Ting, S. H. (2002). Is English needed in a Malay workplace? RELC Journal, 33(1), 137-153.

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137

IS ENGLISH NEEDED IN A MALAY WORKPLACE?

SU-HIE TING

University of Queensland

Abstract

Research has indicated that support staff are less likely to speakEnglish in the workplace (e.g. Morais, 1990; 1998; Nair-Venugopal,1997; Tiong, 1996). The present study examines whether support staffneed to use English in a predominantly Malay organisation, and howthey cope with the English language demands of the workplace. Thequestionnaire and interview results show that communicating inEnglish with the public posed a problem for the support staff althoughthe nature of their work did not require them to read or write in English.They found ingenuous ways of coping with the situation, but theirwork performance was affected. The findings suggest that it is

worthwhile to give greater emphasis to the teaching of English oracyskills in school to students who may enter the workforce as supportstaff so that they have a sufficient command of English for basiccommunication.

Introduction ’

A survey of research conducted in Malaysia on the English language needsin the workplace revealed that the focus has been on language skills requiredby executives. The findings of needs analysis studies such as Goh and Chan(1993) and Lim (1994) help university lecturers to design English proficiencycourses which are more useful in equipping undergraduates with the languageskills needed in the workplace. However, less attention is given to thelanguage needs of the support staff who usually enter the workforce withthe English language skills leamt during in school, with additional input fromfamily and friends for some.

The support staff usually have secondary school education because tertiaryeducation is not a pre-requisite for employment at this level. Their educationalbackground has implications on their ability to cope with English languagedemands in the workplace, as indicated by the results of the larger scale studyon which the present study is based. In Ting’s (2001a) study on languagechoice of 152 employees in two multilingual organisational settings in



138

Sarawak, a positive correlation was found between English languageproficiency, educational qualifications and hierarchical status in the

organisation. Executives tend to be more proficient in English than supportstaff, and executives are also more inclined to have tertiary qualifications.Due to their better command of English, these executives are more capableof using English for communication on work matters.Indeed, English is most valued for employment and tertiary education,according to Kaur’s (1995) survey on the perceptions of 182 ethnicallyheterogeneous Form Four students of the functions of English. Based onKaur’s findings, it is expected that English is needed in the workplace, buthow much do support staff need to use English?

Tiong’s (1996) study on blue-collar workers in a multinational electronicscompany in Penang enlightens us on the language use of this group. Tiongfound that the support staff usually communicate among themselves usingcolloquial Malay and their respective ethnic languages. Due to the supportstaff’s lack of English language proficiency, their supervisors have to translatememos and other directives into Malay for them. As an outcome of this study,Tiong proposed communication courses targeted at employees with differentlevels of fluency in English. Similar findings on the support staff’s infrequentuse of English were reported by Morais (1990; 1998) and Nair-Venugopal(1997). These studies were conducted in private sector organisations in WestMalaysia. It was found that the staff at higher management levels frequentlyspeak English among themselves, whereas lower level staff tend to speakMalay or a mixture of Malay and English with their peers. To find out whetheror not the support staff’s minimal use of English is a reflection of theirincapability at coping with English language needs in the workplace or theabsence of such a need, the following research questions are examined inthe present study:

1. What is the English language proficiency of the support staff?

2. Do the support staff need to use English in a Malay workplace? If so,for what?

3. What strategies do they use to cope with English language needs inthe workplace?



139

This study aims to provide some feedback on the effectiveness of theEnglish curriculum in equipping students with language skills for basiccommunication purposes in the workplace.

The study

The state headquarters of a youth organisation (Belia, henceforth) inSarawak was chosen as the site of the case study because it offered the rightconditions for examining the English language needs of support staff in anorganisation where there is minimal use of English. First, Malay is used asthe official language in this organisation, thereby eliminating the need forsupport staff to use English for formal purposes of communication. Second,the majority of the staff are Malays. This creates a predominantly Malay-speaking office environment. Hence, any use of English by the support staffwould be considered necessary usage.

