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This study examines gendered language use in Facebook comments by Malaysian millennial users. Textual analysis was conducted on 260 Facebook comments collected from 11 Facebook social pages. Sixty participants’ reasons for identifying the gender of the writers of 14 Facebook comments were also analyzed. The results showed that half of the participants could correctly guess the writers’ gender. The Facebook comments showed more frequent use of male than female language features. The male millennial users were inclined towards using Sexual References, Insults/Profanities, Directive/Autonomy, Strong Assertion, and Rhetorical Questions. The females, however, were inclined towards using Hedges, Polite and Emotionally Expressive Words, Interpersonally Orientation/Supportiveness, Questions, and Experience Sharing. From the participants’ perspective, male writing is short, direct, rude, negative, and crude, while female writing is lengthy, tentative, polite, positive, emotional, and reflects concern for others. The non-gender specific language features identified from textual analysis are Information Orientation, Apologies, Tag Questions, and Aligned Orientation, but different features were given by the participants (Questions, Rhetorical Questions, and Strong Assertion). The study also shows that Information Orientation, Self-Promotion, Sexual Reference, Opposed Orientation, Hedges, Apologies and Tag Questions may be falling into disuse among Malaysian millennials in Facebook comments. The findings suggest that language patterns used by Malaysian millennials deviate from conventional norms, with some comments displaying cross-gender language patterns. This indicates a blurring of conventional gender language norms in online interactions.

The preliminary study examined teacher and students' translanguaging practices in a preschool in Sarawak, Malaysia. Analysis of audio-recorded interactions of 15 students with their teachers in two preschool classrooms (1 English, 1 Malay) found 291 instances of teacher talk functions (English, 87; Malay, 204) and 222 instances of student talk functions (English, 71; Malay, 151). As the teachers were teaching English and Malay languages, the communicative function dominated, followed by management and academic functions. The teacher provided participation cues, affirmed students' responses and assessed their knowledge. However, in the Malay lesson where students were not limited by their language proficiency, the teacher also asked students to give clarification, and provided new information to expand students' schema. A large percentage of student talk functions in the English and Malay lessons were representational, followed by repetitions. Almost all (92.72%) student talk functions were performed in the medium of instruction in the Malay lesson, compared to 56.34% in the English lesson. The study shows the importance of translanguaging to provide the language support for the preschool students' less developed language.

Poor mental health of university students is becoming a serious issue in many countries. Malaysia -- a leading country for Asia-Pacific education -- is one of them. Despite the government's effort to raise awareness, Malaysian students' mental health remains challenging, exacerbated by the students' negative attitudes towards mental health (mental health attitudes). Relatedly, self-compassion and resilience have been reported to improve mental health and mental health attitudes. Malaysian students (n = 153) responded to paper-based measures about mental health problems, negative mental health attitudes, self-compassion, and resilience. Scores were compared with 105 UK students, who also suffered from poor mental health and negative mental health attitudes, to make a cross-cultural comparison, to contextualise Malaysian students' mental health status, using t tests (aim 1). Correlation, path, and moderation analyses were conducted, to evaluate the relationships among these mental health constructs (aim 2). Malaysian students scored higher on mental health problems and negative mental health attitudes, and lower on self-compassion and resilience than UK students. Mental health problems were positively associated with negative mental health attitudes, and negatively associated with self-compassion and resilience. While self-compassion mediated the relationship between negative mental health attitudes and mental health problems (high self-compassion weakened the impacts of negative mental health attitudes on mental health problems), resilience did not moderate the same relationship (the level of resilience did not influence the impact of negative mental health attitudes on mental health problems). Self-compassion training was suggested to counter the challenging mental health in Malaysian university students.

