Mohd Aidil Subhan Mohamed Sulor

"The aim of this research is to understand how children in English-knowing Malay families learn literacy within the context of their homes, how the families organise themselves around literacy, their beliefs and practices, the ways in which they support their children's literacy, and the ways children position themselves as learners."-- [p. 1] of executive summary.

Malay Language has played an integral part not only in the lives of the Malay community in Singapore but also that of the larger Singaporean community. Among the roles played since Singapore’s independence in 1965 was as language of unity among the various races during the early years, as a national language and one of the four official languages as indicated in the Singapore Constitution, and now more as a cultural repository in an English-knowing bilingual landscape. This paper is based on the writer’s PhD thesis that audited Malay Language planning in Singapore’s bilingual system since 1965. Using Cooper’s Framework of language status planning, language corpus planning, and language acquisition planning, the thesis set out to analyze the language’s development through 50 years of independence. This paper will not only emphasize the successes of Malay language in education planning (SG50), but also to review the present success and preview the challenges that will be faced leading up to 2065 (SG100).

Sistem dwi-bahasa Singapura yang berpaksikan penggunaan Bahasa Inggeris telah meninggalkan kesan terhadap penggunaan bahasa lain. Bahasa Melayu sebagai contoh utama telah menunjukkan pengurangan penggunaan secara konsisten dari segi penggunaan dalam masyarakat dan juga di rumah. Kertas ini akan menyelongkar isu-isu di sebalik cabaran ini dan membincangkan keprihatinan masyarakat pengguna dari segi pembelajaran dan kelestarian bahasa Melayu.

This book rallies together young practitioners and researchers of the Malay Language who were born post-independence Singapore. This is the first ever collection of research on issues affecting Malay Language planning that is written by Malay Language educators themselves, thus the title “Heart Truths”. This collection of writings will give a different perspective of the issues based on sound theoretical framework, and detailing not only about the past, but also of our wishes for the future.

Dalam konteks Singapura, penstandardan bahasa Melayu telah bermula sejak tahun 1979 lagi dengan penstandardan ejaan sehinggalah tahun 1993 apabila sebutan standard atau sebutan baku diimplementasikan di sekolah-sekolah. Kertas ini akan meninjau proses penstandardan sebutan ini, rasionalnya serta penerimaan oleh masyarakat pengguna.