‘Arrogant and seductive’: disclaiming the opinion of G. L. Koster with regard to the authors of traditional Malay literature

This paper re-evaluates the opinion of G.L. Koster with regard to the authors of traditional Malay literature, specifically of Panji Literature. The spread of Islam in the Malay world awakened writers to the purpose, facts and methods of literary creativity with regard to matters concerning ‘penmanship’. The responsibilities of Malay writers became more complex with the emergence of the Javanese influence, which brought a breath of fresh air into the world of Malay literature. Writers of the Panji Literature genre very daringly included elements of sexuality in their works, something that was considered a taboo subject that was not to be openly discussed in Malay society. Furthermore, the authors of Panji Literature failed to apply ‘the idea of the book’ in their compositions. Consequently, G.L. Koster labelled the authors of Panji Literature as ‘dalang’.The question is, if the authors were ‘dalangs’, then why did they also incorporate elements of trust, advice and guidance in the genre to balance the entertainment function? Being a Western scholar, did G.L. Koster understand the conventions of Malay authorship? By carrying out a textual analysis of three selected texts, namely Hikayat Panji Semirang, Hikayat Chekel Waneng Pati and Syair Ken Tambuhan, this study will challenge the role of the authors of the Panji Literature, who have been classified as ‘dalangs’ by G.L. Koster. The study found that the authors of the Panji Literature were intellectuals of their time who abided by the conventions of Malay writing. Therefore, based on their wisdom, they managed to adapt the elements of sexuality that enabled the Panji Literature to be accepted by the Malay-Muslim community. This was highly consistent with the conventions of Malay writing that focus on benefitting the audience and not simply composing blindly

Interprestasi Pemikiran dan Penggunaan Pengukapan dalam sajak-sajak Dewan Sastera

Kajian ini dilakukan untuk melihat pemikiran dan teknik pengungkapan sajak-sajak dalam Dewan Sastera di sekitar tahun 1971 hingga 1999. Dalam menganalisis sajaksajak yang dijadikan bahan kajian, peneliti menggunakan dua pendekatan iaitu pendekatan sosiologi sastera dan pendekatan stilistik. Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk melihat aspek pemikiran dan teknik pengungkapan, sajak-sajak dalam Dewan Sastera. Kajian terhadap aspek pemikiran diturnpukan kepada tiga aspek iaitu tentang sosiobudaya, sosiopolitik dan sosioekonomi. Penganalisisan terhadap sajak-sajak yang dikaji berhubung pemikiran sosiobudaya meliputi aspek moral, kepercayaan, pendidikan, penghargaan dan penghormatan serta sikap dan pandangan hidup. Dalam sosioekonomi pula, persoalan yang dikemukakan berhubung dengan kemiskinan dan penindasan, kesamarataan hak, dan pembangunan. Sementara, pemikiran yang berkaitan dengan sosiopolitik pula berkaitan dengan persoalan pemimpin dan kepemimpinan, nasionalisme dan patriotisme serta peperangan dan perdamaian. Penganalisisan terhadap aspek pemikiran menunjukkan bahawa, pemikiran yang diungkapkan oleh penyair dalam sajak mereka sama ada berhubung dengan sosiobudaya, sosiopolitik dan sosioekonomi mempunyai kaitan dengan isu-isu, fenomena-fenomena atau peristiwa-peristiwa yang berlaku di persekitaran mereka. Justeru, dalarn sajak yang dikaji wujud persamaan pemikiran antara penyair dalarn dekad kajian. Hal ini kerana sumber dan latar yang diperoleh atau yang menjadi rujukan penyair adalah hampir sarna. Kajian berhubung dengan teknik pengungkapan pula, difokuskan kepada empat teknik. Teknik tersebut ialah teknik perulangan, teknik penyimpangan, teknik tuturan dan teknik penceritaan. Penerapan teknik-teknik tersebut bukanlah dilakukan pada keseluruhan sajak tetapi hanya pada bahagian-bahagian atau keadaan tertentu sahaja. Ini bermakna, penggunaan sesuatu teknik itu tidaklah bersifat terpisah sebaliknya penerapannya dilakukan secara gabungan. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa penerapan teknik sama ada secara tersendiri atau gabungan, telah menghasilkan bentuk luaran sesebuah sajak. Bentuk luaran atau visual yang dapat dilihat ialah bentuk terikat, bentuk bebas dan juga bentuk konkrit. Bentuk visual ini dapat dilihat melalui binaan baris atau rangkap yang dihasilkan dalam sajak

