The Management and Syllabus of Chinese Tertiary Programs in Malaysia——with special reference to the Chinese Program at Universiti Putra Malaysia

Malaysia is renowned for its Chinese education as first language which covers pre-school, primary level, secondary level to higher learning. The higher education in Chinese studies begins to grow only at the end of 20th century. A total of eight private and public universities are offering Chinese studies at bachelor and also postgraduate level. With special reference to Universiti Putra Malaysia, this paper aims to investigate the enrolment administration and the content of the Chinese program. A qualitative analysis is carried out based on the data of bachelor program in Chinese studies, postgraduate program in Chinese literature, and five postgraduate programs on applied linguistics inclusive of Chinese linguistics and culture, namely translation and interpretation, applied comparative linguistics, literary and cultural studies, discourse studies, and literacy studies. The findings indicate that the Chinese education at higher education level has expanded the research scope in Chinese studies which thus complete the chain of Chinese education, covering all levels

Educational Card Game For Chinese Character Learning

Chinese characters often categorized as an ideographic or logographic writing systems. In comparison, Chinese characters have different writing systems with alphabetical writing systems. Learners show unsatisfactory results due to the complexity of orthographic structure in Chinese characters which also led to a negative impact on Mandarin learning. Thus, an educational card game, namely “Chinese Character Battle (CCB)” was designed for Mandarin learners to learn Chinese characters. This educational card game was implemented in Mandarin as Foreign Language (MFL) classroom for this preliminary study as a step to explore users’ perceptions about CCB and the impact of CCB in Chinese character recognition. An online survey, pre-test, and post-test were used to achieve the objectives of this study. A recorded video of “How to Play CCB” was shared with participants prior to the use of CCB. Non-native Chinese learners from University Teknologi Mara, Sarawak branch, Mukah campus participate in this study. The findings of this study revealed that: (1) participants responded positively towards the use of CCB; (2) the implementation of CCB showed positive impact on Chinese character recognition. Hence, it could be concluded that CCB is an effective and useful supplementary learning tool for Mandarin learners to improve their Chinese character recognitio

Between concrete and abstract: the Malaysian Chinese way of naming dishes

The Chinese pay considerable attention to the naming of dishes. While coming up with a well-prepared cuisine is considered as an artwork, giving it a suitable name is no different from adding the touch that brings a work of art to life. In naming a dish, the community utilizes its linguistic and non-linguistic resources. Dish names are hence a group of living fossils supporting the notion of language reflecting society. Using 1077 samples of dish names collected from Malaysian Chinese weddings and the lunar new year celebration, the present paper aims to investigate the concrete and abstract naming of Chinese dishes, and discuss the common cultural considerations underlying them. It was found that concrete naming deals with the tangible aspects of a dish by incorporating method of preparation, taste/aroma, appearance of dish, as well as container used; while abstract naming draws support from four-character idioms, legends/historical events, auspicious words, Chinese auspicious objects and legendary animals, and homophones, with cultural considerations playing a major if not the sole role in it

Detail to pay attention to when translating Malay to Chinese

When Malay students do translation exercises, the common mistake is students translate the sentences directly, a result of their mother tongue negative transfer. The grammatical structure of Malay language is different from that of Chinese language. If Malay sentences are literally translated into Chinese, readers may find the sentences difficult to comprehend, Due to the mother tongue interference, Malay students will unconsciously employ the Malay grammar when doing translation exercises. The translated Chinese sentence will make the readers find them weird to read. There are quite a few things to be aware of when doing translation so that these translated sentences would not pose much problem if the translation procedure is strictly followed. When translating Malay words or a phrases into Chinese, most of the word and phrase structures remain unchanged and can be translated directly, such as verb and nouns, noun and verbs, vecb and adjectives, adjective and verbs, adjective and adjectives, as well as verb and verbs. Only in the phrase structure of noun and nouns, noun and adjectives, and verb and adverbs, the position of words and word in phrases should be interchanged (left ~ right interchange). In addition, the word ‘的(de)’, “得(de)’, “是(shi)’, “了 (le)’ must be added after the translation if necessary, After translating ‘this(ini)’ & ‘that(itu)’, quantifiers also must be added. “在(at)’ and ‘去(g0)/来(come)’ need to be considered and inserted too in the sentence. Subject must be put at the beginning of the interrogative sentence. Uncertain words should be put behind the subject. These are the aspects that have to be paid attention in the translation exercise,

