Language Choice of Melanau Community in DARO District, Sarawak

The Melanau community in Sarawak is an ethnic minority that covers 5% of Sarawakians. The Melanau ethnic population dominates the central part of Sarawak. The Melanau ethnic group speaks in Melanau because Sarawak has more than 27 ethnic groups so these multi ethnicities cause them to communicate with each other in a shared language. The current study in the Daro area of Sarawak analyzes language selection patterns, describes aspects of code conversion in the communication process and describes the factors that influence the choice of Melanau society language during the communication process. Sociolinguistic approaches and qualitative methods are applied to this study. The data were collected using interview recording techniques, observation and recording interviews. The underlying theory of the study was Fishman's Domain Theory (1972).