This study examined learner perspectives of the benefits of communication strategy training by analysing strategy diaries written by low English proficiency learners enrolled in an English for Occupational Purposes programme. The communication strategy instruction involved 23 students who were taught 13 lexical, negotiation, and discourse-based communication strategies during the 13- week training. Each session consisted of presentation, rehearsal, and performance stages, and closed with strategy diary writing. The students wrote 117 strategy diary entries related to the learning outcomes of the training sessions. Most diary entries (82.9%) were on English improvement, and the remaining (17.1%) were related to communication strategy use. Further analysis of the strategy-related entries indicated the communication strategies taught during the training helped the students to better explain themselves, increase their vocabulary, and speak more spontaneously. A longitudinal analysis of one student's diary entries revealed that the student did not develop greater awareness of communication strategies during the training. When the subject matter of the interaction became more technical, his reflection shifted from communicative and language skills to the topic of the lesson and activities. The findings suggest the need to train learners on reflective writing to obtain insights into the learner perspective of learning to use communication strategies.

The study examined the subjective ethnolinguistic vitality of an Iban community in Sarawak, Malaysia based on their language use and attitudes. A survey of 200 respondents in the Song district was conducted. To determine the objective ethnolinguistic vitality, a structural analysis was performed on their sociolinguistic backgrounds. The results show the Iban language dominates in family, friendship, transactions, religious, employment, and education domains. The language use patterns show functional differentiation into the Iban language as the "low language" and Malay as the "high language". The respondents have positive attitudes towards the Iban language. The dimensions of language attitudes that are strongly positive are use of the Iban language, Iban identity, and intergenerational transmission of the Iban language. The marginally positive dimensions are instrumental use of the Iban language, social status of Iban speakers, and prestige value of the Iban language. Inferential statistical tests show that language attitudes are influenced by education level. However, language attitudes and use of the Iban language are not significantly correlated. By viewing language use and attitudes from the perspective of ethnolinguistic vitality, this study has revealed that a numerically dominant group assumed to be safe from language shift has only medium vitality, based on both objective and subjective evaluation.

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to map out trends in publications on attitudes toward the LGBT community based on the 470 documents retrieved from the SCOPUS database for 2002–2022. The results revealed that the United States is the leading country contributing to the publications on attitudes toward the LGBT community and has a strong impact in the field (64.68%). The authorship analysis revealed that Flores, Woodford, and Worthen from the United States are the leading researchers in this field. Analysis of publication sources showed that the Journal of Homosexuality is the top publisher of findings on the LGBT community whereas the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and Sexuality and Culture have gained more traction among researchers in recent years. The analysis of the co-occurrence of author's keywords indicated that transgender is the gender group that is the most researched compared to other sexual identities. Negative attitudes such as homophobia, discrimination and being heterosexist toward one's sexuality or same-sex marriage are the current research foci. Religion and culture are seen as important predictors of attitudes about homosexuality and same-sex marriage policy. The study addresses the gaps in the literature by recommending future researchers to investigate attitudes toward other gender identities as a result of the revolution in sexual identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined code-switching in retail encounters involving sales personnel of cars, credit cards, beauty products, and food products with a Chinese customer. Altogether 27 retail encounters were audio-taped and transcribed. Analysis of the 14,944-word corpus was conducted using Gumperz's [(1982). "Discourse strategies." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] model of conversational code-switching. The results showed that English and Hokkien were the main base languages for retail encounters involving a Chinese customer who could not speak Mandarin. English marked prestige of products, notably car and credit card, whereas beauty and food products were promoted in Hokkien or Malay. The main code-switching functions were referential functions and interjections (41.57% and 39.36% of 907 instances, respectively). The most common referential function was product description. Reiteration accounted for 9.92% of the code-switching instances but message qualification, personalisation versus objectivisation, address specification, and situational code-switching were minimally present. Product type did not influence frequency of code-switching for interjection but it affected referential functions and reiteration. Referential function was the least frequent in credit card retail encounters and reiteration was the most frequent in food retail encounters. The findings on the high frequency of reiterations and the minimal use of code-switching for personalisation showed that clarity is more important than solidarity in retail encounters.