Framing of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal by english and chinese newspapers published in Malaysia

The study compared how the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal was framed in English and Chinese online newspapers published in Malaysia. Content analysis was conducted for 200 articles for two English newspapers (The Star, 50; Malaysiakini English, 50) and two Chinese newspapers (Sin Chew Daily, 50; Malaysiakini Chinese, 50). The four newspapers were similar in the reliance on episodic framing and government sources of information, and the valence of the articles. Government sources is the opinion leader in 1MDB events but space is given to the voices of the opposition, foreign entities and the public. The English newspapers and Malaysiakini Chinese have more articles with a positive valence (46%-56%) in favour of investigations to resolve the financial corruption case and about 31% of the articles had a negative valence. However, Sin Chew Daily is more critical of the investigations than the other three newspapers. There are significant differences among the newspapers in frame dimensions of news headlines. The responsibility frame is used in close to 80% of the 1MDB articles in the Chinese newspapers but only in 40%-50% of the 1MDB articles in the English newspapers. Instead the English newspapers highlight the economic consequences of 1MDB and the conflict between individuals and groups, as well as contradictions between rumour and fact. The findings suggest that framing of controversial high-profile financial corruption case may differ due to the readership of the English and Chinese newspapers

Detail to pay attention to when translating Malay to Chinese

When Malay students do translation exercises, the common mistake is students translate the sentences directly, a result of their mother tongue negative transfer. The grammatical structure of Malay language is different from that of Chinese language. If Malay sentences are literally translated into Chinese, readers may find the sentences difficult to comprehend, Due to the mother tongue interference, Malay students will unconsciously employ the Malay grammar when doing translation exercises. The translated Chinese sentence will make the readers find them weird to read. There are quite a few things to be aware of when doing translation so that these translated sentences would not pose much problem if the translation procedure is strictly followed. When translating Malay words or a phrases into Chinese, most of the word and phrase structures remain unchanged and can be translated directly, such as verb and nouns, noun and verbs, vecb and adjectives, adjective and verbs, adjective and adjectives, as well as verb and verbs. Only in the phrase structure of noun and nouns, noun and adjectives, and verb and adverbs, the position of words and word in phrases should be interchanged (left ~ right interchange). In addition, the word ‘的(de)’, “得(de)’, “是(shi)’, “了 (le)’ must be added after the translation if necessary, After translating ‘this(ini)’ & ‘that(itu)’, quantifiers also must be added. “在(at)’ and ‘去(g0)/来(come)’ need to be considered and inserted too in the sentence. Subject must be put at the beginning of the interrogative sentence. Uncertain words should be put behind the subject. These are the aspects that have to be paid attention in the translation exercise,

Speaking Anxiety in Chinese Language Learning Among Non-Chinese Learners in Malaysia

Numerous studies indicate most of the foreign language learners experience certain level of anxiety and usually they experience anxiety in their speaking skills. Hence, this study examines the speaking anxiety in Chinese Language learning among non-Chinese Beginner learners from University Teknologi MARA (Sarawak). The questionnaire which was developed by Horwitz, Hor-witz and Cope (1986) was used in this study. SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the scores. The result revealed non-Chinese beginner learners experienced speaking anxiety in Chinese language learning. Majority of them experience a moderate level of speaking anxiety in Chinese language learning. The main factor that contributed to non-Chinese beginner learners’ speaking anxiety was communication apprehension. It was followed by test anxiety and fear of nega-tive evaluation

Between concrete and abstract: the Malaysian chinese way of naming dishes

The Chinese pay considerable attention to the naming of dishes. While coming up with a well-prepared cuisine is considered as an artwork, giving it a suitable name is no different from adding the touch that brings a work of art to life. In naming a dish, the community utilizes its linguistic and non-linguistic resources. Dish names are hence a group of living fossils supporting the notion of language reflecting society. Using 1077 samples of dish names collected from Malaysian Chinese weddings and the lunar new year celebration, the present paper aims to investigate the concrete and abstract naming of Chinese dishes, and discuss the common cultural considerations underlying them. It was found that concrete naming deals with the tangible aspects of a dish by incorporating method of preparation, taste/aroma, appearance of dish, as well as container used; while abstract naming draws support from four-character idioms, legends/historical events, auspicious words, Chinese auspicious objects and legendary animals, and homophones, with cultural considerations playing a major if not the sole role in it