Jom Study Sociolinguistics!

When I was doing my first degree, I knew there could be many interesting part if I explore Sociology. My first subject at that time was Introduction to Sociology. Now after so many years after I left IIUM, and of course when I grew older I realized there are so many single part that brings us broader and wider scope in sociology. As in my case, for MA in Applied Linguistic, we have to focus on sociolinguistic study.

Alright, let me type something what I've learn, read and discussed in class. Dr.Hariharan (our lecturer) advised us to refer to the above book as our main reference and I was told by Ayu Bistari (my classmate) that it costs RM300+ and trust me, it's really hard to get. 

What is sociolinguistics? This author,Janet Holmes she says sociolinguistics study the relationship between language and society, they are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social context, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to cconvey social meaning.

So far we have attended 2 times meetings and below are the lists of our class discussion in which all of us have to talk and share our opinions: 

First Meeting

(To agree or disagree-give reasons)

1. Maths must be taught in English. -I agree

2. Is it ridiculous to speak standard English to another Malaysian of the same ethnic group. -no its not, but it depends on whom we are talking to.

3. Malaysians must be encouraged to learn American English - Totally disagree, we are looking for standard English for everybody although 90% movies and musics are from US. 

4. Woman speak more than man. - I agree (hot topic in discussion, argue with those boys).

5. Why do people use foul language. - I disagree. (lots of things to discuss regarding rude/bad/offensive words. For Kelantanese they used bad words for very close friends like nate ni,wei bengo,aku mung,etc. esp among boys).

6. Why do people gossip. -personally, it's more on backbiting which is really bad in Islam.

7. What is the meaning of silence in your culture. -(depends on situation and time, people around).

8. If you do not use "lah" whom you speak English, you can be considered as an abnormal users of English in Malaysia.-i always try to avoid this in my conversation.

9. We must allow the use of Malay when teaching English in schools.-somehow it depends, if possible use English in order to show the importance of this language in their life.

10. It is better to use broken English than no English at all -totally agree

**to be continued.