HBET1103 Ejat Punya Assignment

HBET1103

Introduction to General Linguistic

Reports

Reports

Oktober 25, 2008 12.30 AM

By Shamshurizat bin Hashim

OUM BETESL Students 2006-2009

Part 1

1.1 Acknowledgement

Shamshurizat bin Hashim born in 25 July 1974 in Utan Aji district in the state of Perlis,

Malaysia. He was graduated from Maktab Perguruan Sultan Abdul Halim Sungai Petani Kedah

(Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language and Music) and he is the eldest son in his

family. A primary school teacher who is teaching in the rural area of Terengganu (Hulu

Terengganu) state of Malaysia is a husband and a father of three sons. The first school he

teaches in that area was Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Tadok for three years (2000 – 2003). From

40% school achievement on English Language subject increase to 90% pupils manage to catch

up with English Language. Within the years he manages to change the pupils’ perception on

studying the language. His Second school is Sekolah Kebangsaan Kuala Ping located in the ame

area. The school is situated at the tourism area of Tasik Kenyir the largest manmade lake in

South East Asia. He has been teaching for almost 9 educational’s years in English as a second

Prepared by; Shamshurizat bin Hashim740725095259001

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language in those two schools. Now he is doing his bachelor in TESL in Open University Malaysia

Terengganu.

1.2. Abstract

Before the serjeant begins to teach the young soldiers their exercise of the musket, he

explains to them the different parts of it; the stock, the barrel, the loops, the swivels, and

so on; because, unless they know these by their names, they cannot know how to obey

his instruction…This species of preliminary knowledge is absolutely necessary in all…

calling of life; but not more necessary than it is you to learn…how to know the sorts of

words one from another.

William Cobbett, in a letter to his son, 1823

What was true in Cobbett’s day remains true now. Engineering students are expected to

know their arithmetic, music students have to practice their scales. No one can write good

letters, memorandums or reports or master word processing, let alone literary composition,

without having first learned the basic grammar. “Today according to the columnist Simon

Jenkins, now editor of The Times, ‘not to understand the structure of a sentence is an

overwhelming obstacle in the way of most gainful employment…’

Many people event students in every school find grammar is bore, but understanding

grammar will in some ways free you from its grip, making you the master of words rather than

keeping you as their slave. English teacher in every school in this country are trademark as ‘A

Walking Dictionary’. I am very proud of listening to the phrase but how far am I to be like the

trademark.

We are going to look at the language competence and performance due to the lack of

this problem.

“The average Malaysia does not know much about his or her own language or languages”


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1.3. Introduction

Noam Chomsky is the linguistic anthropologist that founded the idea of communicating

with the understanding of grammatically correct expressions. Chomsky took more of a text-

book approach to analyzing language than a real-world use of the language. According to

Damerau (1971), to understand Chomsky approach to linguistic competence, two things must

be made clear: (1) the subject matter of linguistics, and (2) the properties that are necessary in

a model for it to be regarded as an adequate model for language (p. 22). In other words,

Chomsky had an ideal approach to language which consisted of an undiversified speaker-hearer

environment. In real-world situations, it is difficult for a speaker-hearer to exercise their

linguistic competence. According to Ottenheimer (2006), Chomsky actually thought of real

situations as distractions (p. 95). Chomsky feels that people cannot successfully practice being

linguistically competent due to â€œdistractionsâ€ � such as social norms. The interference from

social norms in communication forces the speaker to develop communication competence.

Although someone who is speaking linguistically competent may use perfect grammar, a

communicatively competent speaker would take into consideration the appropriateness of the

situation (Paulston, 1992, p. 38). Analyzing how the people in a culture use linguistic

competence to communicate can determine the rules of a language.

Linguistic competence is defined as a speaker-hearer ability to speak and understand

language in a grammatically-correct manner (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 95). It is one of the two

elements in Chomsky's performance/competence distinction. Linguistic competence is an area

of study in the field of intercultural communication founded by the linguistic anthropologist

Noam Chomsky. Linguistic competence is the use of grammatical rules of a language, whereas

communicative competence is the use of social language rules. This broader knowledge to

communicate successfully within the norms of a culture language was introduced by the linguist


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Dell Hymes. Dell Hymes expanded on Noam Chomsky view of linguistic competence by

considering the social factors of the culture language.

Linguistic performance is one of the two elements in Chomsky's

performance/competence distinction. It relates to Language production (parole), with an

emphasis upon how this is different from Competence, or the mental knowledge of language

itself.

In linguistics, language production is the production of spoken or written language. It describes

all of the stages between having a concept, and translating that concept into linguistic form.

1.4 Malay and their language

Malaysia is a country that consists of thirteen states and three federal territories in

Southeast Asia with a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,355 sq mi). The capital

city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population

stands at over 25 million. The country is separated into two regions—Peninsular Malaysia and

Malaysian Borneo—by the South China Sea. Malaysia borders Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore,

Brunei and the Philippines. The country is located near the equator and experiences a tropical

climate. Malaysia's head of state is the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (conventionally referred to as

'the King' or 'the Agong') and the government is headed by a Prime Minister. The government is

closely modeled after the Westminster parliamentary system.

The Malays form the majority of the population. Some Malays are of Arab descent and

there are sizable Chinese and Indian communities. Islam is the largest as well as the official

religion of the federation. The Malay language is the official language. The Malay language was

originally written in Pallava from India, the earliest known inscriptions in Malay were found in

southern Sumatra and on the island of Bangka and date from 683–6 AD. They were written in


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an Indian script during the time of the kingdom of Srivijaya, but nowadays, the Roman alphabet

(Rumi) is more often used.

Malaysia is a founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and

participates in many international organisations such as the United Nations. As a former British

colony, it is also a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is also a member of the

Developing 8 Countries.

The term "Malay" can refer to the ethnic group who live in the Malay Peninsula (which

include the southernmost part of Thailand called Patani and Satun) and east Sumatra as well as

the cultural sphere that encompass a large part of the archipelago.

The Encyclopedia of Malaysia, volume: Early History has pointed out a total of 3 theories of

the origin of Malay:

1. The Yunnan theory, Mekong river migration (published 1889)

2. The New Guinea theory (published 1965)

3. The Taiwan theory (published 1997)

The ancestor of Malays are believed to be seafarers who are well knowledged in

Oceanography, they move around from island to island in great distances between New

Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labour to Indian,

Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years, and over the years they settled at various

places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are Moken

and Orang laut.

Some historians suggested they were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated

from the Philippines and originally from Taiwan. Malay culture reached its golden age during


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Srivijayan times and they practiced Buddhism, Hinduism, and their native Animism before

converting to Islam in the 15th century.

1.5 Colonial influences

The view of Malays held by Thomas Stamford Raffles had a significant influence on

English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He is probably the most important voice who

promoted the idea of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the Malay ethnic group, but

embracing the peoples of a large but unspecified part of the South East Asian archipelago.

