1.4.1 Overview and historical background
As a brief background, Malaysia’s demographic composition consists of three major ethnic groups (50.4% Malay, 23.7% Chinese, and 7.1% Indian), indigenous groups (11%) and other ethnic groups (7.8%), according to the Department of Statistics
Peninsular Malaysia was originally occupied by various indigenous tribes in prehistoric times. Between the 2nd century BC and the early 14th century, merchants
from India, China and parts of what is now Indonesia settled in various ports in the west coast of the peninsula. The port of Malacca was founded in the early 15th century, becoming a prominent trading port in the Southeast Asian region. Malacca prospered due in part to its strategic location in the middle of a major shipping route, and diplomatic relations were established between neighbouring countries (e.g. Siam and parts of current Indonesia) as well as China and Japan. These factors brought about the first wave of immigration of Chinese and Indians to Peninsular Malaysia, as well as Arab merchants, who intermarried with the local population, resulting in a large foreign-born population.
The Portuguese and Dutch successfully invaded Malacca in 1511 and 1641, respectively, giving rise to intermarriage between the settlers and the local population to form a sizeable Eurasian community. British colonial rule began from the late 19th century as advisers to Sultans (local heads of state) from nine Malay sultanates of the peninsula. The Sultanates of northern Borneo (i.e. Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei) also became British protectorates soon after. After World War II, Sabah and Sarawak became British Crown colonies.
Especially on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the British brought in indentured labourers from India to work on the rubber plantations. A large wave of Chinese immigrants arrived to work in the growing tin-mining industry. In the present day, a multiethnic and multicultural society has been formed from immigration, and to some extent, intermarriage over the past centuries (Lambert, 2015). The states in Peninsular Malaysia, then known as Malaya, were under colonial British rule from the 19th century until independence was achieved in 1957. Sabah and Sarawak joined
Malaya to form Malaysia in 1963 after a referendum, thus gaining independence from Britain (The Commonwealth Yearbook, 2015).
During British colonial rule, the English language was given importance and subsequently taught as a core subject in all vernacular and national-type schools (Gaudart, 1987). Data from the Department of Immigration reported that expatriates from the United Kingdom consisted of 8.6% of the 19,444 expatriates in the country in 2006, the fourth largest source of expatriates to Malaysia (Kanapathy, 2008). Further, the Malaysian participants in the current thesis were studying at a foreign branch campus of a British university. There are currently nine foreign university branch campuses in Malaysia, out of which eight originate from Anglosphere countries, i.e. four from Australia and four from the United Kingdom (Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, 2017).
Besides having British lecturers and classmates, many students would also have attended international schools, thus making them more familiar with White Caucasian faces as well as East Asian faces.
Although Malaysia is a multicultural society, it is significantly influenced by Western culture. 86% of films shown in Malaysian cinemas are Western (from the US and EU) while only 14% are local; in comparison, 57% of films shown in East Asian countries such as China and Japan are local (Epstein, 2011).
Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010) proposed six dimensions of national culture, of which the Individualism subscale has been defined as “the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members”. Lower scores (out of a total score of 100) fall in the collectivist range of the subscale, denoting a higher degree of collectivism in a country, defined by Hofstede et al. as “a close long-term commitment to the “member” group, be that a family, extended family or extended relationships.”
Higher scores fall in the individualist range, defined as “a preference for a loosely knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families.” Malaysia scored firmly in the collectivist range. For
comparison, China has a score of 20, Malaysia 26, Austria 55, the UK 89 and the US 91 (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010).
1.4.2 Language usage
The usage of the English language in Malaysia as documented in Lowenberg (1991) reflects the importance of the English language from British colonial times and in Malaysian educational policy after gaining independence from the British in 1957. In order to promote racial unity in the newly independent country, the Federal
Government adopted Bahasa Malaysia as the official language. In the 1960s, the Ministry of Education introduced a policy where all English-medium schools would be converted to Malay-medium schools. While English still remains as a compulsory subject throughout primary to secondary levels of education, its decreased prominence has led to a decline in English proficiency, particularly in rural areas (Lowenberg, 1991).
Code-switching between languages is common (Lowenberg, 1991). Most people speak at least two or three languages, but are not always proficient in all the languages that they speak (Jacobson, 2002). This linguistic diversity is reflected in the culture and even in the urban landscape. Manan, David, Dumanig, & Naqeebullah (2015) used photographic samples of government and private signage from five
selected neighbourhoods of Kuala Lumpur which were public and commercial streets in the hub of the city, each occupied by a predominant ethnic group. Business owners (private proprietors) were interviewed on their views on the use of English, Mandarin,
Tamil and other minority languages on the signboards. Each language was found to serve a particular purpose on the signboards. Bahasa Malaysia was used for official notices, as it is the language of government. English was used for economic reasons, being the most widely spoken, and Tamil and Mandarin were used for communication with the Indian and Chinese communities.