Staff View: The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020

The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020

The past 20 years have witnessed major shifts in language and education policy in Malaysia. This reflects a range of social, economic, and political forces that influence and shape the policymaking in this multi-ethnic and multicultural country. Past research has suggested that language and educatio...

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Main Authors:	Pillai, Stefanie Shamila, Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh, Chau, Meng Huat
Format:	Article
Published:	Society for South-East Asian Studies 2021
Subjects:	L Education (General) P Philology. Linguistics Communication. Mass media
Online Access:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/36140/ https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85124991274&doi=10.14764%2f10.ASEAS-0058&partnerID=40&md5=1951e54f0c7ccf58e5a24b2bc04b7777
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id	my.um.eprints.36140
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spelling	my.um.eprints.361402023-11-28T13:14:20Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/36140/ The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020 Pillai, Stefanie Shamila Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh Chau, Meng Huat L Education (General) P Philology. Linguistics Communication. Mass media The past 20 years have witnessed major shifts in language and education policy in Malaysia. This reflects a range of social, economic, and political forces that influence and shape the policymaking in this multi-ethnic and multicultural country. Past research has suggested that language and education policies in Malaysia tend to have two main stances and are generally related to Malay (the national language), English, Mandarin, and Tamil. One stance is related to issues of globalization and employability, and the other is related to national and ethnic identities. In view of these stances, this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion and debates on these issues by empirically investigating inherent ideological positions in official statements published in two newspapers in the past 20 years. Specifically, it adopts concepts from critical discourse studies, and uses methods from computational linguistics to examine official statements from a total of 30,508 Malaysian newspaper articles published between 2000 and 2020. The findings indicate that the role of Malay and national ideology, and the global positioning of English continue to be central concerns in the discussion of language and education in Malaysia. In addition, the importance of learning Mandarin is also emphasized. However, indigenous and minority languages are largely absent in the discourses on education policies in the country. The effects of this exclusion are already apparent in the shift to languages like Malay, Mandarin, and English as a first language, and the increasing number of languages considered to be under threat in Malaysia. © 2021 Society for South-East Asian Studies 2021 Article PeerReviewed Pillai, Stefanie Shamila and Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh and Chau, Meng Huat (2021) The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 14 (2). pp. 173-193. ISSN 19992521, DOI https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0058 <https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0058>. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85124991274&doi=10.14764%2f10.ASEAS-0058&partnerID=40&md5=1951e54f0c7ccf58e5a24b2bc04b7777 10.14764/10.ASEAS-0058
institution	Universiti Malaya
building	UM Library
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Malaya
content_source	UM Research Repository
url_provider	http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic	L Education (General) P Philology. Linguistics Communication. Mass media
spellingShingle	L Education (General) P Philology. Linguistics Communication. Mass media Pillai, Stefanie Shamila Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh Chau, Meng Huat The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
description	The past 20 years have witnessed major shifts in language and education policy in Malaysia. This reflects a range of social, economic, and political forces that influence and shape the policymaking in this multi-ethnic and multicultural country. Past research has suggested that language and education policies in Malaysia tend to have two main stances and are generally related to Malay (the national language), English, Mandarin, and Tamil. One stance is related to issues of globalization and employability, and the other is related to national and ethnic identities. In view of these stances, this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion and debates on these issues by empirically investigating inherent ideological positions in official statements published in two newspapers in the past 20 years. Specifically, it adopts concepts from critical discourse studies, and uses methods from computational linguistics to examine official statements from a total of 30,508 Malaysian newspaper articles published between 2000 and 2020. The findings indicate that the role of Malay and national ideology, and the global positioning of English continue to be central concerns in the discussion of language and education in Malaysia. In addition, the importance of learning Mandarin is also emphasized. However, indigenous and minority languages are largely absent in the discourses on education policies in the country. The effects of this exclusion are already apparent in the shift to languages like Malay, Mandarin, and English as a first language, and the increasing number of languages considered to be under threat in Malaysia. © 2021
format	Article
author	Pillai, Stefanie Shamila Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh Chau, Meng Huat
author_facet	Pillai, Stefanie Shamila Surinderpal Kaur, Chanan Singh Chau, Meng Huat
author_sort	Pillai, Stefanie Shamila
title	The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
title_short	The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
title_full	The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
title_fullStr	The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
title_full_unstemmed	The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020
title_sort	ideological stance of multilingualism in education in malaysia in the press 2000-2020
publisher	Society for South-East Asian Studies
publishDate	2021
url	http://eprints.um.edu.my/36140/ https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85124991274&doi=10.14764%2f10.ASEAS-0058&partnerID=40&md5=1951e54f0c7ccf58e5a24b2bc04b7777
_version_	1783876650015916032
score	13.211869

The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020

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