Appropriation of English as an international lingua franca (EILF) in ASEAN

Given that present-day English plays an important role as an international lingua franca in the ASEAN region far outside the so-called Inner Circle, a question has been asked whether the language is still the sole property of people in native settings, or whether it has already been shared by a vast majority of speakers in particular outer- and expanding-circle countries where English is utilised as a second language and a foreign language by users of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This concern voices a call for increased attention to ESL and EFL learners’ language appropriation and their identity formation to see the relationships between these learners’ sense of self and their positioning with respect to English. This article provides insight into the theoretical background of a study which was designed to explore Thai postgraduates’ opinions or feelings about their taking ownership of English as an International Lingua Franca in ASEAN and how they view themselves in relation to the language. A qualitative approach was applied, using open-ended interview questions to obtain the data from the participants. 44 postgraduate students who enrolled on existing courses of the two English-related programmers were taken as a sample group. The paper starts with a discussion of the present status of English across the globe including English as an International Language, World Englishes and English as an International Lingua Franca in ASEAN. It, then, moves on to a description of how a language and its learners’ culture and identity formation are related. It ends with a brief review of concern over linguistic imperialism and ideas about how the ownership of the language has been taken

The implementation of Malay language education policy and the linguistic landscape in Malaysia

This ethnographic research uses the applied linguistic landscape of Ben-Rafael (2009) to examine the choices of language practice (Spolsky, 2009) reflected through 459 Romanised names of the company on an island in Malaysia named Labuan. One of the outcomes of this study shows Malaysians are basically bilingual and about half of the names of the company are bilingual. However, the use of Malay language in naming the companies on the island is low though the Malay language is the national language of the country and the Malaysian government has implemented the Malay language education policy since independence in 1957. There are only 13% of company names presented in pure Malay language comparing to those in pure English (45%) and in code-mixing of Malay language and English or other languages (42%). Besides a low percentage of using the Malay language in the company names, incorrect uses of the language were identified. The study suggests the Malaysian government specifically the local government considers the company name written in both Malay language and English instead of merely in the Malay language when it comes to approving the application of new company licenses

Persuasion strategies: use of negative forces in scam e-mails

The 21st century globalisation strongly influences the world as a result of highly improved technology and communications which made it possible for everyone involved to have equal access to a global market and information exchange via English. As a result, electronic communication has become part of the present-day multinational professionals of all fields who work daily in front of their digital monitors. At times, these professionals may receive Nigerian 419 scam e-mails in which fraudsters target victims to make advance payments for financial gains that do not materialise. In these e-mails, situations in which persuasion techniques are intertwined are well crafted. As a result, the victim who is susceptible to the offer is more likely to respond and be lured into losing money eventually. The present study, consequently, analysed a corpus of 50 Nigerian 419 scam e-mails through a textual analysis to examine language aspects in terms of persuasion strategies fraudsters used as a compelling force to achieve their communicative purposes of lures and deceits. The study has revealed two major types of deceptive techniques which are used in combination, namely framing-rhetoric triggers, disguised as the traditional genre of electronic communications and human weakness-exploiting triggers, intended as incitement of recipients' emotions. Finally, the paper includes not only pedagogical suggestions for business English teachers when implementing classroom activities, but also warnings for either pre-experienced or experienced business professionals in relation to interpreting the unknown e-mails' messages they receive with great caution

Hedging in Academic Writing - A Pedagogically-Motivated Qualitative Study

AbstractThe present study explores the use of hedges in academic writing based on Hyland's (1996) pragmatic framework of hedging orientations. It also elicits insight from specialist informants on the use of hedges in academic writing. The corpus comprises thirty randomly-selected research article discussions (published between 2010-2014) from the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. The analysis reveals that a repertoire of lexical signals and hedging strategies have been used to realize the different hedging orientations employed in the corpus. Informants stated that second language learners’ inability to use hedges in their academic prose could be due to socio-cultural factor, classroom instruction, disciplinary culture and disciplinary appeals. The present study has pedagogical implications

Expressing an evaluative stance in English and Malay research article conclusions : international publications versus local publications

This paper constitutes a multidimensional explanation of an integration of genre-based knowledge and evaluative stance in the context of academic arguments employed in the conclusion sections of English and Malay research articles. For this purpose, it draws on an analysis of the features in Appraisal theory (Martin & Rose, 2003) integrated with an analysis of communicative purposes within a genre analysis framework (Swales, 1990, 2004). Among others, the findings include the observation that evaluative and dialogic stances jointly produce rhetorical effects in both English and Malay conclusions. English conclusions contain a subtle balance of assertion and mitigation while Malay conclusions tend to contract dialogic space and thus could be interpreted as less reader-friendly. This suggests that evaluation and the meaning potential of the genre are experienced and valued differently by scholars publishing in these two different scientific communities (international and local). This variation seems to be due to linguistic, contextual, and potential social cultural influences within the two academic discourse communities. The present study has pedagogical implications in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom

Campus E-voting in a Developing Nation: An Application of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model

The purpose of the paper is to determine the perceptions of students towards campus e-voting in Malaysia by applying the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among 300 students undertaking bachelor degree in a public higher institution in Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia. A descriptive investigation was performed via the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program version 23.0 on factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, trust in the university, trust in the Internet, computer anxiety, and behavioural intention. Result inferred that of the twentyeight measurement items, statement “If I have access to an online voting system, I will be more likely to vote” derived from performance expectancy factor leading the list with highest mean values. This is followed by two statements: “People who are important to me think that I should use an online voting site”, and "I would find an online voting site useful”. The first derived from social influence factor, and the latter from performance expectancy factor. This result infers that students have positive perceptions towards campus e-voting. Direction for future research is also explained

Consumers' perceptions of halal food certification

Halal has been used as a benchmark for safety, hygiene and and product quality assurance.Empirical research into halal food certification is minimal. Hance, the goal of this research is to discribe selected aspects of respondent's perception of halal food certification. The descriptive statistics of the 20 factor item revealed that a significant number of respondents have a positive perception of halal food certification. they mainly expressed that halal food products are important to them. What's more,using halal food products is their own choice. Indeed, they have high inclination to choose halal food products over other types of products. Firms should play a dominant role in improving consumers' attitudes towards halal food certification in the challenging digital marketplace. Future research direction is also presented

Rhetorical Examination of Research Articles: Macrostructure, Cyclic Moves, Citations and Possible Cultural Influences

This paper investigates the rhetorical patterns of the introduction sections of English and Chinese research articles. The paper adopts Swales’s (1990) framework of move analysis. In this study, the cyclic moves are looked into. In addition, citation analysis which serves as a complementary analysis is undertaken to further reveal the distinctive rhetorical characteristics in the two sets of introductions. The citation analysis uses Swales’s (1990) categorization of citations (i.e. integral and non-integral). In general, the findings of the present study reveal that both sets of data employ the similar macrostructure. On the other hand, the recycling of different moves and steps occurs more frequently in English than in Chinese introductions. In addition, there is a disparity between the occurrences of citations in English and Chinese introductions. However, both sets of data show a preference for nonintegral compared to integral citations. Some possible Chinese cultural influences on the rhetorical patterns employed in the selected Chinese research article introductions are also discussed. The present study has pedagogical implications