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Political and Economic Influences on Multilingualism and Multijuralism

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Language Choice in Postcolonial Law

Part of the book series: Language Policy ((LAPO,volume 22))

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Abstract

The importance of contextualising language practices historically and politically is emphasised by key figures throughout the field of language planning, including Fishman (1968), Kaplan and Baldauf (1997:13), and Lo Bianco (2004). The current language policy for Malaysian law is a response to complex sociopolitical tensions that were already at play in the colonial era. This chapter begins (2.1) with an account of how colonial administrative, educational and legal policy privileged English by restriction rather than propagation, positioned Malay as an integrative medium while failing to accord it sufficient instrumentality to extend it beyond its traditional user- and use-based speech communities, and sowed the seeds of postcolonial communalist politics and multijural law. The subsequent section (Sect. 2.2) describes how language was at the centre of differential conceptions of postcolonial nationhood that led to a communalist model of development privileging Malay ethnicity. The final section (Sect. 2.3) describes how language issues and communalist politics have influenced the main institutional components of Malaysian law.

The position of language in Malaysian law has little to do with the legal system itself but reflects its position in other domains.

Multimedia University Law Lecturer (2013.3.14)

I love Malay, but legal language is something different and there still aren’t enough texts or materials. We need to focus on practicalities more than politics.

Hendon Mohamed (former Bar President) (2013.12.19)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Free’ meant open to all rather than gratis, though schooling gradually became fully assisted (Abdul Rahman (2007:131).

  2. 2.

    Later Syonan Shimbun, perused at the National Diet Library, Tokyo, and on microfiche at the National Library of Singapore.

  3. 3.

    Kindly loaned by Peter O’Connor, author of (2011) The English-language Press Networks of East Asia, 1918–1945. Leiden:Brill.

  4. 4.

    Yasuda, p.c. 2005.2.25.

  5. 5.

    Interviewed in Kuala Lumpur, 2013.9.

  6. 6.

    Malaysia ranks 23/138 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018 (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitiveness Report2017-2018.pdf)

  7. 7.

    In a protest against the Attorney-General’s use of English protesters similarly wielded signs in English, and also in Chinese (https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/432651), implying awareness of a gap between that the status of the national language and its communicative impact on target audiences.

  8. 8.

    Interviewed Shah Alam, 2013.10

  9. 9.

    States of emergency, provided for under constitutional Art. 150, are a perennial feature of Malaysian politics. In a 2011 article in The Star written shortly before the lifting of an emergency that had remained on the books since 1964, UiTM law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi suggested the ordinary legal system had been eclipsed for 47 years by parliament’s capacity to suspend a range of constitutional provisions. (http://www.thestar.com.my/story.aspx/?file=%2f2011%2f9%2f16%2fnation%2f9514472&sec=nation)

  10. 10.

    Senior solicitor-advocate David Dass, interviewed Kuala Lumpur, 2013.6.

  11. 11.

    http://www.nativecustoms.sarawak.gov.my

  12. 12.

    Interviewed in Kuala Terengganu, 2014.2.

  13. 13.

    Mukhtar, op. cit., 2014.2.

  14. 14.

    Personal observation, 2013.12.12.

  15. 15.

    Chooi Mun Sou, 2013.9 (See note 5).

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Powell, R. (2020). Political and Economic Influences on Multilingualism and Multijuralism. In: Language Choice in Postcolonial Law. Language Policy, vol 22. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1173-8_2

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