1.0 introduction 1.1 indigenous languageopenaccesslibrary.org/images/har914_mohamed_pitch...mohamed...

International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(16): 297-320 (2010)

CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org

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The Language of Convenience Hypothesis: An Ethno-cultural Progression from Indigenous Language to English Language in Computer-Mediated Communications Mohamed Pitchay Gani Bin Mohamed Abdul Aziz, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Abstract: This study is an attempt to indentify issues and language used in computer-mediated communication (CMC) among the indigenous people of Singapore, based on the hypothesis that English has become a language of convenience among the indigenous people in CMC. This study developed a corpus analysis model CICE to process and evaluate web-based corpus, and used one of UNESCO nine Vitality Factors framework to determine the vitality of indigenous language in CMC. The study identified the following socio-cultural and sociolinguistics factors: dominance of English language in CMC, shift in language used in ethnic discourse, reduction in Malay language competency, emotional issues were mostly discussed in CMC, and English is progressing as language of convenience for the indigenous community in Singapore. Results of this study suggest that the progressive shift of the language of convenience determine by the matrix language is a reflection of the change in ethno-cultural behavior of the community. Keywords: Computer-mediated communications, language shift, matrix language. 1.0 Introduction Internet has revolutionized the way language develops and shapes its future direction. This is clearly the case with the increasing innovation in internet in terms of computer-mediated communications (CMC) such as blogs and facebooks. Communication through computers is no longer static but becomes more human with more transparent sharing of information in real time and exchanges of thoughts, feelings, ideas, visual and audio representations. As a result a new internet community evolved with its own adapted language and culture which in turn becomes a reflection of the current state of culture and language stance of a particular language community. Overtime, CMC has become a repository of ethno-cultural information. 1.1 Indigenous Language Singapore is located in Southeast Asia with a land area of 710 square kilometers. She is one of the smallest countries in the world and in the region with a population of 5 million. The Singapore community is mainly made up of Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Malay is national language of Singapore and one of the 4 official languages together with English, Mandarin, and Tamil. Malay people are the indigenous of Singapore and they speak Malay language as their mother tongue. However, with the advent of the bilingual policy since Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965, English language has been the first language of the Malays together with



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other ethnic groups. After about 45 years of English as first language, the effect of bilingualism on the Malay people and their language has begun to show signs of language shifts in its socio-cultural and sociolinguistics variations. Research into the vitality of Malay language in Singapore becomes increasingly important especially with demographic changes faced by Malay minority population. In 2009, there are 2.7 million Chinese, 500,000 Malays and 343,000 Indians. However, Malay position as the majority minority was challenged by rapid increased in Indian population in Singapore. The Indians has shown significant increased from 154,000 in 1980 to 343,000 in 2009 as compared to 350,000 to 500,000 Malays in the same period. The Indian saw an increase of 120% in population as compared to 40% for the Malays in the same period. The significant increase in Indian population is mainly the result of migration of Indians into Singapore especially since the liberalization of Singapore foreign policy since 2005 (Alicia Wong, 2010). The increase in population also resulted in increase demand for Indian media. The Indian-language programmes in Singapore Mediacorp television channel, Vasantham Central, saw an increase of 125% in air time from 29 hours per week to 65 hours (Li Xueying, 2008). The increase in number of foreign workers to one million workers in 2008 is another factor in demographic developments in Singapore as some of them will eventually becomes residents where English will be the main language of communication. The changed in ethnic based composition affect the language culture of a community. 2.0 Computer-Mediated Communication The use of internet among Singaporean has increased from 36% (2000) to 61% (2005) while the number household in Singapore with internet access has increased from 76% (2008) to 81% (2009). This upward movement in computer usage and access shows that Singaporean are using internet as convenience application for living. Singapore is currently number two in world infocomm ranking after Sweden (Tan, 2010). This is attributed to its 10 year master plan to grow the IT sector which efforts include the Next Generation National Broadband Network which will provide ultra-high speed broadband connectivity to homes and offices islandwide. Thus, computer-mediated communication is now more than a tool to communicate but has become a culture and a way of life. CMC is communication that takes place between human beings via the instrumentality of computers (Herring, 1996). The communication comes in the form of text, audio or visuals that appears on the screen which can be read, listen or see by others in their respective computer screens, either immediately (synchronous CMC) or at a later point in time (asynchronous CMC). CMC has developed significantly since its earliest form. The first-generation tools include e-mail, electronic mailing lists, and discussion forums, also known as threaded bulletin boards. These are basically less interactive in terms of audio and visual representation and lacks links to the world-wide web. The second-generation CMC are more powerful and interactive. Blogs and wikis are examples of second-generation asynchronous Internet tools. Blogs can be described as online