Raffles formed a vision of Malays as a language-based 'nation', in line with the views of the

English Romantic movement at the time, and in 1809 sent a literary essay on the topic to the

Asiatic Society. After he mounted an expedition to the former Minangkabau seat of royalty in

Pagaruyung, he declared that it was the ‘the source of that power, the origin of that nation, so

extensively scattered over the Eastern Archipelago’. In his later writings he moved the Malays

from a nation to a race.

1.6 Malaysian context

In Malaysia, the early colonial censuses listed separate ethnic groups, such as "Malays,

Boyanese, Achinese, Javanese, Bugis, Manilamen and Siamese". The 1891 census merged these

ethnic groups into the three racial categories used in modern Malaysia – Chinese, ‘Tamils and

other natives of India’, and ‘Malays and other Natives of the Archipelago’. This was based upon

the European view at the time that race was a biologically based scientific category. For the

1901 census, the government advised the word "race" should replace "nationality" wherever it

occurs.

After a period of generations being classified in these groups, individual identity formed

around the concept of bangsa Melayu (Malay race). For younger generations of people, they


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saw it as providing a unity and solidarity against the colonial powers, and non-Malay

immigrants. The Malaysian nation was later formed with the bangsa Melayu having the central

and defining position within the country.

Source : Articles Malaysian Malay and Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia

The Malay ethnic group is the majority in Malaysia and Brunei and a sizable minority in

Singapore and Indonesia, and they form the majority in the five southernmost provinces of

Thailand which historically made up the old Malay kingdom of Patani. This people speak various

dialects of Malay language. The peninsular dialect as spoken in the Malaysian states of Pahang,

Selangor and Johor is the standard speech among Malays in Malaysia and Singapore. In the

Malay Peninsula, the Kelantanese dialect in its purest form is the most difficult to understand.

Other peninsula dialects include the Kedah-Perlis dialect, the Melakan dialect, the Minangkabau

dialect of Negeri Sembilan, the Perak dialect and the Terengganu dialect. In Thailand, Malays of

Satun speak the Kedah-Perlis dialect while those in the Patani provinces speak the Kelantanese

lingo. Meanwhile, the Riau dialect of eastern Sumatra has been adopted as a national tongue,

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), for the whole Indonesian population. The ethnic Malay have

had a Muslim culture since the 15th century.

In Malaysia, the majority of the population is made up of ethnic Malays while the

minorities consist of southern Chinese (e.g. Hokkien and Cantonese), southern Indians (mainly

Tamils), non-ethnic Malay indigenous peoples (e.g. Iban and Kadazan), as well as Eurasians.

Malay cultural influences filtered out throughout the archipelago, such as the

monarchical state, religion (Hinduism/Buddhism in the first millennium AD, Islam in the second

millennium), and the Malay language. The influential Srivijaya kingdom had unified the various

ethnic groups in south East Asia into a convergent cultural sphere for almost a millennium. It

was during that time that vast borrowing of Sanskrit words and concepts facilitated the


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advanced linguistic development of Malay as a language. Malay was the regional lingua franca,

and Malay-based creole languages existed in most trading ports in Indonesia.

Part 2

2.1 The Interviews

2.1.1 Introduction

I am doing the interviews with one of my classmate Hamidah binti Abdul Hamid. We

went searching for the respondents around Terengganu and discussing the steps and suitable

and simple questionnaire to deliver to them. The arrangement of the report is according to the

Havard format. Below are the information and findings that have been collected. Reflections

have been made from the information gathered during the discussions.

Interview 1

Gender : Female

Race : Malay

Age : 28 years old

Education : Diploma of Education TESL

Occupational : Outdoor Trainer (Formally English Teacher)

Travel Experiences : Local

Spoken Language : Malay

Second Language : English

The respondent I known as Madam L. Here is the 10 minutes conversation between the me (W) and Madam L (R).


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W: Hai Good morning.

R : Hai..morning

W: aa..Can you do me aa…a favour.

R : Emm... whats that?

W : Madam…or Miss?

R : aa…m.. You can call me madam.

W : ok madam…ok madam…ok madam…

R : ya…

W : I would like to ask you some questions.

R : okay..

W : aa.. ok just..just a..answer me ok…easy..just easy questions. Ehem…

R : em..How old are you?

W : I’m 28 years old.

R : Ok 28 years old.

W : aa…Are you married or not?

R : I’m married!

W : What is your occupation?

R : I am a permanent instructor at Pusat Kokurikulum

W : I see…Ok madam…a…madam this question …You answer this question… What kind of language do you speak?

R : I speak Malay and English..


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W : Oh Malay and English…ok Malay and English very good. Which language…mostly use by you?

R : Of course Malay and then I just mix with English. A bit la….

W : How frequent you use the language in a day? I mean Malay.

R : Most of the time but I still use English during working…speaking with my friends

W : Do you speak Malay at home?

R : of course la …Sometimes mix with English

W : What do you think about the language? Malay I mean.

R : Of course it is a good language because it is my mother tongue.

W : Can you give me an example of Malay language? A sentence…a simple sentence

R : What the example do you need? How is it? What are the scoops?

W : Anything.. Can you give me an example a sentence..in Bahasa aa..is it Melayu? Malay?

R : Saya suka aktiviti outdoor.

W : Saya suka aktiviti outdoor?

R : sorry…sorry…

W : It is a mix…you rojak la

R : Ops…sorry.. I frequently use the words…sometimes I mix words during my speaking

W : Just make a simple sentence.

R : Saya suka makan nasi goreng.

W : ok how many language do speak actually do you know?

R : Two languages. Malay and English.

W : How do you feel to know those languages?


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R : I feel good. I feel comfortable with those languages. For Malay language I can speak with my friend and English I can use with my student. I love using English my family, my son, my hubby.

W : Do you know the structure of the language, the grammar?

R : ……(giving example in Bahasa and identify the part of speech)

W : Do you know the structure of the other language?

W : Last time, which school were you from?

R : Primary school SK Jabi Alor Star and secondary school SMK Sultanah Asma

(The respondent was exposed to English during his teenager)

W : Last question…what is the status of Malay language in this country?

R : This is the first language …and most of the people use Malay to convey..to communicate among them.

W : What I the purpose of using the language.

R : It is on top….

2.1.2 Malay and Malay Language

Malays (Malay: Melayu) are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly

inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller

islands between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay

race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the

Philippines. The Malay language is a member of the Austronesian family of languages.

The Malay language (ISO 639-1 code: MS) is an Austronesian language spoken by the

Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern


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Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the

coast of Borneo.

2.1.3 The status of the language in the country

Malay is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore. In Indonesia and East

Timor, the language is formally referred to as Bahasa Indonesia, which literally translates as

"Indonesian language." It is also called Bahasa Kebangsaan (National Language) and Bahasa

Persatuan/Pemersatu (Unifying Language) in Indonesia. In Malaysia, the language is now

officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, ("Malaysian language".) Singapore, Brunei and southern

Thailand refer to the language as Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language").

In Malaysia, the term Bahasa Malaysia, which was introduced by the National Language

Act of 1967, was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials

reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According

to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia.

"Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s.

