Change and Preservation in Language, Literature and Culture in Southeast Asia: Trends and Directions

The theme of “Change and Preservation” was developed for the Fifth International Conference on Linguistics, Literature and Culture (ICLLIC), which took place in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site of George Town in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, from 29th to 30th July 2019. ICLLIC is organised by the English Language Studies Department of the School of Humanities at Universiti Sains Malaysia and was the brainchild of Shakila Abdul Manan, a former Professor of English Language Studies. She inspired and encouraged the department to organise ICLLIC, aiming to galvanise research and build networks among researchers in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. As such, ICLLIC has conventionally received strong participation from academics and postgraduate students in this region, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, even though it emphasises research in Asia as a whole. The success of the ICLLIC series throughout the years has also encouraged the English Language Studies Section to continue organising the conference.ICLLIC has been a biannual conference since its inception in 2010 (ICLLIC 2010), with subsequent conferences held in 2012, 2014 (ICLLIC 2014) and 2016 (ICLLIC 2016). These four previous conferences provided a critical space for the sharing and exchanging of ideas and knowledge through presentations, which later resulted in two edited books and two journal publications. ICLLIC 2010 and ICLLIC 2012 respectively produced two edited books, titled Linguistics, Literature and Culture: Millennium Realities and Innovative Practices in Asia(2012) and Research Mosaics of Language Studies in Asia: Differences and Diversity (2019). ICLLIC 2014 published Mapping the Spectrum: Current and Emerging Perspectives in Linguistics, Literature and Culture (2015) as a journal special issue and ICLLIC 2016 published a special issue of KEMANUSIAAN the Asian Journal of Humanities, titled Linguistics, Literature and Culture: Interactions between the Global and the Local (2016). While the 2016 special issue focuses on local-global links and tensions, the current volume of papers from ICLLIC 2019 explores change and preservation and their interconnections with local-global dynamics, including causes and effects. In general, the four previous publications not only capture the diversity of ideas available at ICLLIC, but also help document important work in progress in the research fields of language and literature in Asia. Hence, the fifth ICLLIC and particularly the articles in this theme continue in the tradition of its predecessors.