Papers by Thanalachime Perumal
Asia in transition, 2023
Tamil vernacular schools provide access to education and career opportunities for Indian Malaysia... more Tamil vernacular schools provide access to education and career opportunities for Indian Malaysians. Tamil schools are perceived to be an important component of Indian minority rights, an avenue for the Tamil-speaking community to establish and institutionalize their language and cultural identity. However, the government reduced its allocation for these schools in the 2021 budget. Indian political leaders, shouldering the responsibility to channel the discontent among Indians, have raised concerns on various platforms, such as newspapers, social media, and television interviews. It is imperative to observe how Indian political leaders prioritize minority rights while preserving their own or parties' political interests. Politicians utilize rhetoric to influence the public, but few studies are conducted on the political discourse of Indian Malaysians. This chapter studies an interview in Vizhuthugal-Samugathin Kural, a Tamil talk show televised on Astro Vaanavil. Grounded in discourse studies, this chapter analyzes the (de)legitimizing strategies used by two prominent Indian politicians from MIC and DAP. Although the two parties hold opposite ideologies, this chapter highlights their similarities in advocating minority rights for Indian Malaysians.
Daugelis Malaizijos tamilų kalbos vartojimo tyrimų susiję su tamilų kalbos išlaikymu. Vis dėlto t... more Daugelis Malaizijos tamilų kalbos vartojimo tyrimų susiję su tamilų kalbos išlaikymu. Vis dėlto trūksta tyrimų apie jaunosios kartos kalbėtojų kalbos vartojimą daugiakalbystės kontekste, tad šiuo tyrimu siekiama užpildyti šią spragą. Taikant Joshua A. Fishmano (1972) srities modelį ir analizuojant tamilų jaunimo vartojamą kalbą bendraujant grupės viduje 7 srityse, buvo surinkti ir išanalizuoti 109 klausimynų, natūralių pokalbių 42 garso įrašų ir 40 pokalbių duomenys. Pasirodo, 4 srityse (šeimos, draugystės, religijos ir kaimynystės) tamilų kalba vartojama dažniau. Dažniausiai ši kalba vartojama tarp draugų. Vis dėlto jaunoji karta tamilų kalbą šeimoje vartoja rečiau; daugelis susituokusių respondentų teigė namuose vartojantys anglų, o ne tamilų kalbą. Tai rodo, kad ateityje tamilų kalba kaip pirmoji išsilaikys sunkiai. Rezultatai atskleidė, kaip dalyvių pasirinkimas vartoti tamilų, anglų ir malajų kalbas siejasi su tapatybės, solidarumo sąvokomis ir su šių kalbų vartotojų suvokimu. ...
GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 2022
The world in general was not prepared for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Dec... more The world in general was not prepared for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in December 2019, which caused massive deaths. Government officials were forced to impose drastic measures to curb the spread. The Ministry of Health relied on political leaders and government agencies to help disseminate as much health information and the government policies efficiently and effectively. As these representatives or leaders belong to different ethnicities, they are more likely to understand the life circumstances, needs, strengths, and capabilities of multicultural and vulnerable communities, and would be the best people to convey the needed information. Tamils are the third largest community in Malaysia and there is not much research done on Tamil language and communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study aims to observe on how effectively Tamil language and culture influences crisis communication. Effective communication and leadership are central to the management of pandemics and to give the public assurance in order to alleviate their fears and anxiety in having to adapt to the rapidly changing societal and economic landscape. Based on the communication strategies recommended by Hyland-Wood et al (2021), the current study focuses on how a Malaysian Indian politician, Saravanan responds, engages, and communicates with his followers. Seventeen Facebook posts in Tamil on Saravanan’s page were extracted and analysed qualitatively. The strategies utilized by Saravanan showed his resolve and effectiveness in managing crisis. This study will be useful for political leaders, community representatives, and medical practitioners in seeking equitable accessibility to quality health care and well-being of the people. © 2022, Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.
This study is an attempt to analyze the Tamil movie song ‘Ovvoru PuukkaLumee ’ meaning ‘every flo... more This study is an attempt to analyze the Tamil movie song ‘Ovvoru PuukkaLumee ’ meaning ‘every flower’ from the Tamil movie 'Autograph'. This song is one of the popular songs of P. Vijay, a Tamil lyricist. The texture discourse of this song will be analyzed in terms of grammatical and lexical usages found by making use of discourse analysis.
Language is a powerful identity of an ethnic group. It is with difficulty that a minority group m... more Language is a powerful identity of an ethnic group. It is with difficulty that a minority group maintains its mother tongue in a multilingual society, particularly so when other languages such as Malay, English and Chinese have economic advantages over Tamil. Even though in Malaysia Tamil language is taught in primary schools for children aged 7 to 12 and in secondary schools for the students aged 13 to 18, only a few continue to study this language in their higher education. It is a challenge for the educators in higher education institutes to encourage and attract students to study Tamil and is equally challenging to encourage them to maintain Tamil language in their daily conversations. The main aim of this study is to identify the language used in Facebook communication among the Malaysian Tamil students in the university. Reasons for their language choice and some strategies to maintain the usage of Tamil language in social networking platform are also discussed in this paper. ...
