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Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches

Budget speeches are a fixed political event in Malaysia. Their content involves the whole country and a variety of domains. Despite the cornucopia of research on speeches, budget speeches are rarely selected and speeches from Malaysia have not been examined in detail. The discourse in these speec...

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Main Author: Kumaran Rajandran,
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/1/26497-96203-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1171
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spelling my-ukm.journal.140442020-01-24T09:22:48Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/ Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches Kumaran Rajandran, Budget speeches are a fixed political event in Malaysia. Their content involves the whole country and a variety of domains. Despite the cornucopia of research on speeches, budget speeches are rarely selected and speeches from Malaysia have not been examined in detail. The discourse in these speeches can display how a developing country tackles economic decision-making. The article explores the portrayal of economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches. It conducts a linguistic analysis grounded in critical discourse studies. The analysis employs frequency, concordance and the representation of social actors to decipher monetary amount, politonyms, ethnonyms and toponyms. The discourse in budget speeches can portray economic competence, which has three characteristics. First, the government can claim to be financially solvent and propose significant initiatives. Second, the government introduces desirable initiatives because it intervenes to ensure economic growth. Third, the government helps citizens of several ethnicities and regions although Bumiputeras, Sabah and Sarawak are prioritized. The portrayal entails an ideological government-citizen binary because the government is the source of initiatives while citizens are the target of initiatives. The portrayal was reproduced in other texts and was repeated in the media. The portrayal became the endorsed way to think about the former Barisan Nasional (BN) government but other parties questioned it. The article argues that BN sought to legitimize its political power but its legitimacy became compromised, and it was defeated in the 2018 general elections. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019-02 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/1/26497-96203-2-PB.pdf Kumaran Rajandran, (2019) Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 19 (1). pp. 17-35. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1171
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description Budget speeches are a fixed political event in Malaysia. Their content involves the whole country and a variety of domains. Despite the cornucopia of research on speeches, budget speeches are rarely selected and speeches from Malaysia have not been examined in detail. The discourse in these speeches can display how a developing country tackles economic decision-making. The article explores the portrayal of economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches. It conducts a linguistic analysis grounded in critical discourse studies. The analysis employs frequency, concordance and the representation of social actors to decipher monetary amount, politonyms, ethnonyms and toponyms. The discourse in budget speeches can portray economic competence, which has three characteristics. First, the government can claim to be financially solvent and propose significant initiatives. Second, the government introduces desirable initiatives because it intervenes to ensure economic growth. Third, the government helps citizens of several ethnicities and regions although Bumiputeras, Sabah and Sarawak are prioritized. The portrayal entails an ideological government-citizen binary because the government is the source of initiatives while citizens are the target of initiatives. The portrayal was reproduced in other texts and was repeated in the media. The portrayal became the endorsed way to think about the former Barisan Nasional (BN) government but other parties questioned it. The article argues that BN sought to legitimize its political power but its legitimacy became compromised, and it was defeated in the 2018 general elections.
format Article
author Kumaran Rajandran,
spellingShingle Kumaran Rajandran,
Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
author_facet Kumaran Rajandran,
author_sort Kumaran Rajandran,
title Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
title_short Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
title_full Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
title_fullStr Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
title_full_unstemmed Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
title_sort portraying economic competence in malaysian federal budget speeches
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2019
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/1/26497-96203-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1171
_version_ 1657565459083427840
score 13.211869

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