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hypertext journals that others read and react to. The reactions are logged and posted chronologically and become part of the blog (Blake, 2008). Blogs are personal journals or reversed-chronological commentaries written by individuals and made publicly accessible on the web, and they have distinctive technological features that set them apart from other forms of computer-mediated communications (Herring et al., 2004a; Huffaker, 2004b). These features include: ease-of-use, as users do not need to know HTML or other web programming languages to publish onto the internet; ways to archive information and knowledge; opportunities for others to comment or provide feedback for each blog post; and links to other "bloggers" to form online communities. Bloggers also take part in a larger blog community that is often referred to as the blogsphere. In some cases, these blog communities share a common purpose or responsibility (Carl, 2003). Huffaker and Calvert (2005) in their research on adolescents identity issues through blogs explained the feedback from blogs and links to other bloggers can foster peer group relationships. They concluded that blogs may offer insights into the ways in which users present themselves online, especially in terms of self-expression and peer group relationships, both of which impact the construction of identity. Blogs can be described as online hypertext journals that others read and react to. The reactions are logged and posted chronologically and become part of the blog. Most blogs are personal or journalistic in nature (Godwin-Jones 2003a; Ducate and Lomicka 2005) and, as such, allow users to exercise their own voice with a freedom that cannot be experienced in a controlled environments such as in schools or at home with family where there are constrains in subject matters and ethics. Wikis (wiki is Hawaiian for “quick”) are similar to blogs but are a group product rather than the initiative of one individual. Wikis share the blog’s editing environment that makes adding to or modifying content extremely easy. Wikis, however, are not simply chronologically oriented but rather allow the group to reorganize content as they see fit. Any participant can add, modify, rearrange, or even destroy text, images, and other multimedia objects from earlier contributions. Wiki keeps a record of all modifications and allows any participant to regress to a previous content state. Any change or regression affects everyone working on the wiki. Consequently working together on a wiki has the potential to be counterproductive if the participants enter into constant revisionist war over content and form. Conversely, a wiki provides the ideal tool with which to carry out collaborative writing and project-based work. The goal of a wiki site is to become a shared repository of knowledge, with the knowledge base growing over time (Blake, 2008: 71-75) Another innovation in CMC is the Facebook created in 2004. Within 3 years it has more than 21 million registered members generating 1.6 billion page views each day (Needham & Company, 2007). The site is tightly integrated into the daily media practices of its users: A typical user spends about 20 minutes a day on the site, and two-thirds of users log in at least once a day (Cassidy, 2006; Needham & Company, 2007). It is social networking website connecting friends and family. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate "friends" who can post comments on each other's pages, and view each other's profiles. Facebook members can also join virtual groups based on common interests, see what classes they have in



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common, and learn each others' hobbies, interests, musical tastes, and romantic relationship status through the profiles (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2007). Facebook is also known as the social network site together with Friendster, CyWorld, MySpace and Twitter. Mohamed (2004) concluded that the internet language is a synthesis of oral and written languages because the language in the internet has both characteristics:

1. it is not tied to any linguistics rule or grammar (oral) 2. it is a communication in real time and casual (oral) 3. it provides responses based on context (oral) 4. it is well understood by sender and receiver in the internet (oral) 5. it is visual with the use of emoticons (written) 6. it can be archived and reproduced (written) 7. it is in the form of written text (written)

Based on the above, language in internet is very real in terms of its humanistic elements which are arbitrary in nature. It can be concluded that contemporary CMC has the following characteristics:

1. ease-of-use, as users do not need to know HTML or other web programming languages to publish onto the Internet

2. opportunities for others to comment or provide feedback for each CMC 3. CMC communities share a common purpose or responsibility 4. offer insights into the ways in which users present themselves online, especially in terms

of self-expression and peer group relationships 5. are personal or journalistic in nature 6. allow users to exercise their own voice with a freedom 7. has transparent sharing of information in real time 8. exchanges of thoughts, feelings, ideas, visual and audio representations

The language choice in CMC in a bilingual community is an indicator of the vitality of a particular language in such new domain. Fishman (2000:1-5) outlined the relationship between language and culture through his conclusion that languages are related to specific cultures as such most ethnocultural behaviours would be impossible without their expression via the particular language with which these behaviors have been traditionally associated which may include education (in content and practice), the legal system (its abstract prohibition and concrete enforcements), the religious beliefs and observances, the self-governmental operations, the literature, the folklore, the philosophy of moral and ethics, the medical code of illnesses and diseases, as well as the total round of interpersonal interactions (childhood socialization, establishment of friendship and kinship ties, greetings, jokes, songs, benedictions, maladictions). Fishman also stressed that the abandonment of one language would constitute the abandonment of all aspects of culture and traditions because language is a marker of identity and a specific responsibility vis-à-vis future generations.



