Abstract
In Malaysia’s fused solicitor-advocate profession most practitioners make regular court appearances for at least part of their career, especially in the earlier years. Many younger informants said they began to feel comfortable in the predominantly Malay-medium lower courts within a few months of qualifying, despite having studied law almost entirely in English. But some from the older generation, including former bar president Hendon Mohamed, who had thought of Malay as her mother tongue, discovered through the constraints of courtroom language policy how dependent they were on English, even for non-legal lexis. Mukhtar Abdullah from Terengganu, who had hesitated to enter a profession he saw as dominated by English speakers from big towns, recalled being petrified by the idea of standing up before a judge, yet eventually found his legal feet in the courtroom.
Cakap Bahasa Malaysia, nanti orang marah hakim [Speak Malay or they’ll get angry with the judge].
Sessions Court judge (in David 1993:115)
Peering over his spectacles, Abdullah began recounting my life to the audience, braiding sentences in English into his speech, ignoring the sign in the courtroom dictating the use of the Malay language in court.
Tan Twan Eng (2012:13)
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Notes
- 1.
The local term for ‘provinces’.
- 2.
One judge approached early on in the investigation requested his views about language policy be kept off the record.
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Powell, R. (2020). Bilingual Courtrooms. In: Language Choice in Postcolonial Law. Language Policy, vol 22. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1173-8_9
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