“An Author’s Relationship with His Audience”: the earliest autobiographical work of local Malay

This study describes the confusion regarding the term ‘autobiography’ which is being disputed by some scholars of Malay literature as well as proves that Tarikh Dato’ Bentara Luar Johor, written by Mohamad Salleh Perang is the earliest Malay autobiography. In the early 20th century, the colonial scholars were of one mind in their recognition of Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah and Hikayat Abdullah, written by Abdullah Munshi as the first Malay autobiographical works. This recognition, in turn, led to the division of the history of Malay literature into the traditional and modern periods. Nevertheless, the recognition accorded to Abdullah Munshi gave rise to a controversy when it was said that his works were not composed for the ruler and the Malay audience but for the Western colonialists. The autobiographical works that deserve recognition should be those that were written for the ruler and the Malay audience because of the close relationship between the Malay community and their ruler. By using C.W. Watson’s scale for Western autobiographies, this study discusses the pertinence of Tarikh Dato’ Bentara Luar Johor as the earliest autobiographical work of a local Malay. Indirectly, the recognition of Abdullah Munshi’s work as the first autobiography should be reviewed because it would not be fair to recognize a work whose contents were hurtful to the ruler and the Malay audience. In conclusion, this study has triggered a re-interpretation of the history of Malay literature in this country if the autobiography genre is used to mark the beginning of the ‘modern’ period

Publication pPatterns and trends of articles published in the Journal of Sustainability Science and Management

The current study analyzed articles that appeared in the Journal of Sustainability Science and Management, using three years of publication data (2006-2008) published by Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. This study explores the patterns and trends of the research conducted by the authors of the articles published in the journal. This paper centres on articles published in the journal from various perspectives including topics, models, methodologies of data analysis, dominant academic disciplines and focus of publication as well as geographical location of the authors. The objectives of the study is to analyze the publication patterns in the journal over the past three years and to determine which are the predominant research techniques and subsequent methods of data analysis. The analysis of the study is confined to an example of one journal and thus its comparative validity is limited. As the name suggests, the journal is dominated by researchers with a background in science. Findings show that more articles are being written collaboratively and the broad publication profile was of more quantitative than qualitative papers. These findings provide valuable insight into the publication patterns of articles published in the Journal of Sustainability Science and Management. It is hoped to be of value to academics seeking to publish in particular journal as well as to reveal the publication and trends of the Journal of Sustainability Science and Management

Novels as reflections of cultural life in Malaysian society

Novels are considered as social culture documents because they are able to reflect the culture of life of Malaysian society. Generally, culture is a way of life or practical life of a society. The person who appears in the novel is an expression of a human in reality. The actions of a person in a novel are an expression of actions of a human in reality. Thoughts, feelings and actions in a decision made for a specific situation is the actual expression from the reality of a society. As a novel which is a reflection from the world, we can see various culture of life of the Malaysian society from the social, economy and political aspects. Among them, they are very united although they are of various races with different culture of life. These elements of culture enable the three major races in Malaysia, the Malays, Indians and Chinese, to live in peace and harmony

The influence of online anime towards children

Online anime has been a major influence towards the growth of children in Malaysia. Therefore this study investigates the online anime that influence children in their everyday lives. The study also discusses the influence of online anime that contributed to positive interaction in the discussion between the children. The study involves 10 nine year olds subjects from a class of one school in Putrajaya. The children were selected based on their experience in watching online anime. The subjects were interviewed. They were in groups of 3 to 4. They discussed about the characters, setting and storylines from the online anime that they had watched and the conversation were taped and analyzed. Selected extracts were analysed and discussed by using the discourse analysis method. It is found that subjects were strongly influenced by the characters, setting and storylines from the online anime. They were happy and contented to be like the characters in the story. It is hoped that online anime were able to give positive influence towards children in their everyday lives

