Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and ThailandSource: CIA World Factbook, 2005 In this book, our goal is to understand how the language policies of various nation-states in Southeast Asia grapple with the challenge of modernity. Our focus will therefore be on language policies as these are explicitly articulated either in the form of constitutions or public proclamations made by political leaders. We do not RAPPA AND WEE: LANGUAGE POLICY AND MODERNITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 deny that language policies can be implicit (Spolsky, 2004:s) since ideologies about language are prevalent regardless of whether these lead to overt policy formulations or not. However, our interest is in the attempts by Southeast-Asian nation-states to maintaidlegitimize particular 'nationalist imaginations' (cf. Anderson, 1991), and such attempts are best seen in the kinds of explicit declarations made by agents of the state. It seems clear that our objective includes the question of how these nation-states manage the spread of the English language, since English is often seen as the language of modernity par excellence (May, 2001). |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 11 |
THE FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA | 29 |
THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES | 59 |
THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE | 77 |
THE KINGDOM OF THAILAND | 105 |
CONCLUSION | 125 |
141 | |
155 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Asian modernity attempts Bahasa Malaysia balancing act bilingual bumiputera bumiputera policy chapter Chinese community colonial complementarity Constitution continue countries cultural discussion displacement dominance economic development education system emphasis English language ethnic community ethnic groups ethnic identity ethnic Malays Eurasians example fact factors Filipino foreign language functions global government's ideologies important Indian indigenous languages instrumentalist terms Islam Islam Hadhari issue language planning language policy Lee Kuan Yew linguistic human rights linguistic instrumentalism Mahathir Malay bumiputera Malay language Malaysian modernity medium of instruction minority mother tongue multiracialism Muslim nation-states national language nationalist non-Malay official language Pattani Malay Philippine modernity Philippines politics of clientelism population prime minister problem Rappa relations relationship religion role schools second language seen Singapore Singlish Smalley social Southeast Asia Speak Mandarin Campaign speakers Standard Thai status Straits Tagalog Tamil Thai language Thai society Thailand Tollefson traditional UMNO University variety Western