A case study was chosen over a needs analysis survey because the latterinvolves using questionnaires which impose the researcher’s

conceptualisations of communicative functions and language needs upon theemployees. Hence, this method of data collection does not provide a portrayalof the language needs of employees from the perspective of the respondents.On the other hand, case studies making use of interviews and observationsenable the researcher to study the language needs of employees in their naturalworking environment.

The fieldwork was carried out from mid-February to mid-June 1998. Beliais not a government agency, but it works closely with the Ministry of Culture,Youth and Sports to organise social and educational activities for youngpeople in Sarawak. Most of their major official functions are graced bymembers of the Sarawak state legislative council. Belia had eighteen staffmembers consisting of fifteen Malays, two Ibans and one Chinese. Twelveof the Malays were volunteers, and they were in their twenties and earlythirties. All of them were Malay-educated. The remaining six staff memberswere permanent staff, mostly in their forties. They had English mediumeducation, with the exception of one who was Malay-educated. In terms ofeducational attainment, there were eleven with SPM (Form Five or equivalentto British ’0’ levels), three with SRP (Form Three), one with Primary Six,



140

and one with a diploma qualification. Seven were females and eleven weremales.

In this study, the staff at Belia were asked to describe their language usein the organisation in semi-structured interviews to obtain their perspectiveof their language needs. A total of seventeen participated in the interviewswhich were conducted in a mixture of Sarawak Malay, Malay and English- characteristic of the language use of the non-Malay staff at Belia. However,in this paper the excerpts from the interview protocols are presented in Englishfor the ease of comprehension. Pseudonyms are used to preserve theanonymity of the respondents. In addition, the respondents were also askedto fill in a questionnaire with items which, among others, dealt with their.frequency of speaking, reading and writing English on a typical day in theoffice. Out of the eighteen questionnaires distributed, sixteen were returned.

The researcher’s observations of the language use of Belia employeesamong themselves and with members of the public provided an additionaldata source to verify whether their reported language use in interviews andquestionnaires matched their actual language use behaviour. By being presentin the organisation, the researcher was also in a better position to assess thelanguage needs of the respondents. The validity of this study is enhancedby a process of triangulation involving three data sources (interview protocols,questionnaire responses and observations) with a certain degree ofconvergence in the kind of data obtained.

In this paper, &dquo;Malay&dquo; refers to Bahasa Malaysia, the national languageof Malaysia. &dquo;Sarawak Malay&dquo; refers to the Malay dialect which is spokenin the state of Sarawak. It is also known as &dquo;Local Dialect&dquo;, &dquo;Local&dquo; and

&dquo;Bahasa Melayu&dquo; to the speakers of Sarawak Malay.

Results and Discussion

(1 ) What is the English language proficiency of the support sta, ff?

The respondents were asked to rate their English proficiency comparedwith others in their office on a five-point scale (near the top, better thanaverage, about average, below the average, near the bottom). Following Baker(1992), the respondents’ self-ratings of their language proficiency wereelicited instead of using objective measures such as examination results. The



141

respondents’ performance in English language tests could not be comparedbecause the variation in their age groups meant that they sat for differenttypes of English language tests, ranging from British &dquo;0&dquo; and &dquo;A&dquo; levels,to the equivalents in the Malaysian education system (MCE/SPM and HSC/STPM respectively). The difficulty level and format for these different typesof English language tests differed, thereby giving rise to different scales ofcomparison. Baker found that while some respondents might exaggerate, andsome might underestimate their language proficiency, the resulting quasi-normal distribution indicated that the respondents’ responses to this questionwere credible. Furthermore, the respondents’ self-ratings of their ownlanguage proficiency are more likely to reflect their confidence in using thislanguage.

The questionnaire data showed that six respondents rated their Englishproficiency as above average (see Appendix A, numbers in parentheses inthe second column). Five ranked their English proficiency as average,whereas another five reported it as below average. My observations indicatedthat the ten respondents with average and below average English proficiencywere not conversant in English. Incidentally, they were the support staff atBelia, with the exception of one. In the rest of this paper, they are referredto as the group which is less proficient in English.

