Membisu Seribu Bahasa, Mendusta Seribu Kata: Awareness Of The Malay World In Communications Studies In Malaysia

(Membisu Seribu Bahasa, Mendusta Seribu Kata: Kesedaran Alam Melayu dalam Kajian Komunikasi di Malaysia)

Abstract

The study and formal education in communication and mass communication in Malaysia have been around for more than four decades. What has been observed is that approaches and contexts in comprehending the communication phenomenon have been studied outside the cultural and societal contexts. By this is meant that it has been far removed from the Malay world. The corpus of communication and its cognates as studied and taught in Malaysian universities has come into being outside of Malay cosmological and cultural contexts. This situation has been reinforced by translations from the English language to Bahasa Melayu that have brought with them certain historical and ideological assumptions foreign to the Malay framework of thought and Malay values. The issue at hand is not the problem of language as such, but the ideology and thought transmitted through it. This paper examines the development of the study of communication in Malaysia. It then offers several approaches with regard to the perspectives and content of research, and the curriculum by way of reexaming several-commonly held assumptions.

Keywords: Malay world, language, budi, epistemology, communication, corpus, media, thoughts