The Ideological Stance of Multilingualism in Education in Malaysia in the Press 2000-2020.

Autor/inn/en	Pillai, Stefanie; Kaur, Surinderpal; Chau, Meng Huat
Titel	The Ideological Stance of Multilingualism in Education in Malaysia in the Press 2000-2020.
Quelle	In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Südostasienwissenschaften, 14 (2021) 2, S. 173-193 PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1999-253X
DOI	10.14764/10.ASEAS-0058
Schlagwörter	Bildungspolitik; Sprache; Mehrsprachigkeit; Sprachpolitik; Minderheit; Indigenes Volk; Malaysia; Südostasien
Abstract	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.
Erfasst von	GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim
Update	2022/2