For comparison purposes, the respondents were also asked to rate theirproficiency in Malay since both English and Malay are often used for formalcommunication in Sarawak. The results indicated that the respondents at Beliawere generally more proficient in Malay than English. Eight out of 16respondents reported that their Malay proficiency was &dquo;near the top&dquo; whencompared with their colleagues (see Appendix A, numbers in parenthesesin the fourth column). One rated his Malay proficiency as &dquo;above average&dquo;and seven were &dquo;average&dquo;. This was expected because thirteen out of thesixteen who returned the questionnaires were Malays. The remaining threenon-Malay respondents had average to above average Malay proficiency.From my observations, the staff at Belia did not encounter any difficulties

interacting with members of the public who spoke Malay.

To obtain some idea of the significance attached to the use of Englishin Belia, the respondents were asked to list the languages and dialects intheir language repertoire in the order of importance. Nine ranked Englishas the third important in their language repertoire (see Appendix A, second



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column). For six of the respondents who listed only three languages, Englishwas placed as the last - after Malay and Sarawak Malay. The only tworespondents who regarded English as the most important language in theirrepertoire were non-Malays. The respondents who were less proficient inEnglish were more inclined to attribute less importance to English than Malayor Sarawak Malay. As the results in the next section indicate, these

respondents were also less likely to speak or write English in the workplace.

Between Malay and Sarawak Malay, greater importance was attachedto the former. Ten out of fifteen respondents ranked Malay as the mostimportant language, and all of them were Malays. In comparison, only fourgave Sarawak Malay the first ranking, and six, the second ranking. Thesetwo respondents were also all Malays. The importance the respondentsattached to a particular language does not imply that they would use thislanguage more frequently.

In fact, Sarawak Malay was the most extensively used language in theoffice based on the respondents’ description of their language use and myobservations. The respondents did not restrict the use of Sarawak Malay totheir colleagues. Dilan highlighted the fact that he sometimes spoke SarawakMalay with members of the public who called the office, for example, Dilanwould ask, &dquo;Kitak dari sinir?&dquo; [where are you from?]. This question wasnot aimed at finding out the caller’s geographical origin. Instead, Dilan wantedto know if the caller was from the same ethnic group, and to invite a reciprocaluse of Sarawak Malay to stress their shared ethnic group membership in thecontext of a work-oriented interaction. The importance the respondentsattached to the use of Sarawak Malay and Malay in their workplace suggeststhat it may be possible for them to do without the use of English. However,further investigation revealed that there is definitely a need for the respondentsto speak English even in a predominantly Malay work environment whereMalay is the official language.

(2) Do the support staff need to use English in a Malay workplace?If so, for what?

To assess whether the respondents needed to use English at Belia, theywere asked to rate their frequency of speaking, reading and writing Englishon a typical day in the office (1= never, 2=seldom, 3=sometimes, 4=mostof the time, 5=all the time).



143

Written language environment

The respondents reported in the questionnaire that they used English forwriting less than for reading or speaking (see Appendix B). Only tworespondents needed to write frequently in English: Stella, the administrativeassistant (all the time); and Lim, the accounts clerk (most of the time). Eventhe manager (Bolhi) occasionally wrote in English. According to Ehsan (anofficer), about thirty to forty five percent of the letters he received were inEnglish, and he had to reply some of them in English. However, before hesent them, he usually asked the manager to proof-read them. One quarterof the respondents did not need to write in English at all and they were thesupport staff, for example, Dani said, &dquo;I write in Malay, my work is all inMalay.&dquo;

The predominant language for written communication at Belia was Malay.An analysis of language use in a sample of 43 documents, including memos,notices and circulars, showed that more than two-thirds were in Malay.English was sparingly used for terms (e.g. computer terminology) andheadings (e.g. For staff information and Urgent), and for this the respondentsneeded only basic English comprehension skills. English was occasionallyused in documents targeting an international audience, and these were meantfor the public.