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Change in culture is also affected by cultural assimilation (Crystal, 2000:77). It happens when one culture is dominated by another dominant culture and begins to lose its character as a result of its member adopting new behavior and mores. One of the ways this could happen is bilingualism where people become increasingly proficient in the new language while still retaining competence in their old. This later led to the old language giving way to the new ones when bilingualism starts to decline. Finally, the third stage is when the younger generation speakers become increasingly proficient with the new language, identifying more with it, and finding their first language less relevant to their needs (Crystal, 2000:79). The younger generation is also known as the internet generation. Most of them in the range of 13-19 years old (Huffaker and Calvert, 2005).Thus, language pragmatics in CMC will be a good indicator of the socio-cultural and linguistic situation of a community and its future progression. 3.0 Objective The objective of this study is to examine the vitality of Malay language in CMC; blogs and facebooks, by using content analysis through examining the types of language most used; identification of issues that are mostly discussed in blogs; and the correlation between the issues and language used, based on the hypothesis that English language has taken over the function of Malay language as language of convenience in CMC through a shift in the matrix language of the Malay community in Singapore. 3.1 Hypothesis English is progressively becoming the language of convenience among Malay language speakers. Language of convenience refers to language that one is very affluence with and is very comfortable using in socializing and communicating intimate and emotional experiences. It is the language which a person grows up with when undergoing the process of socialization in a community. It is easily accessible and adaptable. A recent study on the Malay language in Singapore based on the UNESCO Nine Language Vitality Factors revealed that the language is facing a weakening user domain though it has a concrete structural support from the government (Mohamed, 2009). Structurally Malay language in Singapore has an official status as national and official language; has strong governmental support by virtue of mother tongue policy; has wide collections of documents in institutions such as libraries; has museums and universities, and regional network; has materials for language education and literacy; and responsive to new domains such as advancement in the internet. However, the essence of the rubrics that constitute the structure is a concern because of: declining intergenerational language transmission, declining number of absolute speakers, declining proportion of speakers within the total population, influence of bilingualism in trends in existing language domains; religion and tradition, and community members mixed attitudes toward their own language. Thus, there is a potential of Malay language losing its traditional role as language of convenience.



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4.0 Research Methodology The research is based on web as corpus repository. A model known as CICE is developed to examine the corpus through content and morphological items analysis. One of the nine factors of the language vitality factors framework by UNESCOi

is used to determine the vitality level of Malay language in CMC.

4.1 CMC as Web Corpus Weblogs represent a CMC environment where both identity and language play important roles (Huffaker and Calvert 2005). Users of weblogs mainly teenagers not only present their identity but express ideas, experiences, and feelings using adapted language. Basically, language on internet represents a new type of discourse that is shaped by the creativity and innovation of its communities of users (Crystal, 2001). Fletcher (2007:27) highlighted the importance of CMC as a repository of corpus for investigating and learning languages when he listed the following characteristic of web based data:

1. Freshness and spontaneity – the content of compiled corpora ages quickly, but text on contemporary issues and authentic examples of current, non-standard, or emerging language usage thrive online.

2. Scope and completeness – existing corpora may lack a text genre or content domain of interest, or else may not provide sufficient examples of an expressions or constructions easily located online; some very productive contemporary genres (blogs, wikis, discussion forums…) exist only on the net.

3. Linguistics diversity – languages and language varieties for which no corpora have been compiled are accessible online.

4. Cost and convenience – the web is virtually free, and desktop computers to retrieve and process web pages are available to researchers and students alike.

5. Representativeness – as the proportion of information, communications and entertainment delivered via the net grows, language on and of the web increasingly reflects and enriches our tongues.

Up to September 2009, there were 1,733,993,741ii

users of internet from all over the world. This reflects the abundance data that have been accumulating in the internet to be utilized for research and observations. The numbers grows every seconds reflecting on the contemporary nature of the data.

4.2 Corpus CICE Model A model on corpus utilization is developed through 4 levels of internet data utilization; beginning from collection of data, followed by data identification which generates a list of main issues and languages identified in the data collected. The issues in the list were then categorized into respective subject areas. This is followed by identifying the language or languages used and



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the nature of language used. In the internet there are other forms of languages invented by the net citizens like emoticons or emotional icons and acronyms. Basically, internet has its own set of language registers. Finally, the evaluation level where data collected were interpreted based on research objective. This process produced a corpus model known as CICE (figure 1) constructed based on the 4 elements; collection, identification, categorization, and evaluation. Based on this model, examination of corpus can be done systematically. Figure 1: CICE Model

4.2.1 Corpus (Data) Collection There are many CMC tools in the internet. For this research, the corpus for the study was collected randomly from blogs and facebook of Malay language speaking individuals. The corpus must be from Malay users which can be identified from their profile in blogs and facebooks accounts. Their name and the language used in on-line discussions is another indicator of the race. Following is an example of a profile in a blog:

Blog: http://sabrinayussof.blogspot.com/ Date: 8th September 2009 Name: Sabrina Yusoff (a Malay name) Status: Diploma student in Nanyang Polytechnics faculty of Engineering Informatics Age: 22 years old

