TOM McARTHUR. "MALAYSIAN ENGLISH." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998.

Retrieved September 17, 2011 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-MALAYSIANENGLISH.htmlMALAYSIAN

ENGLISH

Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | 1998 | TOM McARTHUR | 700+ words | Copyright

MALAYSIAN ENGLISH. The English language in Malaysia, a country of South-East Asia, a member of the COMMONWEALTH and ASEAN. The name Anglo-Malay has been used to describe the variety that emerged during colonial times among expatriates and a local lite, serving as the vehicle through which such words as compound/kampong, durian, orang utan, and sarong have passed into GENERAL ENGLISH. Some English-medium schools were established in the 19c (in Penang in 1816, Singapore 1823, Malacca 1826, and Kuala Lumpur 1894), at the same time as Malay, Chinese, and Tamil schools were encouraged. Those members of the various ethnic groups who were educated in the English-medium schools came to use English increasingly in their occupations and their daily life; the 1957 census reported 400,000 people (some 6% of the population) as claiming to be literate in the language. When the British began to withdraw in the late 1950s, English had become the dominant language of the non-European lite, and with independence became with Malay the alternate official language. However, the National Language Act of 1967 established Malay (renamed Bahasa Malaysia in 1963) as the sole official language, with some exceptions in such areas as medicine, banking, and business. Among Malaysians, the term Malaysian English tends to refer to a more or less controversial variety that centres on the colloquialisms of those educated at the English-medium schools. Its essence is distilled in the cartoons of K. H. Boon in the Malaysian Post: Myself so thin don't eat, can die one, you know? English-medium education expanded after independence; there were close to 400,000 students in such schools when, in 1969, the Ministry of Education decided that all English-medium schools would become Malay-medium. By the early 1980s, the process through which Bahasa Malaysia has become the national language of education was virtually complete, but the shift prompted widespread concern that general proficiency in English would decline. To prevent this, English has been retained as the compulsory second language in primary and secondary schools. Some 20% of the present population (c.3.4m) understands English and some 25% of city dwellers use it for some purposes in every day life. It is widely used in the media and as a reading language in higher education. There are seven English-language daily newspapers (combined circulation over 500,000) and three newspapers in Sabah published partly in English (circulation over 60,000). English is essentially an urban middleclass language, virtually all its users are bilingual, and CODE-SWITCHING is commonplace.

Features
(1) Malaysian English and SINGAPORE ENGLISH have much in common, with the main exception that English in Malaysia is more subject to influence from Malay. (2) Pronunciation is marked by: a strong tendency to syllable-timed rhythm, and a simplification of word-final consonant clusters, as in /lv/ for lived. (3) Syntactic characteristics include: the countable use of some usually uncountable nouns (Pick up your chalks; A consideration for others is important); innovations in phrasal verbs (such as cope up with rather than cope with); the use of reflexive pronouns to form emphatic pronouns (Myself sick I am sick; Himself funny He is funny); and the multi-purpose particle lah, a token especially of informal intimacy (Sorry, can't come lah). (4) Local vocabulary includes: such borrowings from Malay as bumiputera (originally SANSKRIT, son of the soil) a Malay or other indigenous person, dadah illegal drugs, rakyat the people, citizens, Majlis (from ARABIC) Parliament, makan food; such special usages as banana leaf restaurant a South Indian restaurant where food is served on banana leaves, chop a rubber stamp or seal, crocodile a womanizer, girlie barber shop a hairdressing salon that doubles as a massage parlour or brothel, sensitive issues (as defined in the Constitution) issues that must not be raised in public, such as the status of the various languages used in Malaysia and the rights and privileges of the different communities; such colloquialisms as bes (from best) great, fantastic, relac (from relax) take it easy; and such hybrids as bumiputera status indigenous status, and dadah addict drug addict. See SOUTH-EAST ASIAN ENGLISH.

CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING

Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | 1998 | TOM McARTHUR | 700+ words | Copyright

CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING. Terms in SOCIOLINGUISTICS for language and especially speech that draws to differing extents on at least two languages combined in different ways, as when a Malay/English bilingual says: This morning I hantar my baby tu dekat babysitter tu lah (hantar took, tu dekat to the, lah a particle marking solidarity). A code may be a language or a variety or style of a language; the term codemixing emphasizes hybridization, and the term code-switching emphasizes movement from one language to another. Mixing and switching probably occur to some extent in the speech of all bilinguals, so that there is a sense in which a person capable of using two languages, A and B, has three systems available for use: A, B, and C (a range of hybrid forms that can be used with comparable bilinguals but not with monolingual speakers of A or B). There are four major types of switching: (1) Tag-switching, in which tags and certain set phrases in one language are inserted into an utterance otherwise in another, as when a Panjabi/English bilingual says: It's a nice day, hana? (hai n isn't it). (2) Intra-sentential switching, in which switches occur within a clause or sentence boundary, as when a Yoruba/English bilingual says: Won o arrest a single person (won o they did not). (3) Intersentential switching, in which a change of language occurs at a clause or sentence boundary, where each clause or sentence is in one language or the other, as when a Spanish/English bilingual says: Sometimes I'll start a sentence in English y termino en espaol (and finish it in Spanish). This last may also occur as speakers take turns. (4) Intra-word switching, in which a change occurs within a word boundary, such as in shopp (English shop with the Panjabi plural ending) or kuenjoy (English enjoy with the Swahili prefix ku, meaning to).

Names and attitudes: us and them

Some communities have special names, often pejorative or facetious, or both, for a hybrid variety: in India, Hindlish and Hinglish are used for the widespread mixing of Hindi and English; in Nigeria, amulumala (verbal salad) is used for English and Yoruba mixing and switching; in the Philippines, the continuum of possibilities is covered by the terms TagalogEngalogTaglishEnglish, in Quebec, by franaisfranglaisFrenglishEnglish. Despite the fact that mixing and switching are often stigmatized in the communities in which they occur, they often serve such important functions as marking ethnic and group boundaries. Among minorities, the home language (the we code) is used to signify in-group, informal, and personalized activities, while the other language (the they code) is used to mark outgroup, more formal, and distant events. Speakers use a change of language to indicate their attitude to what is being said. In the following, Panjabi marks the in-group and English the out-group among immigrants to the UK: Usi ingrezi sikhi e te why can't they learn? (We learn English, so why can't they learn [an Asian language]?). The switch emphasizes the boundaries between them and us. Other reasons for switching include the prestige of knowing the out-group or dominant language, often a language associated with a religion, empire, education, and a wide sphere of operation and interest: for example, social status has long been marked among Hindus in India by introducing elements of Sanskrit and Pali into vernacular use and among Muslims by bringing in Arabic and Persian. In Europe, the same effect has been achieved by introducing elements of Latin and Greek. Today, social status is marked in India and elsewhere by introducing elements of English. It is not always the case that borrowing or switching occurs because speakers do not know the words in one or the other language. Widespread code-switching often indicates greater or less shift towards the more dominant of the two languages. Currently, English is the most widely used language in the world for mixing and switching. See DIGLOSSIA, FRANGLAIS, INTER-LANGUAGE, LANGUAGE SHIFT. TOM McARTHUR. "CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Retrieved September 17, 2011 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-CODEMIXINGANDCODESWITCHNG.html

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GENERAL ENGLISH
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | 1998 | TOM McARTHUR | 700+ words | Copyright

GENERAL ENGLISH. 1. A non-technical term for English when the language at large is contrasted with a usage, variety, dialect, or register: That's Cockney; it isn't general English. 2. A semi-technical term for a course in English, usually as a mother tongue or in an English-medium school, within a framework of general education, usually teaching listening, speaking, reading, and writing. 3. In LINGUISTICS, a range of English that includes the STANDARD but contrasts with specific accents and DIALECTS. The British phonetician John C. Wells contrasts General English (capitalized) and traditional-dialect (lower case): Within General English there are non-standard varieties in which one says I couldn't see no one and Peter done it rather than the standard I couldn't see anyone and Peter did it (Accents of English, volume 1, 1982). 4. Also English for General Purposes. A term in language teaching for a broadly based, usually longterm EFL or ESL course, in contrast to English for Specific Purposes (Business English, English for Medical Purposes, etc.). Compare STANDARD ENGLISH. TOM McARTHUR. "GENERAL ENGLISH." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Retrieved September 17, 2011 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29GENERALENGLISH.html