Malaysia’s Globalization, Educational Language Policy and Nation-Building 39
has increasingly led to layers of diglossia on an international scale” (2000,
p. 31).
In the case of Malaysia, the key question one should ask is: Will this
diglossic relationship lead to a stable diglossia that will help to strengthen
the nation-building process? By stable diglossia is meant that “each
language has its own set of functions and space without threatening the
other” (Nettle and Romaine 2000, p. 191). However, given the fact that
most studies on diglossia tend to focus on “the functional dependency and
complementarity between participating languages, arguing that where one
language is used the other is not and vice versa” (Kamwangamalu 2010,
p. 120), it is, therefore, the contention of this chapter that a stable diglossia
should be underpinned by equal emphasis given to both languages by
their users to ensure that they are not mutually displacive. In other words,
the outcome of this diglossic relationship should be the principal concern.
Thus, a stable diglossia should ideally result in balanced bilinguals, who
are equally competent in both languages. Such a diglossic relationship is
crucial to the nation-building process in Malaysia, especially in relation to
the respective roles of the Malay language and English. Asmah Hj. Omar,
a Malaysian linguist, posits that:
Nation building has to have as its basic ideology which is both economic
and political in nature. This means that the process of building a nation
needs a sound policy which ensures economic prosperity and political
strength for the nation as a whole” (1993, p. 18).As far as the MBMMBI policy is concerned, the upholding of the
Malay language is to fulfil the political needs of the country, while the
strengthening of English is to fulfil the economic needs of the country on
the global stage. Thus, Malaysian students should embrace both languages
on equal terms to bring about a stable diglossic relationship between the
two languages.
There is a high possibility that the MBMMBI policy may not bring
about a stable diglossia, especially among the non-Malay students. For
some reason, the non-Malays in Malaysia, more so the Chinese, tend to
favour English over Malay. This linguistic preference has existed before
the implementation of the MBMMBI policy. It goes without saying that
this linguistic preference will be further consolidated by the MBMMBI
policy. The main concern here is that this linguistic preference will widen
the existing ethnic divide within the Malaysian educational system via