2.1.4 Sound system

Note: this article uses the orthography of Malaysian Malay. For Indonesian orthography, see Indonesian language.

Table of consonant phonemes of Malay

Bilabial Labio-Dental

Dental Alveolar Post-Alveolar

Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal

Nasal m /m/ n /n/ ny /ɲ/ ng /ŋ/

Plosive p /p/

b /b/ t /t/

d /d/

k /k/

g /g/

Affricate c /tʃ/ j /dʒ/

Fricative f v s /s/ z /z/ sy /ʃ, ʂ, sj/ h /h/


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/f/ /v/Approximant y /j/ w /w/Lateral l /l/Trill r /r/

Orthographic Note:

The combination of /ŋg/ is represented as ngg.

Table of vowel phonemes of MalayHeight Front Central BackClose i /i/ u /u/Mid e /e, ɛ/ e /ə/ o /o, ɔ/Open a /a/ a /ɑ/Table diphthongs of MalayOrthography IPAai /aɪ ̯, ai/au /aʊ ̯, au/ua /ua/

There are two vowels represented by the letter "e", i.e. /e, ɛ/ and /ə/. Learners of Malay are expected to distinguish between the two sounds while learning each new word.

In some parts of Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the central and southern regions, most words which end with the letter a tend to be pronounced as /ə/.

2.1.5 Syntactical of the language

In Malay, there are 4 parts of speech:

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Function words


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There are 16 types of function words in Malay which perform a grammatical function in a

sentence. Amongst these are conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, negations and

determiners.

There are two negation words in Malay, that is bukan and tidak. Bukan is used to negate

noun phrases and prepositions in a predicate, whereas tidak is used to negate verbs and

adjectives phrases in a predicate.

Subject Negation Predicate

Lelaki yang berjalan dengan Birsilah itu

(That boy who is walking with Birsilah)

bukan

(is not)

teman lelakinya

(her boyfriend)

Surat itu

(The letter)

bukan

(is not)

daripada teman penanya di Perancis

(from his penpal in France)

Pelajar-pelajar itu

(Those students)

tidak

(do not)

mengikuti peraturan sekolah

(obey school regulations)

Penguasaan Bahasa Melayunya

(His command of Malay language)

tidak

(is not)

sempurna

(perfect)

The negative word bukan however, can be used before verb phrases and adjective phrases if

the sentence shows contradictions.

Subject Negation Predicate Contradiction

Karangannya

(His composition)

bukan

(is not)

baik sangat,

(very good,)

tetapi dia mendapat markah yang baik

(but he received good marks)


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Kilang itu

(The factory)

bukan

(is not)

menghasilkan kereta Kancil,

(producing Kancil cars)

sebaliknya menghasilkan Proton Wira

(instead is producing Proton Wira)

Malay does not make use of grammatical gender, and there are only a few words that

use natural gender; the same word is used for he and she or for his and her. Most of the words

that refer to people (family terms, professions, etc.) have a form that does not distinguish

between the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of either sex. In order

to specify the natural gender of a noun, an adjective has to be added: adik laki-laki corresponds

to "brother" but really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are gendered,

for instance puteri means "princess", and putera means "prince"; words like these are usually

absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from Sanskrit).

Plurals are often expressed by means of reduplication, but only when the plural is not

implied in the context. For example, the plural of 'cawan', which means "cup", would be

'cawan-cawan'. This can be shortened to 'cecawan', but this only applies to a limited number of

words. Reduplication to mark pluralization is often in complementary distribution with numeral

markers, for example "one thousand cups" would be 'seribu cawan' and not 'seribu cawan-

cawan'.

Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense

is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as

sudah, "already". On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render

nuances of meaning and denote active and passive voices or intentional and accidental moods.

Some of these affixes are ignored in daily conversations.

The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. Adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and

possessive pronouns follow the noun they describe.


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2.2 Interview 2

Gender : Female

Race : Chinese

Age : 36 years old

Education : Bachelor of TESL

Occupational : English Teacher



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Spoken Language : Hokkien


Other Language : Malay and Mandarin

An interview is done with two of my friends’ teacher from Kuala Terengganu, and he wanted to known as Mr. G and Miss CMY. According to both of them they are not locally from the state of Terengganu Malaysia but from the East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia, Mr G is from the state of Malacca and Miss CMY is from Ipoh Perak.

Sham : Hi Chik! How are you?

CMY : Hey Sham…long time no see, I’m ok Sham….I miss you la Sham.

Sham : Really… You a…like nyonya. Are you married?

CMY : Sham…Sham…nobody want me….sape nak aku ni la…. Gumok lagi tax cantik lagi.

Sham : Who said so?

CMY : I la…..

Sham : Ok…ok…you better find one… Are you still working or what?

CMY : Nope, I’m not finished my study lagi maa….Ei Sham What are you doing maa?…you nak interview I ke Sham?

Sham : Seems like an interview ke? I thought of doing this informally… but what to do seems like you already notice it….

CMY : You la Sham, always forget…what about you?

Sham : I’m still studying too….in OUM. CMY can you do me a favour?

CMY : What Sham?

Sham : I would like to ask you some questions….

CMY : Regarding what maa….?


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Sham : Ah… easy… just answer me…ok

CMY : Ok…ask me la…hundred question pun ok maa….you punya pasal..

Sham : Ok CMY… What kind of Chinese Language do you speak?

CMY : Hokkien maa….

Sham : How frequently do you use the language in a day?

CMY : Everytime, I meet with Chinese friends and other who can speak Hokkien and also at home maa…

Sham : Do you speak Hokkien at home? Oh…you just mention

CMY : sometimes a Sham….i mix with Malay maa…What to do?

Sham : What di you think about the language? I mean Hokkien….

CMY : it is a good language what, many people especially Chinese and Malay also can speak Hokkien maa… but I think a….in daily speaking as you know a Sham…every day I speak with Malay people, so I sometimes mix the language even at home I also mix my language…they all mix up like rojak maa…..

Sham : Can you give me examples?

CMY : You want example a….

Sham : Yup….

CMY : You a Sham….Em…Just a minute…I’m trying to remember some of it…Ok Sham, it is not a good things to say maa.

Sham : Nevermind, I keep it secret…and this is confidential….trust me…

CMY : During the fasting season…there’s a man…always ask me to buy food for him…I’m giving you example a…not telling you a story about a man who did not fast….

Sham : ok…ok…interesting


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CMY : He always ask me to buy food, he said to me “alo amoy a… you tolong beli nasi kat I” and I did reply “ You want to tapau how many bungkus maa…?” that’s it la….

Sham : Oh…I see..

CMY : Do you want another example?

Sham : Ok…one is enough I think…I know you have lots of story to tell me…I think we better go on to the next question.

CMY : Ok Sham….

Sham : How many languages do you know?

CMY : four languages, Hokkien, Mandarin, Malay and English.

Sham : How do you feel to know many languages?

CMY : Great…

Sham : Why?

CMY : Aisey Sham…I can speak with you what? I can speak with my Chinese friends and family and the important things is I can speak with Mat Salleh maa….