In comparison, five respondents reported that they needed to readdocuments in English frequently (see Appendix B). Of these four wereofficers. Occasionally when the support staff received letters written inEnglish, they sought the help of their colleagues in translating them, forexample, Dilan said: &dquo;If there are letters for me in English, I ask Stella toexplain the contents. Translate them into Malay.&dquo;

The support staff generally did not need to read or write in English atthe workplace since the memos from their superiors were usually in Malay,and written correspondence with the public was handled by the officers. Infact, the respondents overestimated their frequency of reading Englishdocuments at work because newspapers and magazines were cited asexamples of reading materials, indicating that a large proportion of theirreading was not work-related.



144

Oral language environment

The analysis of the interview data revealed that English was hardly usedin interactions among the staff at Belia. According to the office cleaner (Nani):

I don’t need [to speak English at the office] because people whospeak to me know Local [Sarawak Malay].

Nani was the least proficient in English when compared with hercolleagues, but she clearly did not need to use English in her work asinstructions were given to her in Sarawak Malay. English was also not usedin staff meetings. Another respondent (Rahman) pointed out that &dquo;when nooutsiders are present, staff meetings are conducted entirely in Sarawak

Malay.&dquo; Even in formal meetings leading up to public events such as theannual Joggerthon and public seminars where members of the public andexecutive committee members were present, Malay was used, with occasionalcode-switching to Sarawak Malay. English was definitely not important fororal communication with colleagues. After all, eighty three percent of thestaff at Belia were Malays, and the non-Malays there could communicatein Sarawak Malay without much difficulty.

Nevertheless, the respondents had a reason for considering English animportant language. They needed to speak English with some members ofthe public, particularly non-Malays and those with higher status, as shownby an excerpt from Dani’s interview protocol:

[I] speak English when answering the phone. Usually people fromthe Ministers’ office. [They’re] usually Chinese, not Malay. If theyuse other languages such as Iban, only then I speak English. IfMalays, [I] usually speak Sarawak Malay.

With members of the same ethnic group, Dani used their shared language.Dani felt the need to speak English when it was the only common languagewith her interlocutor. This usually happened with interlocutors from otherethnic groups.

Several factors account for the choice of English for interethniccommunication. To begin with, English is generally more widely understoodthan Malay in Sarawak because English was the administrative languageduring the British rule in Sarawak (1841-1963). English remained as an



145

official language in Sarawak until 1985 although Bahasa Malaysia wasaccepted as the language for official purposes of communication at the timewhen Sarawak joined Malaysia.

Furthermore, since English was also the medium of education during thattime, and for some years after independence, Sarawakians have higher literacyin English than Malay (see Leigh, 1974). The school enrolment figuresindicated that only a handful of Malays attended Malay schools, while mostChinese and Natives went to English schools (Sarawak EducationDepartment, 1954; 1963). This is why the older non-Malays are more

proficient in English than Malay, thus making English a suitable languagefor interethnic interactions.

In terms of ethnic relations, English is a less ethnically-polarised languagethan Malay. Unlike in West Malaysia where Malay predominates as thelanguage of wider communication, Malay cannot attain this stature in Sarawakbecause the Malays are not dominant numerically in Sarawak. They constituteonly 21.4 percent out of the total state population of 1.99 million, with almostequal numbers of Chinese (27 percent) and Iban (28.5 percent), and the restare made up of other native groups and expatriates (Malaysia StatisticsDepartment, 1998). Furthermore, the identity associations of Malay are notin its favour. The irony is that while the Chinese in Sarawak associate Malaywith a Malay ethnic identity, the Malays link it with a West Malaysian identity(Ting, 2001a). This association came about because Malay was adapted fromthe Malay dialect spoken in the southern part of West Malaysia, and wasintroduced into Sarawak as the national and official language (see Omar,1992: 211). Thus, English which is not the native language of any ethnicgroup, turns out to be the preferred language choice for cross-ethnicencounters.