Poor mental health of university students is becoming a serious issue in many countries. Malaysia - a leading country for Asia-Pacific education - is one of them. Despite the government's effort to raise awareness, Malaysian students' mental health remains challenging, exacerbated by the students' negative attitudes towards mental health (mental health attitudes). Relatedly, self-compassion and resilience have been reported to improve mental health and mental health attitudes. Malaysian students (n = 153) responded to paper-based measures about mental health problems, negative mental health attitudes, self-compassion, and resilience. Scores were compared with 105 UK students, who also suffered from poor mental health and negative mental health attitudes, to make a cross-cultural comparison, to contextualise Malaysian students' mental health status, using t tests (aim 1). Correlation, path, and moderation analyses were conducted, to evaluate the relationships among these mental health constructs (aim 2). Malaysian students scored higher on mental health problems and negative mental health attitudes, and lower on self-compassion and resilience than UK students. Mental health problems were positively associated with negative mental health attitudes, and negatively associated with self-compassion and resilience. While self-compassion mediated the relationship between negative mental health attitudes and mental health problems (high self-compassion weakened the impacts of negative mental health attitudes on mental health problems), resilience did not moderate the same relationship (the level of resilience did not influence the impact of negative mental health attitudes on mental health problems). Self-compassion training was suggested to counter the challenging mental health in Malaysian university students., Author(s): Yasuhiro Kotera [sup.1] , Su-Hie Ting [sup.2] , Siobhan Neary [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.57686.3a, 0000 0001 2232 4004, Human Sciences Research Centre, University of Derby, , Kedleston Road, [...]

The study examined determinants of primary school choice among parents in Malaysia, and the decision maker and social influences in the school choice. It draws on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 43 middle-class parents from three ethnic groups (Chinese, Malay, and Indigenous). Results showed that school proximity and ethnicity-related reasons are leading factors influencing parental school choice. Medium of instruction, school academic reputation, and feeder to a preferred secondary school appear to be separate reasons but act as a proxy to ethnicity as the primary factor determining the choice of Chinese- or Malay-medium primary school by parents. The results also showed that mothers are more likely to make school choice decisions than fathers, but the reasons for school choice are similar. The primary social influences on their school choice come from friends and education personnel in preschools and schools. The Indigenous parents tend to be more subject to social pressure in making school choices than the Chinese and Malay parents, who mostly enroll their children in Chinese- and Malay-medium primary schools, respectively. However, these findings on school choice and ethnic segregation are limited to this sample and constrained by the socio-political context of the education system.

Purpose: Research has shown that university students, particularly non-native speakers of English, encounter difficulties with various academic text-types and often lack the ability to organise the information in a structure considered effective by the discourse community or to use the significant language features of the text-type effectively to achieve the intended purpose. The study examined the persuasiveness of argument texts written by proficient and less-proficient undergraduates in a Malaysian university. The aspects examined were the organisational structure of the text and the language features significant for fulfilling the persuasive purpose of the text. Method: Forty argument texts were analysed: 22 written by undergraduates who were more proficient in English, and 18 by less-proficient undergraduates. The analysis focused on the organisation of the content of the argument text as well as selected language features, namely, connectors, modal verbs and passive voice. Findings: The results showed that the proficient undergraduates used the structure considered effective for argument texts but the writing of the less-proficient group was characterised by unclear or absence of statement of stance and restatement of stance. To achieve the persuasive purpose of the text, the proficient undergraduates made use of connectors, modal verbs and passive voice more than the less-proficient group. However, the connectors "because", "so" and "besides" were often used in a manner similar to spoken language, and there was an overdependence on the modal verbs "can" and "will". The lack of conditionals and nominalisations was obvious for both groups, suggesting that these are more difficult language features to master and greater pedagogical attention is needed. Significance: The paper explores differentiated focus in the teaching of academic writing at university level for students with high and low proficiency in English.

This study examines functions of teacher code-switching in secondary school English and science classrooms in Malaysia, where English has recently been implemented as the language of instruction for science. Classroom interaction data were obtained from two English lessons and a science lesson. Analysis of the teachers' code-switching using Gumperz's (1982) semantic model show that code-switching in the two English lessons were vastly different, with little code-switching in the teacher-facilitated lesson. The other lesson, in which English was taught as a content subject was similar to the science lesson in the frequent use and co-occurrence use of code-switching for reiteration and message qualification. The direction of the language switch from English to Bahasa Malaysia as well as the proportion of teacher talk in English suggests that the base language for teaching is still English, even for the science lesson, and code-switching is a necessary tool for teachers to achieve teaching goals in content-based lessons involving students who lack proficiency in the instructional language. (Contains 3 tables.)