The corpus was collected in a period of 3 months from September to November 2009. Altogether 1000 blogs and 1000 facebooks accounts were identified on-line and collected as corpus for this study. 4.2.2 Corpus Identification The corpus collected underwent a process of identification through content analysis in tune with the objective of the research to identify 1) the issues that are mostly discussed in blogs, 2) the types of language most used, and 3) the correlation between the issues and language used.

http://sabrinayussof.blogspot.com/�



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4.2.2.1 Issues discussed To identify the issues, entries in blogs were read thoroughly. Next the issues were identified. For example a blog that discussed issues on examination, test, subjects and events in school were classified into one main issue ‘school’. While those on educational related discussions beyond school were classified into one main issue ‘education’. Table 1 illustrates the identification of a main issue classified as ‘Feeling’ and its related issues. Table 1: Issue Identification

From 1000 blogs examined, 22 main issues were identified: education, stress, health, comment, school, life, daily record, love, recreation, job, relationship, feelings, activities, entertainment, family, crime, experience, celebration, problem, religion, language, and race. However, only corpus for blogs were broken down into issues and evaluated while those of facebooks were not included because facebook is very synchronous and the discussions were too general. In most of the facebooks examined it only reflects daily occurrences such as meetings, feelings, arguments and announcements among others. The discourses were short and did not culminate into tangible issues. As such the languages used in facebooks were calculated as overall language used to determine the extent of Malay language or English language usage in facebooks. Following is an example of discourse in a facebook which characterized its simple and brief statements:

Mohd Sophian : crash Mohd Sophian : too much... just too much Sri Asrina : Gush! What is wrong with you? Ariff Rizwan Sahab : be patient babe, patient! Remember...”Sure it can be done” Sarah Bakar : relax... Shaheda Salim : calm down... take a deep breath... sure you can do it! Ariff Rizwan Sahab : if you need help, Shaheda and Maisarah can help!

From this identification procedure, issue with most number of entries will be classified as the most discussed issue. This is based on the number of items or blogs entries under the same subject area. 4.2.2.2 Language used The next step is identifying the language of communication in CMC. This was done through morphological item analysis to determine the types of words available and the language it entailed. It was deduced that there were 3 main languages identified in almost all blogs and

Main Issue Classification Issues in Blogs Feelings sadness, happiness, anger, restlessness, jealousy



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facebooks: Malay language, English language, and internet language (netspeak). Figure 2 is an example of a discourse in blog which illustrates languages in a blog: Figure 2: Abstract of a discourse in a blog Pening lah aku. Nowadays budak2 melayu kita sendiri pun dah hilang adat terhadap Melayu sesame sendiri. What are you thinking man? Please uh Malays.. Otak jangan letak kat bontot. U all ada brain, think what is right and what is wrong. Jangan memalukan masyarakat Melayu sendiri. Kita mesti hidup berdikari. Bukan lepas dah berjaya jer lupa daratan! Tsk2!

The blog in figure 2 can be transformed into the following discourse by translating the Malay words into English and writing the meaning of the internet language: “I am lost. Nowadays our own Malay youths have lost respect for each other. What are you thinking man? Come on Malays… Don’t leave your brain in your butt. You all have brain, think what is right and what is wrong. Don’t embarrass our own Malay community. We must be independent. Don’t just let go and forget who we are once we are successful. Sigh!” Malay language (in italics) and English language are the main languages used based on the fact that these two languages are the language of communications for Singapore Malays in the bilingual setting. Singapore education policy is bilingual where students have to learn the dominant language that is English and a mother tongue; Malay, Mandarin, or Tamil. The internet language (such as Tsk2) in figure 2 known as netspeak is an emergent discourse that is shaped entirely by the creativity of its community (Crystal, 2001). According to Huffaker and Calvert (2005), the language of the Internet entails both traditional linguistic forms and adapted ones that include slang and non-standard forms that are sometimes used in offline life. The introduction of acronyms (e.g., "lol = laugh out loud," "brb = be right back"), plays or variations on words (e.g., "cya = see you", "latah = later"), graphical icons that represent emotions, called emoticons (e.g., :) or ;-{} ) or graphical icons that represent a real person in a virtual context, called avatars, are all examples of language produced by online communicators. The languages identified in figure 2 were calculated and the numbers recorded in percentage of the overall number of Malay language and English language. The number of netspeak language is not included in the calculation because the focus of the research is on the 2 most used human language and not internet developed language such as netspeak. Following example illustrates:

Total number of words: 57 (100%) Total Malay words: 38 (66%) Total English words: 19 (44%) Total Netspeak words: 1 (Tsk2)

From this identification procedure, the types of language most used can be identified based on the overall language used in all the 22 main issues identified.