Both the questionnaire and interview results revealed that English is alsoperceived to be appropriate for interactions with people of higher status. Isaechoed Dani’s opinion regarding this, but he also pointed out that thiscondition does not apply in government offices where Malay is the officiallanguage:

In government offices, use Bahasa Malaysia. [When] you’re sent to thiscompany and that, [...], are you going to use Bahasa Malaysia? [You] haveto use English. [...] Sometimes like big boss, it’s not right to use SarawakMalay. Maybe they don’t understand. [So I] use English. I don’t use Malay.



146

In private sector organisations, Isa preferred to speak English to Malay.Isa’s doubts regarding the Malay proficiency of people with higherhierarchical status may seem strange, with Malay being the nationallanguage of Malaysia. In fact, it is common knowledge that Sarawakiansoccupying senior executive positions are usually English-educated, andprefer to speak English. Most of them did not learn Malay in school becauseMalay was introduced as a subject in Sarawak in 1969 (simultaneouslyin primary school and Form One). It was only in 1989 that the first cohortof Malay-educated students completed Upper Sixth Form. These changesin the education system created an age group-language proficiency profileas follows (see also Ting, 2001b):

. Sarawakians aged 46 and above (2001) are proficient in English, butfew have a good command of Malay

. Those aged 32 to 45 are proficient in English, but can speak Malaybecause they have learnt it as a subject in school

. Those aged 31 and below are more proficient in Malay than Englishbecause of the use of Malay as the medium of instruction

By virtue of their authority position in the organisational hierarchy,senior executives play a key role in fostering English at their level andin the workplace. Colleagues of lower hierarchical status converge to theirlanguage choices, in order to show that they respect their superiors. Dueto the language preferences and the authority of senior executives, Englishis perceived to be at the upper end of the polyglossic range, viewed asappropriate for interactions in more formal circumstances. Sarawak Malayexists at the lower end of the range because it is felt to be appropriate foronly informal interactions with interlocutors who are familiar to thespeakers. Malay occupies a middle position. Although the support staffat Belia did not need to speak English often at their workplace, they couldnot avoid speaking English altogether in view of the prominence of Englishin the polyglossic range. Hence, they had to find ways of coping with thesituation when they could not continue a conversation in English, or whenthey could not understand their interlocutors.

(3) What strategies do they use to cope with English language needs inthe workplace?



147

The interview data showed that the support staff who were less proficientin English used the following strategies to alleviate a communicationbreakdown: language maintenance, appeal for language switch, and appealfor assistance.

Language maintenance. The respondents used the language maintenancestrategy only when they encountered difficulty in continuing a conversationin the language chosen by their interlocutors. Otherwise, they convergedto their interlocutors’ language choice, as is the norm in the Sarawak speechcommunity. This tendency is illustrated by an excerpt from Bibi’s interviewprotocol:

At government offices, in the beginning, [I] speak Malay. If theyspeak Sarawak Malay, I continue. Follow them. If [they use]English, I’m not fluent, so I speak Sarawak Malay or Malay.

However, not all instances of language maintenance are due to languageproblems. When the support staff were certain that their interlocutorsunderstood their preferred language (usually Sarawak Malay), theymaintained their language choice. For example, Dilan continued speakingSarawak Malay and did not reciprocate his superior’s use of English:

Boss speaks English. I answer in Malay. [Members of the public]always speak English. If I understand, I speak English. If I don’tunderstand, I use Malay. If they understand Sarawak Malay, Iuse Sarawak Malay.

This is because both of them were Malays. In the Malay community,the use of their shared ethnic language is considered an extension of theirsocial language use (Morais, 1990) although the interactions may take placein a work context. However, Dilan made it a point to speak English withmembers of the public until he encountered comprehension difficulties,upon which he switched to Malay or Sarawak Malay. Then it is on theonus of his interlocutors to take the cue, and follow Dilan’s language choiceto facilitate communication.