Sham : oh I see…do you know about the structure of the language …I mean Hokkien…the grammar.

CMY : You kata soalan senang..ni soalan susah maa….don’t knowlah…I just how to speak Hokkien…don’t know how to write maa….

Sham : I thought you are from Chinese school? Setiawan is it?

CMY : Yelah Sham….that time I learn Mandarin..so I can write Mandarin la….

Sham : I see.. ok last question… What is the status of Hokkien in Malaysia?

CMY : Ok Sham…susah lor…your question….ok I think a… hokkien can go far….frequently we use in business and communicating. There are many Chinese people in Malaysia who speak Hokkien especially in Pantai Barat….you can do business with them… they cannot cheat you when dealing with them if you know how to speak Hokkien


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Sham : Oklah CMY…that just do it. I think that’s enough..so thank you..and see you then.

2.2.1 Chinese

The ethnic Chinese in Malaysia belong to several Chinese dialect groups. There are three

major dialect groups: Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese. Other dialects include Teochiu,

Hainanese, Hokchiu and Hinghwa. Hokkien, Hainanese, Teochiu, Hinghwa and Hokchiu are part

of the Min language group. It is evident that people belonging to certain dialect groups are

populated in different parts of communities in Malaysia.

The Hokkien is the largest group in Malaysia. It forms the largest dialect group in

Penang, Malacca, Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan, Selangor -- mostly in Klang and coastal region

of Selangor and western Johor. The Hokkien dialect is also commonly spoken in Sarawak as the

Hokkien are the largest group of Chinese ethnic while there formed smaller groups of them in

Sabah.

The Hakka also form the most populous dialect group in East Malaysia (Sabah and

Sarawak), parts of Johor notably Kulai, Selangor-Kuala Lumpur and Pahang. Hakkas are also

found in large numbers in Johor Bahru and Perak, of which they possibly constitute the largest

dialect group.

Cantonese constitutes the most populous Chinese dialect group in the state of Selangor,

Kuala Lumpur, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Perak where the Cantonese forms a large

percentage of the population. The Cantonese also forms the largest dialect group in eastern

Johor and Sandakan, Sabah. Sandakan used to be called "Little Hong Kong" since it was the

second homeland for many settlers from Guangdong, where the sceneries resemble Hong Kong

in the 1970s and the 1980s. Local Cantonese media is frequently broadcasted by Malaysian

television channels, notably TV3, NTV7, and 8TV.


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The Teochews are concentrated in parts of Penang, many islands of Sabah and Southern

Johor, principally Johor Bahru and Pontian.

There are, in general, three sub-linguistic groups of Malaysian Chinese with three

metropolitan centers. The Penang, Klang and Malacca groups are predominantly Hokkien-

speaking and the Kuala Lumpur, Seremban & Ipoh group is predominantly Cantonese and

Hakka-speaking. To the south of Peninsular Malaysia, in Johor, Mandarin is predominantly

spoken among the Chinese communities there, which is a result of the Mandarin media

influence from Singapore, and the use of Mandarin in formal education. This has resulted in

many people, especially the younger generation, to discard and neglect the usage of Chinese

dialects, especially Teochew and Cantonese. Whereas in East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo),

Hakka and Mandarin is widely spoken, except in Sibu, Fuzhou and in Sandakan, Cantonese.

Modern movements to unify and organize Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Chinese

communities introduced Standard Mandarin as the language of diaspora ethnic nationalism.


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2.2.2 Population by dialect group

The number of Chinese speakers has increased from 2,667,452 in 1957 to 5,365,846 in

year 2000, comprising 26% of total population in Malaysia. The Chinese community in Malaysia

can be divided into the following dialect groups:

Dialect Population

Hokkien 1,848,211


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Hakka 1,679,027

Cantonese 1,355,541

Teochew 974,573

Mandarin 958,467

Hainanese 380,781

Min Bei 373,337

Foochow 249,413


Chinese is everywhere in the world and in The Republic China itself there are about 1.7

billion people. Hokkien is use widely in the East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia. According to the

fact that we can consider in Malaysian context it is important to learn and study Hokkien. The

number of Chinese that speaks Hokkien is nearly half of the Chinese population in this country

now. Reflection has been made through her opinions that refer to some circumstance for

example, there are about 10 million people and most of them speak Hokkien. If we look further,

Hokkien in Malaysia is use in informal situation for example in business. Can it go international?

Yes, because our country now have further open its wing in business and trade with China. So,

it is a great opportunity for those who need to learn the language and it should be in the

Malaysian curriculum in fact the race keep increasingly in number.

2.2.4 Sound system diagrams


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Hokkien has one of the most diverse phonologies amongst Chinese languages, with

more consonants than standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels, on the other hand, are more

or less similar to that of Standard Mandarin.

2.2.5 Vowels

Front Near- front

Central Near- back

Back

Close

Near-close

Close-mid

Mid

Open-mid

Near-open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the rightrepresents a rounded vowel.

2.2.6 Initial

Southern Min has aspirated, unaspirated as well as voiced consonant initials. This

distinction makes Southern Min one of the harder dialects for non-native speakers to learn. For

example, the words for opening and closing (khui (開) vs. kuiⁿ (關)) a door have the same vowel

but differ only by aspiration of the initial and nasality of the vowel. In addition, Southern Min

also has labial initial consonants such as m in m ̄-sī (不是) (meaning "is not").

2.2.7 Finals


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Unlike Mandarin, Southern Min retains all the final consonants of Middle Chinese. While

Mandarin only preserves the n and ŋ finals, Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k finals

and developed the ʔ (glottal stop).

2.2.8 Tones

In general, Hokkien dialects have seven to eight tones, and tone sandhi is extensive.

There are minor variations between the Chinchew and Changchew tone systems. Taiwanese

tones follow the schemes of Amoy and Changchew, depending on the area of Taiwan. See also

Amoy dialect for more examples.

Hokkien tones

Tone Amoy(Xiamen)

Chinchew(Quanzhou)

Changchew(Zhangzhou)

1 ˥ (55) ˧ (33) ˥ (55)2 ˥˧ (53) ˥ (55) ˥˧ (53)3 ˨˩ (21) ˧˩ (31) ˨˩ (21)4 ˩ʔ (1) ˥ʔ (5) ˩ʔ (1)5 ˧˥ (35) ˧˥ (35) ˩˧ (13)6 (= #2) ˨ (22) (= #2)7 ˩ (11) ˧˩ (31) ˩ (11)8 ˥ (5ʔ) ˨˧ʔ (23) ˩˨ʔ (12)


Comparison

Amoy speech is a hybrid of Chinchew and Changchew speech. Taiwanese is also a hybrid

of these two dialects. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on Chinchew speech,

whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Changchew speech.

There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Chinchew and Changchew


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speech. The grammar is basically the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen

loanwords from Japanese.

2.2.10 Mutual intelligibility

Spoken: Chinchew speech, Xiamen (Amoy) speech, Changchew speech and Taiwanese are

mutually intelligible.

