The English Language And Its Impact On Identities Of Multilingual Malaysian Undergraduates

Despite the increasing prominence of English as a world lingua franca, there islittle research on how the use of English affects the identities of Malaysian speakers.Asmah Haji Omar observed that interest in language and identity seemed to be confinedto studies on national identity. A doctoral study by Lee Su Kim of the identity ofMalaysian speakers of English found that there was resentment in certain localizedcontexts amongst the Malay respondents in the study towards the use of English.Expressions of resentment and ambivalence towards the use of the English language werealso prevalent amongst the non-Malay respondents within certain contexts. Thispaper presents the findings of a qualitative research study which sets out to investigatethe impact of English on the identities of young Malaysian undergraduates in selectedprivate and public universities in Malaysia. Using qualitative methods, this research studyessentially takes off from Lee Su Kim’s doctoral research study, and aims to explore on alarger scale the role of English in the identity construction of a younger Malaysian cohortfrom both public and private universities. The findings presented here are from a fewselected case studies that provide the qualitative data. The discussion will focus on howdifferent multilingual Malaysian undergraduates regard English vis a vis the otherlanguages in their repertoire and how it has affected their identity constructions andeveryday negotiations. Three dominant themes arising from the findings will bediscussed, 1) Multilingualism with English emerging as the dominant language, 2)English viewed as a pragmatic language and a language of empowerment, and 3) Varyingdegrees of ‘othering’.