Appeal for language switch. However, when the support staff could noteven understand what their interlocutors were saying in English, they copedby directly asking their interlocutors to use another language. Hajijah did



148

this when her attempts at converging to her interlocutors’ language choicefailed:

I follow the Chinese’s [language choice. It’s] difficult for me to talk inEnglish. I’m not fluent in English, but I understand. Speak simple [English].If they use difficult words, I say to them, ’Can you speak Malay?’

This interaction could proceed smoothly if the other person could speakMalay, but this might not always be the case, especially with some oldermembers of the public who did not have much formal education, andtherefore could not speak English and Malay. In this case, the support staffhad to use another strategy to ensure that the goal of the interaction wasachieved.

Appeal for colleagues’ assistance. In the event of total communicationbreakdown when the respondents could not even understand what theirinterlocutors were saying, the respondents sought the help of colleagueswith higher English proficiency, for example, Hassan and Rahman oftenreferred the members of the public to Stella or Ehsan. If these colleagueswere not in the office, then the members of the public were asked totelephone or come to the office again some other time. In effect, the officersat Belia compensated for the inability of respondents to cope with theEnglish language demands at the workplace.

Nevertheless, the work performance of respondents who are less

proficient in English was undoubtedly compromised. They sometimesavoided picking up the telephone in case the caller spoke English. Thisled to a memo from the manager instructing the staff members not to passtheir duties to others, and urging them to familiarise themselves withanswers to common queries, particularly prior to major functions.

Conclusion .

In conclusion, the results presented in the previous section have shownclearly that there is definitely a need for support staff to use English, evenin a predominantly Malay-speaking work environment where Malay is



149

official language, and where Malays constitute the major ethnic group. Ofthe different sub-skills of English, oracy skills are in greatest demand. Likeit or not, the support staff cannot run away from speaking English especiallyif this is the language used by members of the public. Writing skills in Englishis the least needed because Malay is the official language for writtencorrespondence at this organisation. This study also revealed that supportstaff with secondary school educational background often encountercommunication difficulties in English, but they had their own strategies ofcoping, which involved language maintenance, appeal for language switchand seeking their colleagues’ assistance.

The prominence of English in the polyglossic range is due to the long-standing use of English in Sarawak and the high English literacy of a majorityof the workforce. Even with the role of English being gradually taken overby Malay in official oral communication, English will continue to be important,particularly with the increasing popularity of the Internet. Thus, it is necessaryto equip secondary school students with sufficient English proficiency for themto function at the top of the polyglossic range. The aim is not near native speakerproficiency, but sufficient proficiency for basic communication in English.

However, the oral component in the assessment of English proficiencyat Form Five SPM examination is as little as ten percent. It does not matterwhether students pass the oral examination as long as they could fare wellin the written test. As secondary school students tend to be examination-oriented, and instrumentally motivated in learning English (see Lau, 1999;Jayatilaka, 1982; Subramaniam, 1976), they do not pay much attention toacquiring listening and speaking skills in English. It might be worthwhileto alleviate the importance of oracy skills both in the school English languagecurriculum and the assessment to ensure that students leaving school afterForm Five to join the workforce are better equipped to cope with the Englishlanguage demands in the workplace.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Dr. Jack Li (University of Queensland)for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.



150

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Subramaniam, R. 1976. A study of the roles of attitudes and motivation inthe acquisition of English as a second language by fifth form Malaymedium pupils in Selangor. Unpublished master’s thesis, UniversitiMalaya, Malaysia.

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APPENDIX A.

Ranking of languages spoken in order of importance

* Native languages of Sarawak# Low English proficiency( ) Numbers in parentheses indicate English and Malay proficiency.

l=near the top, 2=above the average, 3=average, 4=below average,5=near the bottom.



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APPENDIX B.

Frequency of English Use at Belia

* 1, Never. 2, Seldom. 3, Sometimes. 4, Most of the time. 5,All the time.



Ting, S. H. (2002). Is English needed in a Malay workplace? RELC Journal, 33(1), 137-153.

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