The study examined the subjective ethnolinguistic vitality of an Iban community in Sarawak, Malaysia based on their language use and attitudes. A survey of 200 respondents in the Song district was conducted. To determine the objective ethnolinguistic vitality, a structural analysis was performed on their sociolinguistic backgrounds. The results…

This paper focuses on the linguistic evolution of the Tianjin speech community in Sabah, Malaysia. From the perspective of restructuring of speech community, the paper integrates both micro and macro levels of language change into the analysis. Several methods were adopted in this study. Interviews were conducted with community leaders and various…

Language problems and language barriers are challenges facing not only immigrants but also minorities and people in rural/semirural areas. This study examines individuals' bi- and multilingual repertoires, language practices and attitudes in a Hokkien-speaking community in Kangar, a semirural town of northern Malaysia bordering Thailand. Through…

The religious domain has been identified as an important domain for language maintenance (Fishman 1972; Gal 1979). However, the effect of religion in language maintenance is not always positive (Spolsky 2003). This paper attempts to explore whether religion, Catholicism for this study, plays a significant role in the maintenance of Hakka in a…

This study explores the linguistic landscape of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Using photographs as a source of data, the study collects samples from both government and private signage from five selected neighbourhoods of the city. In addition to photographs, interviews with business owners have been conducted and used for triangulation purposes. The…

This article looks at language use and attitudes in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia through a survey conducted among 88 university students for each country. The focus of the article, however, is on the expanding use of English, particularly as far as media consumption is concerned, relating this with issues of globalisation and linguistic and…

This paper reports the findings of a survey of 100 mothers of Chinese children aged between 6 and 36 months from middle to upper-middle socio-economic backgrounds in Penang, Malaysia. The findings include the language backgrounds of these mothers, their contextual uses of multiple languages and their language choices with their children. Through…

The language situation in the Malaysian Chinese community has undergone great changes in the past century. This paper aims to account for such changes in the framework of sociolinguistic realignment, which is both descriptive and predictive. The triglossic situation in the colonial period (1859-1957) is described; with the support of a language…

Describes the processes by which distinctive varieties of English develop in areas where English functions as a second language. The distinctions between rhetorical and communicative norms for speech events in these varieties are discussed. (Author/AM)

A communicativity index (Index I) is described that measures the potential communication function performed by a given language in a designated communication situation. Significant sociolinguistic contrasts between the language situations of West Malaysia and Singapore are revealed by applying this index. (PMJ)

The Ljubljana seminar, whose background and working papers are presented in this volume, was an outcome of the United Nations' consideration of the problems of ethnic and linguistic minorities. The twenty-five papers cover topics such as the study of multinational societies; the protection of minorities and minority rights in Yugoslavia,…

This master's thesis considers the linguistic situation of Malaysia and the need for language planning to establish one language as a common link across many diverse ethnic and linguistic groups. The development of the present-day multilingual situation in Malaysia is described. The country is characterized by language islands created by a lack of…

In the last 15 years or so, Malaysian English has begun to come into its own as a dialect peculiar to its own region and yet intelligible on the whole to English speakers everywhere. There is evidence that English is undergoing a transitional stage in Malaysia; use of English is progressively reduced as use of Bahasa Malaysia is increased. The…