Language Choice and National Identity among Young Malay Students in a University Domain

This study examined the relationships between national identity and language choices of Malaysian multilingual youths in the university domain of language use. One hundred Malay undergraduate students were selected as participants of the study. The participant were between 17 to 25 years old. A questionnaire comprising three sections was used to gather information about participants’ demographic profiles, their language choices, and the concepts of their national identity. To investigate their language use and the relationships between variables, SPSS software was used. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the participants’ profiles, as well as participants’ used languages in the family domain of language use. A correlation coefficient analysis was used to examine the relationships between variables. The study found that the national language is dominantly used in their daily activities. Also, the national identity was found to influence the language choices of Malays.