metaphor: window to native speaker's mind

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Language and Culture in English for Business Purposes: Noticing Their Importance

Through Television Advertisements.

Farrah Diebaa Rashid Ali

Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang

[email protected]

Farrah Ahmad

International Education Centre (INTEC), UiTM Malaysia

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to look at the awareness of Malaysian English for Business Purposes (EBP)

students on the importance of using appropriate language in relation to cultural differences in an

international business setting. This research was conducted as a result of several stressful hours

of restating and reinforcing the importance of understanding cultural differences in written and

spoken business communication to the EBP learners. Prior to the study, the students failed to see

that the world communities are built of general and personal cultures. The term culture and

subculture did not really bother them as they were not able to see what culture constitutes of.

Hence, miscommunication caused by cultural bias was often seen in their outcomes. However,

once they were able to notice the different cultural elements presented in the nine culturally-

embedded television advertisements, it has been observed that the students were more sensitive

towards their selection of words, phrases, sentence structures and their written or spoken styles.

They were more careful when using vernacular language, idioms, over-generalization and under-

generalization words. Hence reducing the number of miscommunication possibilities caused by

wrong selection of words, phrases and written or spoken styles. Thus, by arriving at such

conclusion, it can be assumed that now the students have realized the important roles played by

both language and culture in EBP settings.

Keywords: English for Business Purposes, Language, Culture, Television Advertisement.

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1 INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Culture is undeniably important in everyday aspects of life. However, the young generations are

seen to be ignorant on the sensitivity of culture, may it be theirs or others. This is resulted from

their lack of awareness towards the concept of culture itself. The young generations might have

been informed about certain culture especially in their own country but the understanding of the

existence as well as the significance of those culture are ignored. Therefore, to introduce a

culture especially global culture to the second language learners is a difficult attempt. This is

because; most of the learners are used to the secondary sources of learning a language.

The second language learners or the respondents of this research are the students of business. In

order for them to complete their written or spoken tasks successfully, they have to be sensitive to

their surroundings i.e. cultural differences. Their sensitivity is very important where at some

level, they have to associate the language use with the element of culture. By understanding the

culture, the students/respondents will respect and also apply their knowledge (of culture) in their

studies of English language. In a broader scope, having the knowledge and understanding the

culture, would allow an individual to apply it in a more appropriate form and situation. For

instance, a business deal could be secured if the individual practices the above-mentioned

strategies.

All this is in accordance with Bloom’s Taxonomy which stated that there are six (6) categories or

levels in one’s cognitive behavior. The simplest or the lowest level is the knowledge where most

of the students have had in them. Then, it is followed with the second lowest level which is

comprehension. Through the presentation of nine (9) culturally-embedded television

advertisements, the students’ comprehension and sensitivity are being observed. But, in order for

the students to actually perform in their written and spoken tasks, they have to apply what they

have understood into their tasks’ completion. Once they managed to apply both knowledge and

comprehension, they are now in the third category of Bloom’s Taxonomy which is application.

Thus, this research is done so as to identify the students of business’ comprehension on what it is

meant by culture and how they apply their understanding in completing given tasks and

assignments.

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1.1 Statement of problem

Majority of English as Second Language learners in Malaysia learn the language locally while

attending the government primary and secondary school. Almost all these schools were taught by

Malaysians and direct contact with a native speaker is not a common scene especially those of

rural areas. Thus, the only sources of culture learning for the Malaysian ESL learners are

secondary – printed and mass media. With this limited sources, learners often face difficulties in

identifying culture especially those of personal or individual culture of the native speaker.

Another contributing factor is majority of the learners perceive that culture only constitutes

unique tradition which is indigenous, old or ancient. The students often easily identified things

which they are not accustomed to as culture.

The processes of globalization and glocalization have also caused cultures to spread around and

become popular in its new community. Thus it makes the process of culture identification

becomes more difficult as the existing culture has now become integrated with the new one and

thus may form a brand new culture. And this makes it more difficult for the learners to identify

culture.

And most important of all, learners often do not associate language with culture. Failure to

bridge the relationship between language and culture has caused many misunderstandings. For

example, when one write a straight-forward letter to an English correspondence, he/she will be

regarded as being cold. Whereas when an American received a letter from a Japanese

counterpart, he/she will see the Japanese as being too personal/emotional.

As a result of all the above, the students are less sensitive towards cultural differences held by

different countries, societies, organizations and even at smaller structural unit such as family and

club. Therefore, they are not aware of problems and misunderstanding that can take place as a

result of incorrect or inappropriate choice of words, phrases, sentence structure and style.

To avoid such misunderstanding, teachers have spent hours training the students selecting the

most appropriate words, but the problem is the students still do not see any difference between

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them and their business correspondence, so they assume the writing style would be the same as

theirs and will have no effect on the message transferred. By being aware of the cultural

differences, the student were expected to be more careful in selecting words, phrases and avoid

culturally-embedded idioms and vernacular language in their business dealing. With such

problems in hand, the researchers decided to embark on current research.

1.2 Research objectives

The objectives of this research are to look at the different elements of culture that may present in

an advertisement and how such advertisement helps the English for Business Purpose students to

be more sensitive of cultural differences in completing written and spoken tasks. It also aims to

observe any effects the noticed cultural elements have towards the learners’ purchasing power.

1.3 Research questions

Research questions of this paper were divided into sets of primary and secondary. There were

four primary research questions and two secondary research questions.

Primary research questions:

a. Were the students able to notice the different cultural elements presented in the

advertisements?

b. What were the different cultural elements noticed by the students?

c. Was there any differences in term of cultural awareness observe in the students’

assignments prior and after the study was conducted?

d. Were the students able to perceive the importance of minor culture interference in

business setting?

Secondary research questions include:

a. Did culture have any effect on viewers’ perception on the products/services/messages?

b. Did culture have any effect on customer purchasing power?

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1.4 Significance of the study

As teenagers nowadays are closer to the different types of media than it has ever be, the current

methodology is believe to be of high potential in helping easing up the burden of EBP trainers.

This is due to the fact that both EBP trainers and learners are surrounded by abundance of

television advertisements available on television channels and on the internet for their easy

access. Thus, by using these television advertisements to build culture awareness among the

learners, it is hope that the learners will become more sensitive of culture differences in their

writing therefore minimizing such error in both written and spoken tasks, which are the ultimate

objectives of an EBP course - to increase accuracy and appropriateness. Ultimately, it helps to

contribute to current body of knowledge in which such method has not yet received a plausible

acceptance among ESP practitioners.

1.5 Limitation of the study

As the respondents were of two institutions and majoring in business related courses only, the

findings of this study cannot be generalized to the overall population. The used of different

advertisements from different countries than the one used in this study might also resulted

different findings. This study also tend to focus more on the individual or personal culture held

by an organization the advertisement belongs to rather than the general culture shares by the

citizens of a country at large.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Relationship between language and culture

Communication is a process of message transfer from the encoder to the decoder through various

channels. In this process, transferring the right message intended by the encoder is the ultimate

goal. However, this process of transferring messages from one party to another is not as easy as

it is seen especially those involving two or more different cultures. Most of the world languages

are fully loaded with culturally-embedded words and phrases. Thus they often disrupt the process

of meaning transfer. This is due to the fact that language and culture is highly associated with

each other.

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One of the arguments supporting the above statement is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. They

believe that “no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture

can exist which does not have its center, the structure of natural language” (Bassnett, 1992:14).

This hypothesis stresses that the structure of a language determines how people view their

atmosphere and surroundings. Thus it suggested that if one language classifies orange and brown

as yellow, and another language looks at those colours as three different colours, it proves that

the structure of a language helps people to register the difference between the three colours and

helps them to see each colour differently. However, if all three colours are viewed simply as

yellow, the speaker of that language would not perceive the difference between what is called

orange, brown and yellow (Wardhaugh, 2002; Steinberg, 1993).

Even though all three colours are expressed in a single term, it does not necessarily mean that the

speaker cannot differentiate between orange, brown and yellow. The differences in their view or

concept of colour actually lies with the environment and the culture of the speaker, Within their

speech community, they can differentiate between orange, brown and yellow without having to

express it in specific terms as all the members of the society share the same background

knowledge. A detailed explanation is only needed when someone from a different culture

participates in the conversation. This is not only limited to the concept of colour, but it also

includes time, perception, action, proper and abstract noun (Wardhaugh, 2002; Steinberg, 1993).

With reference to verbs and nouns, they contribute to half of the problems of cross-cultural

communication. Different speech communities have different sets of words to describe action

and noun. Usually, these sets of words refer to specific objects or actions which are not familiar

to the speaker of other languages, or in other words, these terms are culturally specific object or

action. For instance rokok daun or rokok gulung (‘leaf cigarette’ or ‘rolled cigarette’ is a form of

cigarette made by rolling dried Nipah leaf over dried tobacco). This object is culturally specific

and thus it is impossible to translate literally into English as the English will neither understand

nor picture this kind of cigarette. Furthermore, they do not have any ideas how a Nipah leaf

looks like as the geographical area of the English community does not allow the Nipah tree to

grow.

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Besides concept, object and action, pragmatics is another important element of language that

needs to be carefully understood (Mey, 1993). The same expressions might be understood

differently in different languages as speakers’ understanding depends on how they view things

and the environment surrounding them. It is also a culturally-related question of what is

considered acceptable or taboo in a particular community. Often each society has substituted

taboo words with euphemism to make them sound more polite (Wardhaugh, 2002; Steinberg,

1993).

All of the above are the evidences which prove that language and culture is two inseparable

entities. One cannot function well using a language if he/she has no background understanding of

the culture. A culture on the other hand cannot be inherited to next generation without a language

as a medium.

2.2 Culture in English for Business Purposes (EBP)

Culture can be national, professional, organizational and personal. It is not easily spotted as it is

integrated within the layers of one’s life, behavior and belief (Evan & St John,2001). Even

though the relationship between culture and language is a subject of great debate among the

linguists and sociologists, Evan and John (2001) prefer to say that “language reflects culture and

culture can shape language” (Evan & St John, 2001; 66). Thus, having Language for Specific

Purpose (LSP) as an important language learning component learnt by learners around the world,

one cannot tear it apart from culture. Ideally, LSP bridges Professionals of different part of the

world who are rich of cultural differences and unite them together. Therefore it is important for

learners to be sensitive of these rich cultures and appreciate these unique differences to avoid

misunderstanding during communication.

Trompenaar (1993) discusses seven dimensions of culture concerning relationships with other

people, time and environment. Out of these seven dimensions, the relationship dimensions of

neutral:emotional; individualism:collectivism; specific:diffuse; and universalism:particularism

are seen as the most important in business setting. Table 2.1 below highlights briefly Trompenaar

four most important dimensions of a business culture.

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Table 2.1: Dichotomy of Trompenaar’s four most important dimensions

Neutral Emotional

HIGH LOW

Eye contact

Space

Openness in expressing feelings

Individualistic Collective

HIGH LOW

Preference for working alone

Competing with others

Use of “I” – Asian countries

Collaboration with others

Use of “we” – Canada, USA,

Australia

Specific/segregating Diffuse

HIGH LOW

Different aspects of life is treated

individually.

e.g: Autralia – Boss is only boss at the

workplace.

No clear boundary between different

aspects of life.

e.g: China – Boss is the boss at all

times

Universalism Particularism

HIGH LOW

“one good way”

The same plan for everybody,

everywhere

Encourage flexibility

Adapted from Evan & St John, 2001

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3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Sample

A total of 28 Malaysian students participated in this study. These students were currently doing

Diploma in Accountancy at UiTM Pahang and sitting for commerce paper at INTEC. They were

of both female and male students aged 18-20 years old. These students have attended the

Government school since primary one until secondary five. These two groups of students were

chosen due to their future career prospects in business and accountancy settings. Thus, English

for Business Purpose Course has more impact on them as compare to other students. Both groups

were also doing English for Business Purpose Course at their respective institutions. These

groups were also selected mainly because one was currently pursuing their study locally, and the

later was preparing themselves to go abroad.

3.2 Data collection procedure

The students were doing a 14 week courses on English for Business Purpose at their respective

institutions. They were taught and exposed to differences and importance of cultural elements in

business communication. During the first eight weeks, the students have completed several

written and spoken assignments and tasks. At the ninth week, they were presented with a

recording of nine culturally-embedded television advertisements. After watching each

advertisement, the learners were required to respond to a set of questionnaire. The questionnaire

aims to look at students’ awareness on the elements of culture presented in those advertisements.

The students were again tested on their written and spoken business communication skills to see

whether they were now more culturally sensitive than ever.

There are few instruments used in the data collection process which includes a set of television

advertisement, a self-report survey and several written and spoken assignments. These items are

further explained below.

3.2.1 A set of advertisements

A set of twelve culturally-embedded advertisements taken from USA, New Zealand, Malaysia,

German and India were selected for this study. These countries were selected due to their

geographical location and their current economical and developmental state. Even though, these

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advertisements originated from both English and non-English speaking countries, only English

speaking advertisements were selected.

The advertisements were of different themes ranging from festival, tourism, inculcating good

behavior, food and beverages, stationery, sports, and law enforcement. These advertisements

portray both general and personal culture. Some of the cultures were newly accepted by the

society while others were inherited from their ancestors. It was also a combination of obvious

and less-obvious culture.

3.2.2 Self-report survey

Data for this study were collected through a self-report survey. A self-formulated questionnaire

of nine parts was distributed to the respondents during the ninth week of an English for Business

Purposes course. At this moment, the students have completed several written and spoken

assignments and tasks related to business communication. These assignments and tasks served as

medium to elicit information or research data from the research sample.

The questionnaire consists of 13 parts and each part consists of six items. The different parts of

the questionnaire represent the different advertisement used in this research. In each part, the

respondents were presented with five questions. The questions were design to seek answer for

the four research questions posed earlier. The questions comprise an open-ended question, a few

objective questions and likert-scale.

A self-report survey was chosen as the instrument for this research based on several factors.

First, as individual response of each respondent is crucial to ensure high reliability and validity

of this research, it is important for the data to be collected using method in which respondent

confidentiality is highly preserved. This method ensures that each data collected is truly from the

learner with no influence from others. It is also flexible for the learners to record their response

without being afraid of others’ negative perception especially those from the course instructors

or researchers as no personal information were collected.

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3.2.3 Assessments

The assessment method used is a combination of both summative and formative assessment. The

formative assessment took place through out the 14-week in which students need to present on

business-related issues, participate in a role-play based on authentic situation, and prepare

written assignments.

The assessments began at the third week of the semester. At week nine, the students were

presented with the nine advertisements and the questionannire. Therefore, observations made on

the assignments and presentation done in the first five weeks were set as the benchmark against

the assignments and presentation done at later weeks. Learners awareness of cultural differences

were scored on a scale of four.

1. Extensive used of vernacular language, loaded with culturally-embedded words/phrases.

2. Moderate used of vernacular language, occasionally used culturally-embedded

words/phrases

3. Little used of vernacular language, rarely used culturally-embedded words/phrases

4. Did not use any vernacular language, free of culturally-embedded words/phrases.

At the end of the semester, students’ cultural awareness scores prior and after the introduction of

the advertisements were compared to look for any significant differences.

3.3 Data Analysis

The findings of this research were analyzed in term of frequency counts and this was done with

the aid of SPSS version 17. The findings of this study were presented and further discussed in the

following chapters.

4.0 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The findings of this study are discussed in two headings which are the primary and secondary

research findings:

4.1 Primary research findings and discussions

4.1.1 Were the students able to notice the different cultural elements presented in the

advertisements?

The findings suggested that the students were able to notice the existence of cultural elements in

the advertisements with the frequency of 87%. It was ea

to notice the cultural elements presented in Malaysian

and 6) as compared to those of American (advertisements 2 and 9). This is maybe due to the fact

that the cultural elements presented in

However, it was quite difficult for them to

advertisements were lack of Asian

the students were aware of the cultural elements presented in advertisement 5 even though the

advertisement was of Indian origin. This is maybe due to the fact that they were well exposed to

Malaysian Indian culture, thus making the advertisement less perplexing to them.

0

5

10

15

Table 4.1: Number of respondents who were able to notice

cultural elements in the advertisements (n==28).

Primary research findings and discussions

Were the students able to notice the different cultural elements presented in the

suggested that the students were able to notice the existence of cultural elements in

the advertisements with the frequency of 87%. It was easier for the students of both

to notice the cultural elements presented in Malaysian-made advertisements (advertisements 4


that the cultural elements presented in advertisement 4 and 6 were of familiar to the students

However, it was quite difficult for them to notice it in advertisement 2 and 9 maybe because both

were lack of Asian-like or indigenous cultures. It was also interesting to note that


sement was of Indian origin. This is maybe due to the fact that they were well exposed to


Table 4.1: Number of respondents who were able to notice

cultural elements in the advertisements (n==28).

UiTM INTEC

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Were the students able to notice the different cultural elements presented in the

suggested that the students were able to notice the existence of cultural elements in

sier for the students of both institutions

ts (advertisements 4


familiar to the students.

notice it in advertisement 2 and 9 maybe because both

It was also interesting to note that


sement was of Indian origin. This is maybe due to the fact that they were well exposed to


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4.1.2 What were the different cultural elements noticed by the students?

As it can be seen in the Table 4.2 above, the students were able to identify 17 different cultural

elements presented in the nine television advertisements. Among the cultural elements, clothes

and accessories received the most plausible attention from the students as 76 occurrences were

recorded by the students. This was followed by the American football culture (NFL) and

Superbowl, environment and geographical qualities such as night-market, villages, islands,

forests and snowy regions. The students also recorded some elements of culture which relies

heavily on social acceptance, for instance smoking woman, alcoholic abused and public nudity.

They can also easily identify cultural elements related to birth, marriage and death. However,

only slightly more than half of the students were able to identify ghostly appearance as culture.

Among other cultural elements which did received attention from the students were cutlery –

chopsticks, rice and soup bowl, attitude and behavior - social respect, driving style, stereotyping

of different hair colours, and varieties of food and languages. In addition to the above, it is

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Clothes/dress/accessories

American football

Environment/ geographical qualities

Social acceptance

Festival/ celebration

Birth/marriage/death

Ghost

Cutlery

Attitude and behavior

Hair colour

Food

Language

People/race

Architecture and home decoration

Name

Transportation

Music

Table 4.2: The different cultural elements identified by the

students

Frequency

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interesting to note that only some of the students were able to identify the architecture of

buildings, design of houses and decoration as part of culture and only a handful were able to

recognize name, transportation and music as one of cultural elements.

4.1.3 Was there any differences in term of cultural awareness observe in the students’

assignments prior and after the study was conducted?

Table 4.3: Students’ performance before and after the study was conducted

In term of learners’ awareness of cultural differences before and after the research was

conducted, Table 4.3 showed that the occurrence of culturally embedded words, idioms, and

colloquial language has reduced gradually as have been observed in the students’ assignments

and presentations. In the table above, assignments 1 and 2 were done prior to the introduction of

culturally-embedded advertisements to the students. However, assignments 3 and 4 took place

after the students responded to those advertisements. The learners awareness of cultural

differences in the table above were scored based on this scale;-

1. Extensive used of vernacular language, loaded with culturally-embedded words/phrases.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Assignment 1 Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Assignment 4

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

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2. Moderate used of vernacular language, occasionally used culturally-embedded

words/phrases

3. Little used of vernacular language, rarely used culturally-embedded words/phrases

4. Did not use any vernacular language, free of culturally-embedded words/phrases.

Even though, students’ performance varied across the groups, it can be concluded that television

advertisements helped the students to notice and identify different culture posses by various

communities and societies in the world. Through this identification practice, the students were

more aware of what they write and speak when completing their written and spoken tasks. It has

been observed, the students tried hard to avoid fillers like lah (a common filler used by

Malaysians while speaking in English) and English translation of Malay idioms and proverbs in

writing. As a result, they produced carefully-structured texts or discourses with minor

interference from culture.

4.0.1 Were the students able to perceive the importance of minor culture interference

in business setting?

With reference to the other research questions, the researchers believe Were the students able to

perceive the importance of culture in business setting? is the most important question to be

answered as this is the sole reason why the research has been conducted - to highlight the

importance of cultural awareness among the learners while preparing business related documents

and presentations.

By looking at and evaluating the findings of earlier research question (sub-heading 4.1.3), the

researchers strongly believe that the students have now understood the important role played by

culture in business setting. Culture may promote or impede business relation between two

international companies. As a result, when two parties of different culture are meeting each other

to secure a deal, it is better if both parties try to be as neutral as they could to avoid any

misunderstanding caused by different concepts and elements of cultural.

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4.2 Secondary research findings and discussions

4.2.1 Did culture have any effects on viewers’ perception on the

products/services/messages?

Table 4.4: The effects of culture on viewers’ perception on the products/services/messages

From the above Table 4.4, it can be concluded that in the majority of the advertisements, the

students felt that culture did have an effect on their perceptions towards the product, services and

messages. It is interesting to note that all students agreed that advertisement five did affect their

perception on the message the advertisement is trying to convey. Advertisement five really

appealed these young adult learners might be due to the fact that this advertisement highlighted

the importance of the young generation to uphold and be proud of their own culture.

Advertisement 7 did have tremendous effect on the learners’ perception on the product because it

highlighted the beautiful culture of New Zealand. As a result of watching such beautiful and

unique culture, most of the learners felt excited about putting New Zealand in their must-visit-

countries list.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

NO

YES

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In contrast to the above, the soft drink advertisement (advertisement 9) did not manage to capture

the students’ attention because Superbowl is not a culture they were accustomed to. Thus, it can

be concluded culture does play an important role in capturing the attention and altering the

perception of the audience on the product it is trying to sell.

4.2.2 Did culture have any effect on customer purchasing power?

Table 4.5: The effects of culture on customer purchasing power

More than half of the students agreed that the cultural elements presented in those advertisements

did affect their purchasing power. For instance, all of the students agreed that they will become

more aware of their own behavior in the present of a child so that the child will not be negatively

influenced by them. And this was the message, the advertisement tried to put forward.

However, the students viewed that such strategies of using culturally-embedded advertisement to

promote soft drinks (advertisements 3 and 9) and NFL (advertisement 8) were not effective. This

could be due to the fact that they are accustomed to the drink and they have little interest on the

sports as it was not part of their culture. Thus, it can be concluded that only with carefully

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

NO

YES

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selected cultural elements, the advertisement will achieve its objective. And of course to the

learners of English, they now know that their works are subjected for the same criticism too.

5.0 CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, with the introduction of culturally-embedded television advertisements to the

English for Business Purposes students, the students were now more aware on their selection of

words and sentence structures. They have understood the importance of why a text needs to be

free of culturally-embedded phrases and information. Their understanding has been translated

into action and these positive findings have been observed in their spoken and written

assignments and presentations. Even though, it is undeniable that there are many factors that may

lead to such positive improvement, the researchers believe that the introduction of culturally-

embedded advertisements as part of teaching aid did help the students realize the importance of

understanding cultural differences in a business setting.

REFERENCES

Asmah, H. O. (1993). Language and Society in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan

Pustaka.

Bassnett, S. (1992). Translation Studies. New York: Routledge.

Diller, J.V. (2007) Cultural Diversity. USA: Thomson Brooks/cole

Evan & St John. (2001). Development in English for Specific Purposes: A multi-disciplinary

approach. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Haynes, J. (1989). Introducing Stylistics. United Kingdom.

Kramsch, C. (1998) Language and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mey, J. L. (1993). Pragmatic - An Introduction. United Kingdom: Blackwell.

Renzetti, C. M., & Curran, D. J. (2000). Living Sociology (2nd ed.). USA: Allyn and Bacon.

Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (1995). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach.

Oxford: Blackwell.

Steinberg, D. D. (1993). An introduction to psycholinguistics. London: Longman.

Wardhaugh, R. (2002). An introduction to sociolinguistics (4th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers.

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Wiersma, W. (2000). Research Method in Education. USA: Allyn and Bacon.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Farrah Diebaa Rashid Ali (Ms) received both her Master of Human Sciences (TESL) and

Bachelor of English Language and Literature (Hons.) from International Islamic University

Malaysia. Currently, she is teaching at the Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi

MARA, Pahang. She has attended and presented in several international conferences. She co-

authored a few books, among others The Goblins of English Grammar published by McGraw

Hill Education Asia (2009) and Inter-faith Dialogue: A Quranic Approach published by ABIM

(2010).

Farrah Ahmad (Ms) is a graduate from International Islamic University in Bachelor of Human

Sciences (Hons) in English Language and Literature. Currently, she is an AUSMAT (Australian

Matriculation Program) lecturer at International Education Centre (INTEC) UiTM Section 17,

Shah Alam. She has attended several conferences and this is her first research to be presented

with co-author.

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