The Preferred Lingua Franca in Inter-racial Communication: Are Non-Malay UNITEN Students More Comfortable Using Malay or English with the other Non-Malays?

Abstract

The study of Muhamad, Kamis & Mat Junoh (2003) pertaining to the proficiency of Malay and English language usage among the 3000 Malaysian respondents aged 31 years and above found that 88.3% Chinese speakers and 80.3% Indian speakers speak fluent Malay. However, the Ma'alip report (2015) shows that 60% of Chinese and Indian social media users are more comfortable using English while communicating in informal situations in social media with peers from a different race. Based on the findings of the study on the non-significant relationship between the fluency in a language and the language selection factor in the communication. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the perception of non-Malay students at Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) regarding their convenience in using Malay in communication with other non-Malay speakers. The second objective is to analyze the perceptions of non-Malay speakers to their convenience of using either Malay or English in communication with other non-Malay speakers. The data were analyzed using the SPSS v.20 software and descriptively described. The results show that the majority of respondents are comfortable using the Malay language in communication with other non-Malay speakers.