Language Policy and Planning

Invitation 4 Comments & Discussion

Hi All,

Today`s class was very interesting, the way Prof. Saran took us through the gradual transition from English to BM in Malaysia; the interval of the transition which exceeded 18 years to achieve balance in change, and the reasons behind it.

What I could infer from the discussion is that, at that particular phase, English had to be deprived and had to change its role to become the first (only) second language in Malaysia in order to establish and gradually promote the status of BM, since English was , and still, possessing the unraveling power as the language of knowledge, economy, and technology which hardly any other language can challenge.

With the massive development in the international communication in the 21st century, the interview of Prof.Saran with the former P.M. of Malaysia Dr. Mahatir shows explicitly the awareness of the importance of coping with the new fast era of IT and International communication. the rise of this notion led to a change in language policy and a shift back to English as the medium of instruction in Math and Science.

It seems to me that the language policy in Malaysia will change further, in terms of wider range of competent users of English among its population, beyond teaching Math and Science in the few coming years. Taking into account that the Malaysian Nation aims towards following up the developed countries and reaching a higher international status by the year 2020, as Gill (2004, p. 3) points out that "In a nation like Malaysia, which is aspiring to attain developed nation status by 2020, it is imperative that it has a generation of people who are able to communicate effectively in English to enable it to compete on the international platform"

Yet still there seem to be some voices that are worried about the status of BM. They may have the right in the sense that when English dominates the fields of economy and technology it will go to education and unreservedly to politics as well. Consequently, the BM might lose its status and prestige to gradually become a language that is out of demand which is something that those voices would consider as a threatening storm to the Malaysian identity.

However , the observer of the international status, or the so called globalization, can vividly figure out the dominance of English over all other world-languages and can also anticipate that the language of the future is going to be English again. English, in the past had spread allover the world by the power of army and recently via the power of Knowledge and technology. The latter has its own features in terms of status and prestige. It is now the Language of wide and free access to Knowledge and technology. Besides, the speaker of English is Highly estimated. Unlike the former English which also had different features of being the language of the colonialism. English of Nowadays does not belong to the British anymore. there are different versions of English such as Senglish, Canadian English African English and so forth. So argument like "language changes identity" is no longer valid, since English becomes part of the national identity of its users. to put it in another way, language users nationalize the language and grant it the identity, not the other way round.

I n short, language policy continues to be controversial since there are always some hidden agendas behind. The issue in Malaysia is unique. The agenda is almost apparent and declared to the public. with multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural community, Malaysia could set a clear language policy after dependency with the aim of unifying people and now is evaluating it and moving towards a shift back to English in response to the changing needs with the goal of being a developed country.

This is my understanding of what was presented and discussed in class and I would like to invite comments / discussions on the various issues.

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