Mohd Aidil Subhan Mohamed Sulor

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.

It is only possible to elucidate, explain and offer new perspectives on a language planning activity if planners and policy-makers have a reasonable understanding of the main issues and concerns of the language community for whom the language is being planned as well as an understanding of the concept of language ecology (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Haugen, 1972/2001), its present relationship to language planning and their relationship historically. By language ecology, we simply mean the interaction of a language with its environment. There is a need for academic research that details the concerns, both perceived and real, of the Malay language community against a background of language shift and changing attitude towards the language, and the current language ecology and to contextualise these against the policy and planning initiatives of the state. This project hopes to document: 1) The history of the policy and planning of the Malay language in education since 1956; 2) The present language ecology of the Malay language in Singapore; and 3) The contemporary issues and concerns of the main stakeholders with regards to the planning of Malay language in education. Besides taking into consideration the diachronic view of how planning can result in a changed language ecology, the project will also provide a context of the exoglossic corpus planning of the Malay language in education in Singapore, given the state-sanctioned impact of the proximate language ecologies of Malaysia and Indonesia. The project will therefore: 1) Gather the responses of stakeholders in the community to provide a documentation of the perceived and actual outcomes of the policy and planning of Malay language in education, as well as 2) Evaluate how the status planning that has been done by the state over the past five decades may have led to the formation of a certain language ecology that may or may not support the current assumptions of planning for Malay language in education.

The standardization of spoken Malay has been mentioned in the corpus planning of Malay Language since 1956. The main issue surrounding the spoken form has always been the determining of the standard spoken form or sebutan baku. Before 1956, the Johor-Riau spoken variation was regarded as the standard based on the fact that the Johor-Riau area was the centre of Malay language and development then. In 1956, the 3rd Malay Language & Literary Congress passed a resolution determining that the Johor-Riau spoken variation should cease to be regarded as the standard. More than 30 years passed before the Malaysian government formally announced their shift from regarding the Johor-Riau spoken variation as a standard replacing it with sebutan baku, and to be used by educators and the mass media. In 1993, Singapore’s Ministry of Education launched its standard spoken Malay Language program of Program Sebutan Baku Bahasa Melayu which is based on the Malaysian model. In the year 2000, the Malaysian government retracted its support for sebutan baku and returned to using the Johor-Riau spoken variation. In spite of this development, Singapore still maintains its support for sebutan baku till today. This paper will track the historical development of Malay Language corpus planning with emphasis on the spoken variation in Malaysia and impacting on Singapore. This paper will also suggest some steps that can be considered by the Singapore authorities in this respect taking into account 21st century skills in the ever changing educational landscape.

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.

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).

This book consists of 24 selected scholarly papers with insightful thoughts and observations of the three Mother Tongue Languages (MTL) -- Chinese, Malay and Tamil -- education in Singapore. To promote research and application of MTL teaching, as well as to provide a platform for scholars and practitioners of MTL to communicate thoughts and share experiences, this quadrilingual academic book discussed the bilingual context of Singapore, the MTL curriculum and teaching resources, as well as the teaching and assessment of MTL in the Singaporean context. -- Publisher's website.

Singapore’s bilingual policy has been dubbed an English-knowing bilingual system, in which English is the main language followed by a choice of any one of the three mother tongue languages: Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil. Among the three mother tongue languages, there is a perception that the language policy is Mandarin-inspired, especially given the opening up of China and the growing economic importance of learning Mandarin.

There is also a worry among Malay speakers that in spite of its status as the national language and one of the four official languages, Malay has seen its role within Singapore diminish from that of a language of unity and wider communication to a language of cultural repository, which is largely symbolic in nature. This will in turn affect its stated role as a “cultural ballast” in Singapore’s bilingual framework.

Thus, there is a need for academic research that would detail these concerns, both perceived and real, among the Malay language community against a background of language shift and changing attitudes toward the language as a result of the bilingual policy and to analyze the impact of the English-knowing and Mandarin-led bilingual system. This research will list selected educational review reports and relate it to its impact on Malay language planning and offer a response in terms of pedagogical approaches required to address the changing demographics and language shift among Malay learners.