Teochew and Amoy Hokkien speech are 84.3% phonetically similarand 33.8% lexically

similar, whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similarand 15.1% lexically

similar. In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar. In other words, Chao-Shan,

including Swatow (both of which are variants of Teochew), has very low intelligibility with

Hokkien, and Hokkien is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin.

2.2.11 Reader’s opinion (Yahoo A&Q)

1. Partygirl - Taiwanese sometimes borrows Chinese characters, which means the same

thing, but is pronounced differently. Some Taiwanese words can't be expressed using

Chinese characters, for example, Taiwanese differentiates between "our" (including you)

and "our" (not including you) Chinese doesn't have a single character for that.

Sometimes English characters are used and are spelled out phonetically, but it's hard to

read and takes practice. There are 7 accents and nasal sounds, so it's really hard.

Reading Taiwanese is an art ^. ^

It's not really meant to be read. It's easier to speak and to understand.

2. Yukidomari - anyway, Taiwanese is usually written with mandarin characters, Hoklo or

not. There is no script just for Hoklo. Sometimes it's written in English script. Or we use

mandarin characters to approximate the sound of the Taiwanese (interchangeable with

Hoklo because of their widespread status) word.


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2.3 Interview 3

Gender : Female

Race : Indian

Age : 38 years old

Education : Diploma of Education TESL

Occupational : English Teacher


Spoken Language : Tamils


Other Language : Malay

The respondent wanted to know her as Ms A.M. She was my former classmate during my educational years 1997-2000. Tamils Language in Malaysia is formally use in school especially in SRJK(T) and it is the government policies to make sure that Indian race have the same opportunity to learn the language in school. Below are the summary of the interview between me and Ms AM and I did write some dialogue between me and Ms AM in order to answer such question.

The status of the language in the country is just the same like Hokkien. Many Indians in Malaysia according to Wikipedia are shifting to English over time. They are also reaching to the phenomenon of mix the language with Malay and English but Tamil has its own specialty.

Writers : Can you give an examples sentence in Tamil?

Respondents : Of course….ok listen….“Amma veke minne podhi kemma”

Writer : What does this mean?

Respondent : It mean “My mother don’t like to eat fish”Prepared by; Shamshurizat bin Hashim740725095259001

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Based on the dialogue above

2.3.1 Introduction

Tamil Malaysian or Malaysian Tamil refer to the Malaysians of Tamil ethnic origin from

India and Sri Lanka in Malaysia. They make up over 70% of the Indian Malaysian population

group in Malaysia. Although bulk of the migration happened during the British colonial period

there were established Tamil communities spanning a millennia.

2.3.2 Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian

subcontinent. It has official status in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Tamil is also spoken by

significant minorities in Malaysia, Mauritius, Vietnam, Réunion as well as emigrant communities

around the world. It is the administrative language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and the

first Indian language to be declared as a classical language by the government of India in 2004,

followed by Sanskrit. Tamil literature has existed for over two thousand years. The earliest

epigraphic records found date from around the third century BCE. The earliest period of Tamil

literature, Sangam literature, is dated from the 3rd century BC to 6th century AD.

According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which

353 were dailies.


According to Harold Schiffman an American researcher into Malaysian Tamils, native

Tamil speakers especially well-educated Tamils are shifting to English, where as less-educated

Tamils, however, especially those still living in plantation communities, continue to speak Tamil,

and the prognosis for their language maintenance is for the time being favorable. Although

most Tamil students still go to publicly funded schools that teach primary subjects in Tamil


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language there are moves to shift to Malay language. Some Tamil groups have objected to this

policy.


Tamil is a consistently head-final language. The verb comes at the end of the clause,

with typical word order Subject Object Verb (SOV). However, word order in Tamil is also

flexible, so that surface permutations of the SOV order are possible with different pragmatic

effects. Tamil has postpositions rather than prepositions. Demonstratives and modifiers

precede the noun within the noun phrase. Subordinate clauses precede the verb of the matrix

clause.

Tamil is a null subject language. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and

objects. It is possible to construct grammatically valid and meaningful sentences which lack one

or more of the three. For example, a sentence may only have a verb—such as muṭintuviṭṭatu

("completed")—or only a subject and object, without a verb such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That [is] my

house"). Tamil does not have a copula (a linking verb equivalent to the word is). The word is

included in the translations only to convey the meaning more easily.

Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonants, and strict

rules for the distribution within words of voiced and unvoiced plosives. Tamil phonology

permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify

Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a "secondary character", the āytam.

2.4 Interview 4

Gender : Female

Race : Iban


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Age : 34 years old

Education : SPM

Occupational : Housewife


Spoken Language : Iban

Second Language : Malay

Other Language : English

Bunga anak Lutau is a housewife which in my classmate in SMKT Malacca before. Now she is staying in Sarawak and I take an opportunity to interview her under telephone conversation. The interview was done in Bahasa because she was not good in English.

Sham : Hello..apa khabar?

Bunga : Baik? You apa khabar? Udah minum?

Sham : Eh.…saya sudah minum.

Bunga : Apa khabar oghang Semenanjung?

Sham : Baik…

Bunga : Kamu sihat ka?

Sham : Sihat…Ok…Bunga Saya mau Tanya beberapa soalan..bolehkan?

Bunga : Boleh…

Sham : Bahasa apakah yang Bunga gunakan ketika bercakap?

Bunga : Emm….Bahas Iban dan jugak bahasa Melayu.

Sham : Di mana?


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Bunga : Di rumah saya guna bahasa Iban….dan juga bahasa Melayu

Sham : Apakah pendapat Bunga tentang bahasa Iban?

Bunga : Bahasa Iban menarik…sam biasa tengok iklan di TV…apa ya…ah iklan itu maybank…kan itu bahasa iban…manarikkan

Sham : ya menarik…ghimau… Berapa banyak language yang Bunga tahu?

Bunga : tiga… Iban, Melayu dan sedikit Bahasa Inggeris

Sham : Adakah Bunga tahu tatabahasa Iban?

Bunga : tidak..berbanding bahasa Melayu…itupun ingat-ingat lupa

Sham : Apakah status bahasa Iban sekarang?

Bunga : status….bahasa Iban untuk orang Sarawak saja terutama untuk orang Iban sebab tidak ramai atau kurang orang mau belajar bahasa iban berbanding bahasa inggeris.

Sham : boleh Bunga bagi contoh ayat dalam bahasa Iban?

Bunga : Boleh…..”Sapa nama nuan?” – Siapa nama awak?, “ari ni panatai nuan?” – “Kamu dari mana?” banyak lagi la Sam. Nanti saya tulis…..

Sham : Oh…terima kasih

I learnt a few more Iban language with my colleague at school who has just came back from Sarawak which I stated below.

agi - "again" (Malay lagi)

aja - "only" (Malay saja)

aku - "I; me"

amat - "truly"

ao - "correct; that's right"

apai - "father"


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asai - "feel" (Malay rasa)

bedau - "not yet"

bai - "bring"

bak - "at"

baka - "like"

baka selama - "same as usual"

bakanya - "like that"

baru - "new; may"

bejalai - "to walk"

belanda/belawak - "to run"

dani - "wake up (from sleep)"

lenyau - "lost"

makai - "to eat"

ngelusu - "lazy (sometimes burok is also used to convey this meaning)

ngirup - "to drink"

nuan- "is the formal "you" deh is less formal"

nyumai - "to cook"

tinduk - "to sleep"

Editor-Cina Bintulu

Nama brita nuan? - "How are you?"

