connectedness. As ME clearly presents to be a living and powerful non-native English variety that enables unique individuals like MTCKs to adapt better, it is recommended that future research devle deeper in exploring MTCKs’ linguistic abilities of ME through the lens of applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics.