The Sociolinguistic Registers of ‘Malaysian English’

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Vollmann ◽  
◽  
Soon Tek Wooi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Group Communication ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Malaysian Chinese ◽  
Ingroup Identity

The interplay of four standard languages and a number of spoken languages makes Malaysia an interesting case of societal multilingualism. There is extensive convergence between the spoken varieties. ‘Malaysian English’ (ME) has developed its own structures which can be shown to copy structures of the mother tongues of the speakers at all levels of grammar, thereby being an example for localisation and the creation of a new dialect/sociolect. An analysis of the basilectal register of ME in ethnic Chinese speakers finds that converging patterns of ME and Malaysian (Chinese) languages, with situational lexical borrowing between the various languages. Sociolinguistically, ME plays the same role as any dialect, with covert prestige as an ingroup (identity) marker which is avoided in acrolectal (outgroup) communication. Spoken English in Malaysia can therefore be seen as a localised creoloid dialect of English, based on linguistic substrates. Sociolinguistically, ME is mainly an orate register for basilectal and mesolectal intra-group communication.

Tacit Knowledge and Generational Change: The China Factor, Enterprise Development and Malaysian Chinese Family SMEs in Traditional Food Production

China Report ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-128
Author(s):  
John Lee Kean Yew
Keyword(s):  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Chinese Family ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Family Smes ◽  
Positive Feelings ◽  
Reliable Knowledge ◽  
Malaysian Chinese

Southeast Asia with its historical concentration of ethnic Chinese remains an important economic hub encouraging cross-disciplinary inquiries on themes relating to businesses. In industrialising Malaysia, there is little research on their capacity to develop tacit knowledge of the founding generation mostly inherited from China, before starting a business in Malaysia. This assessment of four thriving Malaysian Chinese family SMEs in food production evaluates how a new generational change has innovated their traditional food products. Interestingly, tradition may enable these Malaysian Chinese firms to innovate by building on more reliable knowledge and resources, extensively validated over time, and hence reduce development and utilisation costs. The well-trained second and third generations have been innovating tacit knowledge to elicit strong and positive feelings of ‘Chinese’ identity, increasing the value of new products through R&D by embedding past knowledge and facilitating the legitimacy of innovative functionalities and obtaining market acceptance.

The psychology of chinese behaviour as seen in spoken discourses

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuang Ching Hei
Keyword(s):  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
The Social ◽  
Li Po ◽  
The Many ◽  
Malaysian Chinese

Chinese people can be found in most continents and history has shown that they migrate in the early days to seek better livelihoods. Of the many places they have set foot on, Malaya was one country which not only saw the marriage of Princess Hang Li Po of the Ming Dynasty to the sultan of Malacca in the 16th century but also the birth of mixed marriages between local Malays and Chinese who had come with the marriage entourage. Subsequently, others came to work as miners, actors, writers, bankers and various occupations. Malaysian Chinese are the descendants of these migrants. For some reason, literature often associate migrant Chinese with Confucian values like filial piety, respect for elders, benevolence and humility. To some extent this is probably true because Chinese children are taught these virtues through the way they should talk and behave with others. Nevertheless, times have changed. Young people today are exposed to more challenges, new cultures, new experiences and new opportunities. Directly or indirectly, these have an impact on their behaviour and how they talk. Yang Kuo-Shu (1986), Michael Harris Bond and Hwang Kwang-kuo (1986) look at various studies and models of Chinese Social Behaviour. Their findings indicate that the social behaviours of the Chinese have evolved over the years. Adding on to this is the contribution of this paper which discusses the behaviour of young male Malaysian Chinese speakers as shown through their speech. Using participant observation as an approach, spontaneous data of male children interacting with their elders were manually recorded and transcribed. Focussing on politeness, their utterances were then analysed based on the intended functions and the linguistic forms used. Analysis of data suggests that the speakers are direct and less reserved in their speech norms.

Chinese Political Participation in Peninsula Malaysia: Under the Shadow of Malay Supremacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-214
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Y. Ku ◽  
Wen-Hsuan Hsiao
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Malaysian Chinese

Abstract With more than thirty ethnic groups, Malaysia is renowned for its multiculturalism and ethnic diversity. Unlike in Indonesia and the Philippines, where ethnic Chinese are rarely given the opportunity to serve in the central government. Therefore, political parties focus on ethnic needs and issues. Therefore, it is important to gain a greater understanding of the degree to which ethnic Malaysian Chinese are participating in these elections and what sort of political powers their political parties maintain. Aside from the introduction and conclusion, the paper is divided into three sections. The first part investigates the geographic areas that represent different ethnicities across Malaysia and the regions. The second section examines how much political influence the ethnic Chinese Malaysians maintain. The last section analyzes how ethnic Chinese Malaysian’s political participation has evolved over the years.

