Between public perception and government intent in national language policy

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses divergence between national language policy on the one hand, and perceptions of it on the other. In ethnocratic Malaysia, language policy codifies the supremacy of Bahasa Malaysia as part of a broader ethnonationalist policy agenda that pedestalises the ethnic Malays and curtails the rights of Chinese and Indian-Malaysians. A series of 25 folk linguistic group discussions was held with Malay, Chinese, and Indian youth who defined and constructed Malaysia’s national language policy in their own epistemic terms. In a political culture that suppresses public debate about ethnic affairs, their constructions were sooner informed by personal experiences, observations, assumptions, and ideologies mistaken for policy, rather than the content and rationale of language policy established by the state. Malay and Chinese youth appeared the least critically aware of language policy, for ethnonationalist and socioeconomic reasons, respectively, whereas Indian youth attributed policy to Malay hegemony. The findings have broader relevance for language policy researchers. In the face of gaps between policy and perception, analysing whether and how governments communicate language policies with the public – especially in societies where democracy and transparency are not assured – will improve our analyses of language policy as a dynamic societal process.

KEYWORDS:

• National language policy
• folk linguistics
• language policy promulgation
• multilingualism
• Malaysia

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my sincere thanks to Professor Jacob Mey for his encouragement for this paper and for his valuable guidance. I also wish to express my thanks to Professor Tony Liddicoat and to the anonymous reviewers for their enthusiasm for this paper, to Maria Obojska at the University of Oslo for her valuable comments about the paper's concept, and to the Malaysian youths who so keenly participated in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Nathan John Albury is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research resides in the sociology of language, especially language policy, critical multilingualism, language ideology and folk linguistics. He holds a PhD from the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo.

ORCID

Nathan John Albury http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3471-4939