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4.2.2.3 Issues and Language Correlations The correlation between issues and language used can be deduced through a comparative process after the issue identification and item analysis are completed. Both the issues and number of Malay language (ML) and English language (EL) were tabulated in percentages side by side as follows: Table 2: List of issues with corresponding language used

4.2.3 Corpus Categorization Through inductive analysis, the 22 main issues were categorized into subject areas based on the correlation of functions and needs. Altogether 4 subject areas were identified: mainstream (comprised of education, school, and job issues), emotion (comprised of stress, life, love,

Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Education 6 94 21 Stress 6 94 15 Health 7 93 12 Comment 8 92 7 School 10 90 108 Life 10 90 34 Daily record 11 89 60 Love 12 88 85 Recreation 12 88 80 Jobs 12 88 30 Relationship 13 87 56 Feeling 15 85 132 Activity 15 85 31 Entertainment 15 85 31 Family 16 84 25 Crime 17 83 8 Experience 17 83 14 Celebration 18 82 57 Problem 20 80 69 Religion 21 79 88 Language 30 70 14 Race 36 64 10 Total 327 1893 987iii

Ave %

15 85



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relationship, feeling, experience, celebration, and problems issues), ethnicity (comprised of family, race, language, and religion issues), and routine (comprised of daily record, recreation, entertainment, and activity issues). Mainstream related areas are education, schools, and jobs. Table 3 below shows the extent of languages used. Issue on school has the most entries. Mainstream subject shows very little use of Malay language, 9% as compared to 91% for English language. Table 3: Correlation of mainstream related issues and language used Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Education 6 94 21 School 10 90 108 Job 12 88 30 Total 28 272 159 Ave % 9 91 -

Ethnic related areas are race, language, religion, and family. Table 4 shows the extent of the languages used. Religious issue has the most entries. Here the use of Malay language is much higher at 26% but still lower than that of English language at 74%. Table 4: Correlation of ethnic related issues and language used Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Family 16 84 25 Religion 21 79 88 Language 30 70 14 Race 36 64 10 Total 103 297 137 Ave % 26 74 -

Emotion related areas subjects are life, feelings, stress, love, problems, experience, relationship, and celebrations. Table 5 below shows the extent of the languages used. Issue on feeling has the most entries for the entire issues identified. The use of Malay language is low at 14% as compared to English language at 74%. Table 5: Correlation of emotion related issues and language used Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Stress 6 94 15 Life 10 90 34 Love 12 88 85 Relationship 13 87 56



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Routine related areas are recreations, entertainment, daily record, and activity. Table 6 below shows the extent of the languages used. Recreation is the most discuss issue. The use of Malay language is low at 13% as compared to 87% of English language. Table 6: Correlation of routines related issues and language used Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Daily record 11 89 60 Recreation 12 88 80 Entertainment 15 85 31 Activity 15 85 31 Total 53 347 202 % 13 87 - Overall language used in blogs based on the subjects proved that English is the most dominant language in blogs. Usage of English language is 85% as compared to 15% of Malay language. It is also interesting to note that emotional issue has the most entries surpassing the others. Table 7 illustrates: Table 7: Overall language usage in Blogs based on main subjects areas

Issues in Blogs ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Mainstream 9 91 159 Routine 13 87 202 Emotion 14 86 462 Ethnicity 26 74 137 Total 62 338 960 % 15 85 - The overall language use in facebooks showed a much more positive outlook for the Malay language. 32% of Malay language was used as compared to 68% of English language. Table 8 illustrates:

Feeling 15 85 132 Experience 17 83 14 Celebration 18 82 57 Problem 20 80 69 Total 111 689 462 Ave % 14 86 -



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Table 8: Overall language usage in Facebooks CMC ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS Facebook 32 68 1000

Finally the overall language usage both in blogs and facebooks showed that English language is still the dominant language as compared to Malay language. English language is used more frequently in both blogs and facebooks. Table 9 illustrates: Table 9: Overall language usage in Blogs and Facebooks

CMC ML (%) EL (%) ITEMS

Blogs 15 85 1000

Facebooks 32 68 1000

Total 24 76 -

4.2.4 Corpus Evaluation Corpus evaluation examined the inputs generated from the identification and categorization processes to address the objectives of this research that is to gauge the vitality of minority language (Malay language) in CMC. The areas to be evaluated are the issues most discussed, the correlation of issues and language used, and the overall language most used in CMC.