Sapa nama nuan? - "What is your name?"


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Brapa rega utai tu? - "How much is this?"

Dini alai ___? - "Where is ___?"

Ari ni penatai nuan? - "Where are you from?"

Aku datai ari ___. - "I come from ___."

Pukul brapa diatu? - "What is the time now?"

Selamat lemai! - "Good evening!"

Selamat datai! - "Welcome!"

Anang manchal! - "Don't be naughty!"

enda ulih datai - "cannot come"

Anang guai - "hold on" "Don't spoil it"

Nadai ngawa nya - "nevermind that"

Nyamai wai - "nice taste"

Pulai dulu-"I'm going back"

Aram bekelala-"Let's introduce ourselves"

Pengerindu-"Love, Passion"

Aku rinduka nuan-"I love / like you"

Manah-"Good, Great"

Jai-"Bad, damaged"

Sapa enggau nuan?-"Who came with you?"

Aku enggau ___-"I came / went with ___"

Ninga meh-"Please listen"

Anang inggar / ragak-"Silent, please"


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Kini nuan?-"Where are you going?"

Mar amat! - "too expensive!"

Kapanya! - "Whatever!"

Selamat pagi pengajar. - "Good morning teacher."

Aku enda nemu - "I don't know"

Aram meh kitai ngirup - "Let drink together"

Aku lelenggau ka nuan - "I miss you"

2.4.1 Introduction

The Iban language is spoken in Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo) and the

Sarawak state region of Malaysia by the Iban, a branch of the Dayak ethnic group (formerly

known as "Sea Dayak"). It belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian

language family, and is closely related to Malay.

2.4.2 History

The origin of the name Iban is a mystery, although many theories exist. During the

British colonial era, the Ibans were called Sea Dayaks. Some believe that the word Iban was an

ancient original Iban word for people or man. The modern-day Iban word for people or man is

mensia, a slightly modified Malay loan word of the same meaning (manusia).

The Ibans were the original inhabitants of Borneo Island. Like the other Dayak tribes,

they were originally farmers, hunters, and gatherers. Not much is known about Iban people

before the arrival of the Western expeditions to Asia. Nothing was ever recorded by any

voyagers about them.


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The Ibans were unfortunately branded for being pioneers of headhunting. Headhunting

among the Ibans is believed to have started when the lands occupied by the Ibans became

over-populated. In those days, before the arrival of western civilization, intruding on lands

belonging to other tribes resulted in death. Confrontation was the only way of survival.

2.4.3 About the language

It is the family of Austronesian languages

2.4.4 Structure

It is very difficult to make meaningful generalizations about the languages that make up

a family as rich and diverse as Austronesian. Speaking very broadly, the Austronesian languages

can be divided into three groups of languages: Philippine-type languages, Indonesian-type

languages and post-Indonesian type (Ross 2002). The first group is characterized by relatively

strong verb-initial word order and Philippine-type voice alternations. This phenomenon has

frequently been referred to as focus. However, the relevant literature is beginning to avoid this

term. Many linguists feel that the phenomenon is better described as voice, and that the

terminology creates confusion with more common uses of the word focus within linguistics.

The Austronesian languages tend to use reduplication (repetition of all or part of a

word, such as wiki-wiki), and, like many East and Southeast Asian languages, have highly

restrictive phonotactics, with small numbers of phonemes and predominantly consonant-vowel

syllables.

2.4.5 Classification

The internal structure of the Austronesian languages is difficult to work out, as the

family consists of many very similar and very closely related languages with large numbers of


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dialect continua, making it difficult to recognize boundaries between branches. In even the best

classifications available today, many of the groups in the Philippines and Indonesia are

geographic conveniences rather than reflections of relatedness. However, it is clear that the

greatest genealogical diversity is found among the Formosan languages of Taiwan, and the least

diversity among the islands of the Pacific, supporting a dispersal of the family from Taiwan or

China. The first comprehensive classification to reflect this was Dyen (1965).

The seminal article in the classification of Formosan—and, by extension, the top-level

structure of Austronesian—is Blust (1999). Prominent Formosanists (linguists who specialize in

Formosan languages) take issue with some of its details, but it remains the point of reference

for current linguistic analyses, and is shown below. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are

frequently included within Blust's Eastern Formosan branch due to their shared leveling of

proto-Austronesian *t, *C to /t/ and *n, *N to /n/, their shift of *S to /h/, and vocabulary such

as *lima "five" which are not attested in other Formosan languages

2.4.6 Lexicon

The Austronesian language family is established by the linguistic Comparative method

on the basis of cognate sets, sets of words similar in sound and meaning which can be shown to

be descended from the same ancestral word in Proto-Austronesian according to regular rules.

Some cognate sets are very stable. The word for eye in many Austronesian languages is mata

(from the most northerly Austronesian languages, Formosan languages such as Bunun and Amis

all the way south to Maori). Other words are harder to reconstruct. The word for two is also

stable, in that it appears over the entire range of the Austronesian family, but the forms (e.g.

Bunun rusya, lusha; Amis tusa; Maori tua, rua) require some linguistic expertise to recognise.

The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database gives word lists (coded for cognacy) for

approximately 500 Austronesian languages.


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Part 3

3 Conclusions

The explanation on overall finding of respondent idea and opinion about their language

competence and performance will put into conclusion that all responds reflect to the indicator

such as:

a) Language and ethnicity

b) Language and identity

c) Language and ideology

d) Language and power

e) Language change

f) Language contact

g) Language death

3.1 Language and ethnicity

Malaysia is a mixed community and the language use may be differ in context. Malay,

Chinese, Tamil and other communities communicate in Bahasa Melayu in trade/formally and

they use own mother tongue when communicate within family members and friends of the

same race.

The relation between language use and ethnic background, especially in a mixed

community. In modern urban societies, it is now common place to find speakers of a variety of

ethnic backgrounds living together and interacting in various ways. Examples include Anglos,

Latinos and blacks in western American cities and speakers of Anglo-Saxon, Caribbean and

Asian origin in English cities. Especially since the 1980s, some linguists have begun turning their


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attention to the links between language and ethnic background. In some cases, of course, some

speakers are bilingual (for example, Spanish— English bilinguals in the USA and Panjabi—

English bilinguals in Britain). It is of interest to see how and in what circumstances such

speakers change back and forth between their languages (this is code-switching), and also to

find out what influence each language has on the other. More generally, linguists are interested

in determining the extent to which a given language or variety serves as a badge of identity for

a particular ethnic group, and how that group’s variety of a language differs from varieties of

the same language used by other speakers.