Kajian ini memfokuskan wacana hujahan ‘luahan rasa’ yang digunakan dalam surat akhbar berbahasa T... more Kajian ini memfokuskan wacana hujahan ‘luahan rasa’ yang digunakan dalam surat akhbar berbahasa Tamil untuk membincangkan isu masyarakat minoriti di negara ini. Objektif utama kajian ini adalah untuk mengenal pasti isu semasa melalui hujahan ‘luahan rasa’ dan membincangkan serta membandingkan persamaan dan perbezaan hujahan ‘luahan rasa’ dalam akhbar berbahasa Tamil. Analisis teks ini dijalankan secara kajian kualitatif. Data dianalisis secara deskriptif menggunakan kerangka teori van Dijk (2008a). Sebanyak lima isu semasa berkaitan masyarakat minoriti, iaitu Isu Kematian dalam Lokap, Masalah Pengajian India di Jabatan Pengajian India di Universiti Malaya,Pilihan raya, Isu Lembah Bujang dan Perayaan Thaipusam yang ditulis secara hujahan menjadi bahan kajian. Semua teks yang dipilih ditulis oleh penulis tempatan dalam empat buah akhbar Tamil tempatan, iaitu Tamil Nesan, Makkal Osai, Malaysia Nanban,dan Thinakkural. Keempat-empat akhbar ini merupakan penyebar berita utama dalam kalang...
This study is an attempt to analyse the Tamil movie song, 'Annaiyin Karuvil', meaning ... more This study is an attempt to analyse the Tamil movie song, 'Annaiyin Karuvil', meaning 'mother's womb' from the Tamil movie 'Haridass'. This song is one of the popular motivational songs of a Tamil lyricist, called Annamalai. The texture discourse of this song will be analysed in terms of grammatical and lexical usages found by making use of discourse analysis.
Names and naming practices reflect the socio-cultural background of a community. The giving of na... more Names and naming practices reflect the socio-cultural background of a community. The giving of names is therefore not merely an act of labelling but represents constructs of identity that reflect the collective self-representation of a community and its worldviews. This study examines the naming practices of the Telugu in Malaysia and investigates the morphological structure and the semantic properties of Telugu names. To accomplish those research goals, survey interviews were conducted with 288 respondents in four different Malaysian states. Using descriptive statistics, a narrative analysis of the survey responses was used. Six experts in the Telugu culture were then invited for a focus group discussion. Before the results of this analysis are presented, detailed information about the Telugu and their naming traditions are provided. As will be shown here, among the Telugu, name-giving is a sacred act that is performed during a traditional naming ceremony called the Barasala. Durin...
Sustainable Multilingualism
Summary Most studies on the language use of Malaysian Tamils focus on the upkeep of the Tamil lan... more Summary Most studies on the language use of Malaysian Tamils focus on the upkeep of the Tamil language. There is, however, a dearth of investigations into language use in a multilingual context among the younger generation of speakers. The present study aims to fill this gap by using Fishman’s (1972) domain model to examine the language used by Tamil youth in intra-group communication in seven domains. Data were collected from 109 questionnaires, 42 audio-recordings of natural conversations and 40 interviews. The findings revealed that in four domains, which were the family, friendship, religion, and neighbourhood, Tamil is used more frequently. The highest usage of the language is predominantly among friends. However, there was a decreasing use of Tamil in the family domain among the younger generations with many married participants claiming to use English rather than Tamil as the home language. This does not bode well for the maintenance of Tamil as a first language in the future...
Language is a powerful identity of an ethnic group. It is with difficulty that a minority group m... more Language is a powerful identity of an ethnic group. It is with difficulty that a minority group maintains its mother tongue in a multilingual society, particularly so when other languages such as Malay, English and Chinese have economic advantages over Tamil. Even though in Malaysia Tamil language is taught in primary schools for children aged 7 to 12 and in secondary schools for the students aged 13 to 18, only a few continue to study this language in their higher education. It is a challenge for the educators in higher education institutes to encourage and attract students to study Tamil and is equally challenging to encourage them to maintain Tamil language in their daily conversations. The main aim of this study is to identify the language used in Facebook communication among the Malaysian Tamil students in the university. Reasons for their language choice and some strategies to maintain the usage of Tamil language in social networking platform are also discussed in this paper. Students aged 22 to 24 from a university in the central region of Peninsular Malaysia which offers Tamil studies, are chosen as the participants of this study. The participants were interviewed for their language choice. The finding shows that the participants with excellent Tamil language competency, used code mixing, Romanised Tamil more than Tamil or Tamil script in Facebook communication. This study found a way to make the participants converse solelyin Tamil. An altered language behaviour in cyberspace emerging out of unknown consideration, was thwarted and normal language use was restored.
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Papers by Thanalachime Perumal