Studies on the Chinese in Southeast Asia in the twenty-first century

2010 ◽  
Vol 166 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-544
Author(s):  
Kwee Hui Kian
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Academic Press ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
Singapore Chinese ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Hawai'i ◽  
Building Project ◽  
Malaysian Chinese

Review of: Michael D. Barr and Zlatko Skrbis, Constructing Singapore; Elitism, ethnicity and the nation-building project. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2008, xiii + 304 pp. ISBN 978877694028, price GBP 50.00 (hardback); 9788776940294, GBP 16.99 (paperback). Marleen Dieleman, The rhythm of strategy; A corporate biography of the Salim Group of Indonesia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007, 205 pp. [ICAS Publications Series, Monograph 1.] ISBN 9789053560334. Price: EUR 29.50 (paperback). Kristina Goransson, The binding tie; Chinese intergenerational relations in modern Singapore. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009, x + 191 pp. ISBN 9780824832599, price USD 57.00 (hardback); 9780824833527, USD 26.00 (paperback). Chang-Yau Hoon, Chinese identity in post-Suharto Indonesia; Culture, politics and media. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2008, xi + 230 pp. ISBN 9781845192686. Price: GBP 49.95 (hardback). Leo Suryadinata, Understanding the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007, x + 310 pp. ISBN 9789812304377. Price: USD 21.90 (paperback). Sikko Visscher, The business of politics and ethnicity; A history of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Singapore: NUS Press, 2007, xviii + 372 pp. ISBN 97899713657. Price: USD 32.00 (paperback). Voon Phin Keong (ed.), Malaysian Chinese and nation-building; Before Merdeka and fifty years after. Vol. 2. Kuala Lumpur: Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, 2008. ISBN 9789833808066 (hardback); 9789833908059 (paperback).

Language change and convergence in multilingual Malaysian Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67
Author(s):  
Ralf Vollmann ◽  
Tek Wooi Soon
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
The Family ◽  
Chinese Dialects ◽  
Standard Chinese ◽  
Malaysian Chinese ◽  
Over Time

AbstractBackgroundIn the multilingual situation of Malaysia, standard languages and spoken vernaculars are interacting in intricate ways whereby various spoken languages share a pool of words from Malay, English and Mandarin. Structurally, all languages converge and influence the spoken varieties of the standard languages.Material and methodThis contribution observes the situation from the viewpoint of Hakka speakers. In an analysis of the communicative practices in an extended Hakka family and their non-Hakka friends, the interactions of the various languages in borrowing and code-switching have been analysed and later discussed with speakers. It is expected that standard languages influence language use over time.AnalysisThe adult generations of the family speak Hakka and effortlessly mix with other languages. Intergenerationally, language change (and possibly language loss) can be observed for Hakka. Mandarin is gaining importance for all speakers. At the same time, loanwords and loan translations from Malaysian, English and Mandarin are frequent. This Malaysian vocabulary is shared by all spoken languages, with only few differences in usage. Standard Chinese is gradually replacing old Hakka words in Hakka.ConclusionsAs can be expected, the spoken languages such as Hakka are quickly losing traditional lexemes and phrases, while Mandarin Chinese as well as English and Malaysian words are used in Hakka; at the same time, spoken Mandarin and spoken English converges structurally with the substratic Chinese dialects.

scholarly journals La estética del secreto en una novela de espionaje : La deuxième mort de Ramón Mercader de Jorge Semprún

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
Simon Kroll
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Formal Principle ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Jorge Semprun

This paper examines a specific characteristic of spy novels, the aesthetics of secrecy, on the example of Jorge Semprún's La deuxième mort de Ramón Mercader. An important aspect in the creation of an aesthetic of secrecy in the novel in question is the variation of the famous figure of the double. Ramón Mercader, the protagonist of the novel presents an interesting case of this, which will be analysed in the first part of this paper. The second part of the article points out the overruling organisation principle of the novel: the secret. The complex narratological and temporal structure of the novel obeys to the secret, which makes it the major formal principle of this text. The story does not only narrate secrets but the secret as a formal principle creates a text with plenty of voices and a complex temporal structure, contributing to the creation of an aesthetic of secrecy.

scholarly journals Lexical Borrowing, Categorization, and Mental Representation

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Attila Benő
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThe article argues that lexical borrowing is not only motivated by cultural factors linked to prestige or economical aspects but also by the speakers’ need for new lexical-semantic categories and for highly expressive metaphorical terms to operate with, which makes them borrow words. The semantic changes of the lexical borrowings point to the creation of new items in the semantic fields of the receiving language. The integration of borrowings into Hungarian and Romanian exemplifies these processes.

Holding up one’s end of the conversation in spoken English

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Castello ◽  
Sara Gesuato1
Keyword(s):  
Trinity College ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

Abstract This study investigates the use of lexical backchannels in the discourse of L2 English users sitting Trinity College London’s Graded Examinations in Spoken English (GESE). It is based on the Trinity Lancaster Corpus Sample and explores the language produced during the Discussion, Conversation and Interactive tasks of the language examinations by L2 English users from Chinese, Indian and Italian linguistic backgrounds, whose proficiency ranges from the B2 to C2 levels (i.e. high intermediate, advanced, expert) of the CEFR. The findings suggest that the L2 users with an Italian background and to a lesser extent those with a Chinese background often supported their examiners’ turns with items conveying uncertainty, while those with an Indian background with items of certainty. Furthermore, the L1 Chinese speakers used lexical backchannels the most, especially those expressing surprise or request for confirmation, while the speakers from India used them the least. Implications for the assessment of oral proficiency are discussed.

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