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International Communication: English Language Challenges for Malaysia

This book is best read in the context of changes in language policy and language education in a post-colonial country, against a background of sociolinguistic challenges and questions about national identity vs. international intelligibility in a highly globalised world. As stated in the book, these are the “dichotomous challenges between national concerns and international needs, between the use and application of the national language and the international lingua — English — and between sub-varieties of English and standards for international communication [in English]”. The country is multilingual and multiethnic Malaysia but these challenges are faced not only by Malaysia but also by other countries of a similar post-colonial tradition. That underscores the central significance of the book. Any discourse on language policy and language education should try to go beyond the descriptive in order to unravel the layers of complexity not apparent to the general reader. As an “insider”, Saran Kaur Gill, teaching in the School of Language Studies and Linguistics in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (Malaysia’s National University) is uniquely placed to do this. For this purpose, she adopted an approach best described as social-historical, as language policies are always socially situated and they evolve over time. For those of us familiar with Malaysia’s language policy and its changes since the country’s independence in 1957, this is a timely publication. For those less familiar with the language situation in Malaysia, it has to be made clear that English is, to all intents and purposes, a second language in the country although, since the early 1970s, it is only taught as a subject in the school curriculum. Malay, the national language, has been the medium of instruction in all state schools. In the urban areas, English continues to be commonly used, in addition to Malay. While English has been a compulsory subject in all schools in the country, from the primary to the upper secondary levels, there was concern about the decline in the standard of English, which has become the de facto international language. While the country’s Education Act of 1996 reaffirmed English as “the second most important language”, there was already some expectation in the early