On the whole, the study of language and ethnicity is still in its infancy, but illuminating

findings have already appeared. For example, the British sociolinguist Ben Rampton has

recently discovered the phenomenon of crossing, in which a member of one ethnic group

deliberately adopts the language or usage of another ethnic group for specific social purposes.

The study of language and ethnicity is sometimes called ethnolinguistics.

3.2 Language and identity

The interviews were made upon respondents of different academic level in English.

Every answer due to their knowledge and abilities to cope with the question asked. The answer

that was made by the first respondent can be referred to language and identity. But most of the

respondents were language educated (English) but another certain aspect that relate to their

responses, idea and opinion was their experience and reading proficiency of the language itself.

The role of language in providing a speaker with individuality and group membership.

Every time you open your mouth, you give other people important clues about what sort of


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person you are: where you come from, what social class you belong to, even your sex and age

(for example, on the telephone). This information says something both about your individuality

and about the social, national and ethnic groups to which you consider yourself to belong. For

several decades now, sociolinguists have realized that providing each speaker with an individual

and group identity is one of the most important functions of language. An appreciation of this

identifying function of language is crucial in understanding many types of social and linguistic

behaviour. One of the most obvious of these is the seeming paradox that many people

consistently describe their own speech as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘inferior’, and yet make no effort

to change it towards the sort of speech they explicitly describe as ‘better’. Consider the case of

a plumber in east London, who speaks the ‘Cockney’ English typical of working-class speakers in

this area. What would happen if he, dissatisfied with his speech, decided to try to abandon it in

favour of something close to the middle-class English he professes to admire? It’s obvious: his

family and friends would find his efforts comical for about ten seconds, and then they would

become increasingly annoyed, distant, and perhaps even hostile. Soon our ambitious plumber

would find himself with no friends left. But why? Well, our plumber lives among a group of

people with whom he largely shares his background, his circumstances and his values, and, like

anybody, he wants to remain a valued member of this group, upon which he depends for

friendship and support. But, to remain a member, he must speak the way the others do, since

doing so carries the clear message ‘I regard myself as a member of your group.’ However, if he

deliberately changes his speech, he is announcing in the clearest way possible ‘I no longer

regard myself as a member of your group’; if he persists, the others will quickly get the

message, and he will be excluded.

The link between language and identity can involve entirely different languages. Welsh-

speakers in Wales or Basque-speakers and Catalan-speakers in Spain may (and often do) regard

their distinctive language as a central part of their identity, and may deeply resent pressures to

abandon their ancestral language in favour of the more prestigious English or Spanish. Rather


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than consenting to becoming anonymous if slightly quaint speakers on the fringes of the English

speaking or Spanish speaking world, they prefer to see themselves as part of a distinct people,

with their own nation, their own history, their own traditions, their own values and their own

goals; the most obvious outward sign of this distinct identity is their language. The all-too-

common failure to recognize or esteem this identifying effect of language has led countless

times to grief and to major social, educational and political problems.

3.3 Language and ideology

The Malay language stands as the top language in Malaysia. It is the ideology of Malay.

Malaysian government put into act that say the national language for this country is Malay

Language. All of the respondents were influenced by the Malay Language; whereby we can

listen to people of all races in this country communicate in Bahasa Melayu with each other in

communicating formally or informally. But there is an acceptance since Malaysia is a

democratic country the use of other languages is not prohibited. Even nowadays, Malay apart

from other races in Malaysia can speaks and learns Chinese and Tamil and shares their

ideologies.

The examination of language as a political weapon. Among its many other functions, a

language can be used as an instrument of political pressure, and such use is far from rare. Most

obviously, language can be used either to confer validity upon a social group or political entity

or to deny validity. For example, we take a look at the situation after the French Revolution the

new Republican government, finding France to be a patchwork of peoples speaking at least

eight different languages, resolved to unify the country, and one of their major weapons was

Parisian French. Laws were passed requiring the teaching and use of Parisian French, while the

other languages were subjected to merciless condemnation and persecution; their use was


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presented as unpatriotic, subversive and sinister, and their speakers were condemned as

reactionaries and fanatics. Much the same happened in polyglot Spain after the Fascist victory

in the Spanish Civil War: the dictator General Franco declared the very speaking of any

languages other than Castilian Spanish to be illegal, and Basques, Catalans and Galicians were

routinely ordered to ‘stop barking like dogs’ and to ‘speak the language of the Christians’. It can

also work the other way. In recent years, the Basques, the Catalans, the Welsh and the Irish, to

name just a few, have rallied behind their traditional languages as effective public emblems of

their individual identity and of their right to self-determination. They have fought for, and often

obtained, the right to education, publication and broadcasting in their languages, and many

people who grew up speaking only Spanish or English have learned their ancestral language and

ensured that their children learn it too. It has been observed that nationalism is the principal

political force of our time, and there is arguably no more powerful emblem of national identity

than a distinctive language. The political and ideological uses of language have been examined

for generations, though the discussion has not always been illuminating, and it has often been

dominated by avowed Marxists. Two of the most prominent figures in the debate were both

Marxists: the Italian Antonio Gramsci and the Russian Mikhail Bakhtin. These two sometimes

defended almost diametrically opposed positions, though it is Bakhtin whose views have

probably been more influential in informing the continuing debate over the competing rights

and demands of national languages and minority languages.

3.4 Language and power

Since the Malays form the majority of the population and hold the power of politics in

Malaysia so Malay Language was the regional lingua franca. Malay cultural influences filtered

out throughout the archipelago, such as the monarchical state, religion (Hinduism/Buddhism in

the first millennium AD, Islam in the second millennium), and the Malay language.


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The relation between the type of language used by an individual and that individual’s

access to positions of power and influence. In almost every society of any size or complexity,

there are notable differences in the type of language used by different sectors of society, and

furthermore associated differences in the access enjoyed by the different groups to powerful

and well-paid positions. For example, in the English-speaking world, the contrast is primarily

between standard English and the various non-standard forms of English, and it is obvious that

speakers of standard English typically enjoy more power, more prestige and more money than

the others, who are far more likely to be confined to positions of low prestige, with

comparatively little money or influence and often with little chance for advancement. What, if

anything, should we do about this state of affairs? Broadly speaking, there have been two

answers proposed to this question. Some people emphasize the importance of teaching

prestige forms of language to speakers of non-prestige forms in order to empower them, while

others object to the imposition of prestige forms on the ground that it effectively denies power

to speakers of other varieties.

In the English case, the first group is essentially arguing that it is the very command of

standard English which itself confers access to power and prestige and, hence, that it is our

social duty to extend this command to as many people as possible, since otherwise non-

standard speakers will remain marginalized and unable to play a full part in society. The second

group, in great contrast, argue that standard English is nothing more than the identifying badge

of a particular and maximally powerful group, a mere sign of class membership and, hence, that

stressing the imposition of standard English denies the value of non-standard forms, so that

non-standard speakers are implicitly dismissed as inadequate and unworthy of power. Many

members of the second group go so far as to demand that non-standard varieties of English

should be formally recognized as the equal of standard English, and that nonstandard English

should become the vehicle of education for its speakers, a position which appeals the members

of the first group.