Interaction pattern in a language classroom amongst special needs children: Imaginative learning approach

This research investigates the interaction pattern amongst special needs children while learning the second language. These children have asperger syndrome or asperger’s disorder which is a neurobiological disorder that described a pattern of behaviors in young boys or girls who had normal intelligence and language development, but who also exhibited autistic-like behaviors and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills (Kirby, 2005). Children with asperger syndrome can exhibit a variety of characteristics and the disorder can range from mild to severe. Children with asperger syndrome show marked deficiencies in social skills have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. Therefore, this paper focuses on the nature, number and balance of interactions of ten subjects with asperger syndrome and further investigates the interaction pattern and reactions which occurred while using the Imaginative Learning Approach (IMA) (Normaliza Abd Rahim, 2006) in learning the second language. IMA is an activity where the subjects were given a scenario, for e.g. a hospital. A corner will be set up like a hospital and the subjects were given three times a week to play with their peers at the corner. The nature, number and balance of interactions were video-taped to find out the interaction pattern. The subjects consist of five males and five females (7 to 15 years old) with asperger syndrome from schools in Selangor, Malaysia. The introduction of IMA to the subjects managed to enhance the learning of the second language. It is found that asperger learners, able to concentrate and interact with their peers in IMA

Storyboard writing and adult learners: A pragmatic approach

A storyboard is essentially a timeline going from top to bottom, with the top occurring first. It is an expression of everything or even a rough sketch that will be contained in the program telling where the menu screens in a computer interface will look like, what pictures either still or moving will be seen when and for how long, what audio and text will accompany the images, either synchronously or hyperlinked or in other words allows us to see what the scene will look like. Typically, storyboards may be written documents and off-the-shelf storyboard pads for TV and video formats, adaptable for multimedia. The storyboard expresses, in one way or another, everything that can be seen or heard or experienced by the end-user of the multimedia program. It is more than a test-of-concept model, and just short of the final product specification document. Therefore, this paper investigates the content of discussion during storyboard writing and to investigate the meaning of the discussion. Five pairs of subjects were involved in this study. A task was given to each pair and the length of time for them to discuss about the layout and the content of the storyboard was 3 hours for each pair. The discussion will be taped and analyzed accordingly. The subjects were adult learners involved in a Language and Multimedia course ages between 33-40 years old, six female and four male. The subjects had no experience in storyboard writing. This paper uses the relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson 1985), an inferential approach to pragmatics

Children literature: What do they say?

hildren literature consists of all creative and imaginative writing focusing on reading, leisure and evaluation by children. Basically children literature covers most quality books suitable for children. The objectives of this paper are to identify the interest of university students toward the research of children’s literature and to list out the types of children story that arouse the interest of the students to research on. 30 postgraduate students from Universiti Putra Malaysia studied the children literature in a group. They have formed six groups and each group has five members. The findings were analysed by using the qualitative approach. The students were given a set of questionnaires. It is found that the students were interested to research on children literature and they have a list of perceptions, assumptions and views towards children literature

Children’s emotions and its social meaning

The word emotion refers to a broad repertoire of perceptions, expressions of feelings and bodily changes. Emotion is a feeling that is private and subjective, a state of psychological arousal an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses and actions commonly “deemed”, such as defending or attacking in response to a threat. This paper focuses on selected social stories to be story told to a group of asperger children in Malaysia. Social stories are a tool for teaching social skills to children with autism, asperger syndrome and related disabilities. The selected social stories would be based on Malaysian culture and the children’s emotions and conversation were videotaped and analysed its social meaning by using the content analysis approach. There are six basic emotions grouped in three pairs of opposites; joy and sadness, acceptance and disgust and anger and fear. Four asperger syndrome subjects from a school in Malaysia were chosen for the purpose of this study. Three social stories were read to them repeatedly for two hours a day in three weeks. Subsequently, the children were able to use the social stories in their everyday lives