Recent years have witnessed significant growth in research on the phenomenon of Asian Boys’ Love (BL) dramas, a new entertainment genre that features male characters who engage in same-sex love relations. However, much of this research has focused on, among others, heterosexual female viewers in terms of their knowledge of BL and their consumption patterns and motives. The present study aims at addressing this knowledge gap by gathering the views of gay male viewers regarding the BL that holds a place in their lives. In-depth interviews were conducted with six gay-identified participants living in Malaysia, with the study informed and guided by the framework of audience uses and appropriations of BL, and with the data collected and analyzed following the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) procedures. The findings revealed, on the one hand, polarized consumption patterns and, on the other hand, homogeneous motives, and reasons for consuming BL, including pure escapism, self-identification, and pure entertainment. The findings also revealed the participants’ views on whether the BL drama represented their identity and the real-life struggles of being a gay man in a country where homosexuality is still condemned and made illegal. These findings have implications that are relevant to the discussion of the role of the homoerotic media as a source of identity and livelihood among gay men.

The study investigated the language choices of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Chinese family business and the factors guiding their choices. Interviews were conducted with 17 CEOs of family businesses located in Sarawak, some of whom are the sons and grandsons of the founder of the business. The results showed that all the CEOs can speak their Chinese dialect, Mandarin and some other Chinese dialects. Their proficiency in English and Malay depends on their age. All of them can speak English, with the exception of two older CEOs in their 80s. Only one CEO in his 40s can speak Malay fluently but the Malay proficiency of the older CEOs is inadequate for transactional functions. The factors guiding the CEOs' language choices for business are: own language repertoire, accommodation to client's choice for communicative efficiency, language choice as a business strategy, relationship building, and absence of business terms in the language. The CEOs use their interlocutor's ethnicity as a proxy to determine the right language to use for communicative efficiency. The study showed that while the CEOs are accommodative in their language choices, they are aware that making the right or wrong choices can provide or restrict access to business opportunities.

The study examines the influence of gender, age and socio-economic status on attitudes of Foochow and Hokkien towards their ethnic language and Mandarin. The matched guise test results of 120 Foochow and 120 Hokkien participants in Kuching, Malaysia, showed positive attitudes towards Mandarin on all the 15 traits. The Hokkien participants were more positive than the Foochow participants towards speakers of their own ethnic language. Foochow speakers were perceived as loud, and the male Foochow speaker was rated unfavourably on five other traits. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that gender significantly influenced the Foochow participants' ratings of the wealth of Foochow speakers and the Hokkien participants' ratings of the easy-going nature of Mandarin speakers, the gentleness and solidarity of the male Mandarin speaker, and the height and intelligence of the male Hokkien speaker. Age influenced the attributions of status to the female Foochow speaker and solidarity with the female Mandarin speaker. Socio-economic status influenced the ratings of the most number of traits. Interaction effects were also found. The underlying dimensions loaded onto one factor each for Foochow (easy-going and rich) and Hokkien (formal, strong solidarity) and two different factors for Mandarin, suggesting different stereotypes of dialect and Mandarin speakers.

The study examines the sustainability status of Sarawak indigenous languages through a survey on adolescents' language use using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS). The specific aspects examined were: the presence of ethnic languages in relation to other languages in selected domains of language use; the adolescents' use of the ethnic language across generations in the family domain; language use patterns of different indigenous groups; and demographic variables which influence use of the ethnic languages for the indigenous groups. The language use survey involved 568 indigenous adolescents in six schools in Sarawak, Malaysia. The results show that the domains of the ethnic language are shrinking because of the growing presence of Malay varieties (Standard Malay and Sarawak Malay), particularly for smaller groups. The ethnic language is still strong in the family and religious domains but has little place in the education and mass media domains. In the ethnically heterogeneous public domains of transaction and friendship, the ethnic language is for intra- and Malay varieties for inter-ethnic communication. The demographic characteristics which predict sustained use of the ethnic language are the vitality of the ethnic group, rural locality and lower socio-economic status. (Contains 6 tables.)