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This debate continues today, and it produces deep divisions among academics,

politicians and teachers. In Britain, the Kingman Report of 1988, which advocated the first

policy, has often been at the centre of the controversy.

3.5 Language change

Malaysia is a developing country and the increasing of science and information

communication technology throughout the country brought to the changes and improvement

in the language use in all community. There is a fact that majority of Indian in Malaysia is going

through this process and followed by a few Chinese and Malay.

Change in languages over time. One of the fundamental facts about living languages is

that they are always changing. New words, new pronunciations, new grammatical forms and

structures, and new meanings for existing words are always coming into existence, while older

ones are always dropping out of use. It is absolutely impossible for a living language to avoid

changing.

The motivations for change are many and various, and only some of them are

reasonably well understood. New objects, new concepts, new activities all require new names;

at the same time, old objects and activities may cease to exist, and their names may die with

them. Certain linguistic forms may acquire social prestige and spread to the speech of those

who formerly did not use them. The physiological characteristics of the mouth may tend to

favour certain changes in pronunciation, but such changes may disrupt formerly regular

grammatical patterns, introducing irregularities which may later be removed in one way or

another. Syntactic structures which come to be frequently used may be reduced to simpler

grammatical forms. And language contact may induce speakers to import forms and usages

from other languages. Such constant change means that a language at any point in time is

always significantly different from its direct ancestor of some centuries earlier and often vastly


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different from its ancestor of one or two millennia earlier. Moreover, a language spoken over a

sizeable area does not change everywhere in the same way, and so, over time, it breaks up, first

into regional dialects and then, eventually, into several very different languages, producing a

language family.

The study of language change is historical linguistics, and this discipline has enjoyed

great success in working out the innumerable changes which have applied in the past to

individual languages and families; it has also made progress in identifying, and sometimes

explaining, principles of language change: some types of change, we now know, are more

natural, more frequent and more readily explicable than others. Not infrequently, speakers take

exception to the presence in their language of certain changes, or even of all changes, and they

campaign to ‘stamp out’ those innovations of which they particularly disapprove. Sometimes

they even agitate to ‘fix’ their language into a particular form admired by them, like a dead

butterfly in a specimen box, with no further changes to be tolerated except after protracted

deliberation by suitable authorities. Well, it is true that certain changes may lead to a

(temporary) reduction in the expressive power of a language (though most do not, and many

changes actually increase its expressive power), and informed commentary on these matters

may be valuable in educational contexts. On the whole, though, railing against language change

is a waste of time: trying to stop languages from changing is like trying to stop the wind from

blowing.

3.6 Language contact

In Malaysian context this was happened to all the respondents since Malaysia are of

many races. We can found mix language in conversation and sometimes we call it in Malay

“rojak language”. Respondents tend to use mix language during the interview, this mostly


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happen to Chinese, Indian and a few Malay. There are some words is not found in Malay and

the respondent borrow the words from English and Arabic.

Changes in one language resulting from the influence of another language. The speakers

of any given language are almost always in some kind of contact with the speakers of one or

more other languages, for any of several reasons. When two different languages are spoken in

adjacent areas, speakers on both sides of the boundary will be exposed to the other language,

and may often gain some fluency in that other language. Because of conquest or migration,

speakers of two or more languages may be mixed together in a single community. Speakers of

one language may travel and become exposed to different languages spoken elsewhere. And, of

course, in modern times the mass media have brought awareness of a number of languages

into regions in which these were formerly unknown.

In all such cases, speakers of one language may, deliberately or unconsciously, introduce

into their language features of another language to which they have been exposed, and we

therefore speak of language contact, or simply contact. The consequences of contact may

range from the trivial to the far-reaching. At the simplest level, speakers may merely take over

a few words from their neighbours; this is called borrowing, and the words borrowed are loan

words in the receiving language. This happens most readily because the words are the names of

genuinely new things: for example, English-speakers had never seen coffee, or boomerangs, or

tobacco, or chocolate, or pizzas until they encountered them being used by speakers of various

other languages and so took them over along with their foreign names. But it can also happen

purely for reasons of prestige: the enormous prestige of Norman French in England after the

Conquest brought thousands of Norman French words into English, where they often displaced

their native equivalents, as when army and face displaced native English here and andwlita. But

contact can go much further than this, affecting grammar and pronunciation. For example, the

Celtic language Breton, spoken in Brittany, has acquired a French-style uvular /r/, and it has

been losing its native phoneme /h/, absent from French. The Mayan languages of Mexico and


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Guatemala have acquired a number of new phonemes from the local prestige language,

Spanish. Some varieties of Scottish Gaelic have lost the inflected prepositions of that language

and replaced them with prepositional phrases comparable to English ones. Among the Semitic

languages of Ethiopia, the original Verb-Subject-Object word order of sentences has been

largely changed to the Subject-Object-Verb order typical of the neighbouring Cushitic

languages. Few languages are, or have ever been, sufficiently isolated to avoid some degree of

contact, and hence virtually every language shows some evidence of ancient or modern contact

with other languages. On occasion, speakers of a given language may react unfavourably to

such contact by embracing purism, with variable results. In recent years, the world dominance

of English has led to massive English influence upon languages from French to Japanese. In

extreme cases, the effects of contact may be so overwhelming that one language is abandoned

entirely by its speakers in favour of another, in the process called language death.

3.7 Language death

This happen to a few of Malaysian Chinese and Indian – they shift to other language

such as English in their daily conversation but it is not happened in Malaysia or might be I miss

the information regarding on it.

The disappearance of a language as a mother tongue. A language, particularly a minority

language, may come under enormous pressure from a more prestigious or more widely used

language spoken nearby. Native speakers of the language under pressure may find themselves

obliged, not only to learn the local prestige language, but to use it in an ever-greater number of

contexts. Eventually, a time may come when many children are no longer learning the


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threatened language as their mother tongue, or are learning it only imperfectly. At this point

we say the threatened language is moribund or dying, and the almost inevitable result is that,

within a generation or two, no one will be able to speak the threatened language at all. This is

language death, and the process which leads to it is language shift. Language death is usually

gradual. In any given place, at any given time, some children are still learning the dying

language as their mother tongue, while others are learning it only imperfectly and still others

not at all. The language may disappear completely from some areas while surviving in others.

The language spoken by the last generation or so of native speakers may be very much changed

from the language spoken by an earlier generation. Irregularities may be lost; the more

complex or less frequent forms and sentence patterns may drop out of use; native words may

be massively replaced by words taken from the prestige language; the pronunciation may

change so as to become more similar to that of the prestige language; stylistic variation may be

lost, leaving only a single unvarying style. The final outcome, of course, is a dead language.

4 Summary

Language performance and competence in Malaysia are reflected to the points above.

Languages around the world keep improve and harmonize. Some of the language will faced the

point of language death. In Malaysian context our government always gives a way to every

language in the community through the government policies and support.


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HBET1103 Ejat Punya Assignment

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