Figure 3: Overall language usage in blogs based on main issues

Figure 3 shows the overall dominant language in blogs is English language (EL) in all areas of discourse. English is the dominant language in blogs with 85% usage as compared to 15% for



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Malay language across 1000 blogs examined. Subjects discussing on mainstream issues has the lowest amount of Malay language with only 9%. Mainstream issue includes discussions on schools, education and job. The dominant English language is a norm because Singapore education, political and economic systems are dominated by English language as the first language since Singapore became independent in 1965. Since then the fundamental change in Singapore policy of industrialization geared to world export market also meant the widespread use of English which was considered as the language of the investing industrialists (“The Mirror”, Vol.8 No.16 of 1972). The use of English as a medium of instructions in schools and all subjects thought in English resulted in the increase in interest and command of the English language at the expense of the Malay language which is thought about 4-5 hours a week compared to other English medium subjects that took up about 35 hours a week. The time spent in school is another contributing factor. Each child spent about 6-10 hours a day in school for both academic and outside curricular activities. Thus, they were more exposed to the multi-racial communications in which English was the language of discourse. Issue on ethnicity used the most Malay language at 26%. This shows that issues relating to race, religion and language still use Malay or vernacular language basically due to its socio-cultural and socio-religious context. Malays in Singapore are mostly Muslims and Malay language is widely used as the language of instruction for religious studies. Most of the subject areas still require Malay vocabulary to send the most accurate message across. Nevertheless, this trend is changing with changes in policy governing the use of English language by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore. Since 2004, English language has been used to teach religion in Singapore to the Malay community. The scenario surrounding Malay language in Singapore shows that a new and emerging trend is well underway in areas that have affiliation with Malay language namely culture, religion, mass media, education, family, organizations and policies among others. Such developments are progressing with Singapore moved towards a global city state. Linda Thompson’s research report on an ethnolinguistics study of 40 Singaporean families living in pluralingual Singapore found out that there were an increasing number of single parent families, as well as three generation households, inter-lingual marriages and partnerships that add to the rapid linguistic change in Singapore. The increasing number of foreign talents into Singapore and bringing with them their own language further affect the linguistic structure of the Singapore household (Mohamed, 2009). This could also explain the low percentage of Malay language usage in areas of emotion and routine with only 14% and 13% respectively. The percentage of Malay language in the area of ethnicity will witness a reduction over the years as English becomes a dominant language in the area of ethnicity. The use of Malay language in facebooks is much better as compared to blogs. The examination on 1000 facebooks shows that facebooks users used 32% Malay language and 68% English language while engaging each other in facebooks. The amount of Malay language is higher than that of blogs about twice as much. This could be attributed to the synchronous elements in facebooks where users engage with each other in an informal communications with short sentences or even jargons as Figure 4 illustrates.



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Figure 4: Overall language usage in Blogs and Facebooks

5.0 Findings The research into the vitality of Malay language in CMC has brought to light significant developments in the socio-cultural and sociolinguistics realm through corpus evaluation and measure of language vitality that supports the hypothesis that English language is the language of convenience in Malay communication in CMC. 5.1 Corpus The analysis of CMC corpus on 1000 blogs and facebooks in the internet through the CICE model has brought to light developments of Malay language in Singapore:

1. English is the dominant language in all main issues discussed in CMC. English is gaining preference among Malay language speaker thus proving that there is a weakening of Malay language in CMC.

2. There is a shift in the use of Malay language in ethnic discourse in CMC from Malay to English language proving that there is a socio-cultural change.

3. Malay language is used more in facebooks compared to blogs. This shows that Malay language is still a preference when it comes to short discourse in CMC because facebooks entries are short in most cases. Ultimately proving that there is a reduction in Malay language competency especially the lack of vocabulary and expressive language.

4. Issue most discussed in blogs is on the issue of feeling. This shows that blogs are more appropriately used for spiritual discourses such as pouring of feelings, outcries on resentment, happiness, and contentment. It also reflects on the fact that a repository of



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expressive and personal mode of communication. In other words it is a more human language. Ultimately a language of convenience.

5. Very little of Malay language is used in mainstream discourse. It shows that Malay speakers are very comfortable using English language as first language.

5.2 Language of Convenience Hypothesis The literature on the nature of CMC language concluded that it is humanistic in nature. Users of the internet have ease-of-use, as users do not need to know HTML or other web programming languages to publish onto the Internet. This means that communication can be done directly by any laymen from all walks of life and background. Even housewives, children and retirees can be on the net at any time and start engaging on communications and activities with the rest of the world. The language used for such communication is the language that is most convenient to the users. This brought about a more personalized use of the CMC by turning it into personal journals that offer insights into the ways in which users present themselves online, especially in terms of self-expression and peer group relationships. In other words, the language used for such engagement is easily accessible in terms of vocabulary and context. The language in CMC also witnessed users exercising their own voice with a freedom to outcry their believes and concerned which in turn brought about the exchanges of thoughts, feelings, ideas, visual and audio representations in a transparent sharing of information in real time. This has to be done with a language that is far closer to a user and easily accessible and a language that gives opportunities for others to comment or provide feedback for each CMC so that the CMC communities can share a common purpose or responsibility. Such language used in CMC can well be classified as language of convenience. Just like a convenient store, it is always there 24 hours a day to meet the daily needs of customers. It is easily accessible and become a preference because it fits the lifestyle of customers within the area or neighborhood. Such is the analogy of the language of convenience in the internet. It is useful, handy, saving time and trouble, and available; at hand (Manser and Thomson, 1996).Thus, it can be concluded that the language of convenience has the following characteristics:

1. language of communication that can be done directly by any laymen from all walks of life and background

2. language that is most convenient to users 3. language that is easily accessible in terms of vocabulary and context 4. Language that is far closer to the user 5. language that gives opportunities for others to comment or provide feedback

Myers-Scotton (1992, 1998) explained that bilinguals select a conversational language consciously or sub-consciously when engaging in a conversation. This selected language is called base, recipient or matrix language. When code-switching takes place, items from another language are introduced into the base language. They are called donor of embedded language. It



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is normal for bilinguals to code switch during a conversation as a mark of relationship, signaling status and situation deference and intimacy. Based on the Matrix Language Frame Model [MLF] (Myers-Scotton, 1992), it can de deduced that Malay language is facing increasing embedment of morphemes from the dominant language- English language, while maintaining its grammatical sentential structure. The model proposed that within any stretch of intra-sentential code-switching, one language can be seen as the main or matrix language into which items from other language varieties are embedded. It is the matrix language that supplies the grammar for the utterance; the matrix language supplies the ‘syntactically relevant morphemes’. These are morphemes that functions as grammatical items; and that signal relations between items in a sentence. In other words, Myers-Scotton identified matrix language as the language of more morphemes in interactions types including intra-sentential code switching as illustrated in table 9 (the blogs discourse is taken from figure 2): Table 9: Matrix language identification based on morphemes No

Blogs discourse

No. Malay morphemes

No. English morphemes

Matrix Language

1 Pening lah aku.

3 0 Malay

2 Nowadays budak2 melayu kita sendiri pun dah hilang adat terhadap Melayu sesame sendiri.

12 1 Malay

3 What are you thinking man?

5 0 Malay

4 Please uh Malays…

1 3 English

5 Otak jangan letak kat bontot.

4 0 Malay

6 U all ada brain, think what is right and what is wrong.

1 11 English

7 Jangan memalukan masyarakat Melayu sendiri.

5 0 Malay

8 Kita mesti hidup berdikari.

4 0 Malay

9 Bukan lepas dah berjaya jer lupa daratan!

7 0 Malay

10 Tsk2! (netspeak)

- - -

Table 9 shows that the matrix language is Malay because there are more Malay morphemes in the discourse as compared to English language. This is a very clear case of a Malay blogger whose mother



314

tongue language is Malay. However, in a bilingual situation, the same blogger may use more English language in another discourse thus making English his matrix language. In such a situation, matrix language of a speaker is linked to his discourse in relation to the number of morphemes not the mother tongue language or the language he was born with. With reference to figure 3, the Malays in Singapore are using more English language than Malay language in their discourses in CMC. Based on the analysis, it is obvious that English is the language of convenience among the Malay language speakers in the CMC. In all aspects of communication in CMC, the Malays used English language more than Malay language to a very large extent. In 1000 blogs and facebooks examined, 76% of the communications were done with English language. A significant shift was observed in the areas that were traditionally rooted in Malay language; family, race, religion and language. This research shows that 74% of the discussions on ethnicity were done in English language. This implied that English is the matrix language of the Malay community in Singapore. It serves as language of convenience for Malays characterized by code switches during a conversation as a mark of relationship, signaling status and situation deference and intimacy which become a conversational language consciously or sub-consciously when engaging in a conversation. The principle governing the language of convenience hypothesis in CMC is the use dominant language in personal discourses and discourses in ethnic related issues which become the matrix language. The issues related to personal discourse are: stress, life, love, relationship, feeling, experience, celebration, and problem. Issues related to ethnicity are: race, language, religion, and family. The issues are a reflection of ethno-cultural behavior of the community because they form part of the culture and belief system of the community. These 2 issues are the main focus because they have culture preserving and culture transmitting features through the use of Malay language. However, when the matrix language changes to English, these features are affected and would subsequently affect ethno-cultural language transmission. Figure 5 illustrates: Figure 5: Language of Convenience LANGUAGE OF CONVENIENCE PERSONAL

ETHNICITY

stress, life, love, relationship, feeling, experience, celebration, and problem

race, language, religion, family

It can be concluded that English language is progressively taking over Malay language as language of convenience in the internet as hypothesized by the language of convenience hypothesis. This shift has more outreaching repercussions on the Malay people in Singapore. It



