52 Tan Yao Sua and R. Santhiram
maintaining value as a marker of membership of a peer or ethnic group
(Spolsky 1998). Undoubtedly, such a demarcation of linguistic boundaries
that offers two different identities will not augur well for the nation-
building process as far as “language socialization” (Bayley and Schecter
2003) in a plural society is concerned, more so when the local language is
pitted against a global language as in the case of Malaysia. This widening
of ethnic and linguistic divide may be at the expense of rural students
who are deprived of a congenial environment to acquire English. Since
Malay students constitute the bulk of rural students in Malaysia, this will
heighten the ethnic dimension of this divide.
It is most unfortunate that the MBMMBI policy may not bring about
a stable diglossic relationship between the Malay language and English,
and with English gaining increased popularity among the non-Malays,
this will create other problems that threaten the nation-building process
of Malaysia. The most obvious problem will be in terms of job disparity
along ethnic and linguistic lines between graduates from the public and
private institutions of higher learning, especially in the private sector.
Since graduates of the private institutions of higher learning use English
as a medium of instruction, their proficiency in English is, therefore,
generally better than graduates from the public institutions of higher
learning. This linguistic advantage will no doubt give them better job
opportunities and career advancement in the private sector. A report in
the December 1991 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review notes that
especially in the private sector, the best jobs go to those who are fluent
in English and compared to those who are less proficient in English, the
former face less difficulties where promotions are concerned (Hafriza 2006).
In other words, employers in the private sector tend to regard “language
as a professional skill” (Sonntag 2009, p. 20) and more often than not,
this justifies their differential treatment based on linguistic skills. This is
clearly a case whereby “English opens doors for some, it closes them for
others” (Phillipson 2009, pp. 97–98) — a form of structural inequality that
favours those who have the required English proficiency. All in all, this job
disparity along ethnic and linguistic lines can lead to serious political and
socioeconomic consequences, which can destabilize a country (Gill 2002).
CONCLUSION
Bernard Spolsky notes that the spread of English is producing a new
sociolinguistic reality by threatening to take over important functions from