315

also proved that the cultural assimilation through domination of a dominant English culture over that of the Malay culture has taken place not only in the linguistic faculty but more importantly in the ethno-cultural behaviors of the the Malay community in Singapore increasingly proficient in the new language, identifying more with it, and finding their mother tongue language less relevant to their needs (Fishman, 2000:1-5). Cultural assimilation (Crystal, 2000:77-79) through bilingualism has made Widespread use of English in Singapore through aggressive bilingual policy resulted in the westernized notion of Singapore and shift in matrix language. From the processes and analysis discussed, it can be deduced that language of convenience is the choice of matrix language motivated by ethno-cultural behavior. The choice can be conscious of sub-conscious but not necessarily depending on contexts or environments because it has assimilated well into the linguistic system of the speaker that is shaped by such ethno-cultural behavior. 5.3 Vitality of Malay language in CMC Factor 5 of the UNESCO Language vitality factors focused on the situation of endangered languages in new domains and media. Malay language in Singapore is classified as moving towards a potentially threatened language status (Mohamed, 2009). As such the language vitality factors framework by UNESCO is useful in assessing the vitality of the language in CMC as well. CMC is classified as new domain and media and is becoming part of life for the new generation of computer users and the people at large. Thus, new areas for language use may emerge as community living conditions change. While some language communities do succeed in expanding their own language into the new domain, most do not. Schools, new work environments, new media, including broadcast media and the Internet, usually serve only to expand the scope and power of the dominant language at the expense of endangered languages. Although no existing domains of the endangered language may be lost, the use of the dominant language in the new domain has mesmerizing power, as with television. If the communities do not meet the challenges of modernity with their language, it becomes increasingly irrelevant and stigmatized. Table 10 shows the degree at which language vitality is measured based on a grading system from 0-5, where 0 is considered to be least in terms of language vitality and 5 is the most reflecting the sound position of a language. Table 10: Degree of Malay language vitality in CMC Degree of Endangerment

Grade New Domains and Media Accepted by the Endangered Language

dynamic 5 The language is used in all new domains. robust/active 4 The language is used in most new domains. receptive 3 The language is used in many domains.

coping 2 The language is used in some new domains. minimal 1 The language is used only in a few new domains.

inactive 0 The language is not used in any new domains.



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Analysis done on Malay language in CMC showed that the language is being used in all media. This means that the vitality level of Malay language in CMC is graded 5 which mean that language is used in all new domains. This also means that the Malay language in Singapore is doing well in CMC. However, the amount of Malay language used as compared to English language in CMC is very much less; 24% of Malay language as compared to 76% English language. The language of dominance for 22 most discussed issues in CMC (see table 2) among the Malay language speakers is English. While analysis done on specific subject area in CMC; routine, emotions, ethnicity, mainstream (see table 7) also showed that English is the dominant language with a very wide percentage difference. The research on language of convenience also proved that English language is now the language of convenience for Malay language speakers in Singapore. The traditional stronghold of Malay language in areas of language, race, religion and family (see table 4) has also deteriorated and taken over by English language. Based on such scenario, the vitality of Malay language in CMC has to be adjusted to meet realistic measure. It can be graded as 2 of 3 but not 5. Malay language can be regarded as “coping” or “receptive” in CMC. The percentage of Malay language in CMC is a good indicator that it is trying to cope with the dominance of English language. The loosening of Malay language hold on ethnic issues like family, race, religion, and language in favor of English language is a very good indication that the Malay language in CMC in Singapore is very receptive to the use of English language in such issues. 6.0 Conclusion This research has shown that there is a shift in the matrix language among the indigenous of Singapore in CMC. English language is fast becoming the language of convenience of the Malay community in CMC. The change is indicated by the socio-cultural and sociolinguistics responses in CMC. The socio-cultural responses deduced from issues discussed indicated that the Malay community has immersed well into the mainstream community because they no longer find it inappropriate to discuss ethnic based issues such as race, language, religion and family in an open setting such as the internet. Issues relating to emotion have the most numbers of entries indicating that the Malays are comfortable with such issues in CMC. More importantly, the Malays prefer to use English language in their on-line communication with respect to such issues. Thus, Malay language is no longer a sacred language when dealing with such issues.

Research on the vitality of Malay language in Singapore has provided a new paradigm on the issue of language sanctity among the indigenous of Singapore. The progressive shift of the language of convenience among the Malays is a reflection of the change in ethno-cultural behavior of the community.



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i The model is based on a document submitted to the “International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages” in Paris 10-12 March 2003. In 2002 and 2003, UNESCO asked an international group of linguists to develop a framework for determining the vitality of a language in order to assist in policy development, identification of needs and appropriate safeguarding measures. This Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages elaborated a landmark concept paper entitled “Language Vitality and Endangerment”, which established the following nine criteria:



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intergenerational language transmission; absolute number of speakers; proportion of speakers within the total population; trends in existing language domains; response to new domains and media; materials for language education and literacy; governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies, including official status and use; community members’ attitudes toward their own language; and amount and quality of documentation. ii Refer to Internet World Stats Usage and Population at http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm iii The balance 33 items were not included as those items are insignificant in terms of quantity and issues.

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1.0 introduction 1.1 indigenous languageopenaccesslibrary.org/images/har914_mohamed_pitch...mohamed...

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