Foreword

Summary

The language of Malaysian and Singaporean fiction has not been examined in a book-length publication before. There have been several shorter studies, or studies included in more general surveys. This pioneering book-length study by Rosaly Puthucheary should therefore be welcomed by anyone who is interested in the study of the English-language literatures of the two countries. What is appealing, especially to the literary scholar, is Puthucheary' non-technical approach to this area. While a technical study may accomplish certain academic goals, its achievement may be confined to the domain of linguistics, and in spite of the target texts, the book may not attract the attention of literary scholars. However, Puthucheary' study is not limited in this way, and is more widely accessible. In fact, anyone with an interest in Malaysian and Singaporean fiction in English, even if he or she is not a literary scholar, may want to read this book.

Puthucheary begins her study with a historical account of English language teaching in Malaysia and Singapore. She then goes on to discuss how the novelist generally deals with a multilingual setting. There are several problems confronted by the novelist here, such as whether other languages or dialects of English should be represented, and how they are to be represented. For example, should their representation be merely indicated by “they spoke in Hokkien” or “they said in Singlish”, or should they be represented more directly, by using the non-English languages for short stretches?

After the useful introduction, she goes on to discuss twelve novels from the two countries. There is a thematic principle at work in the choice of the texts; they are not sequenced according to whether the authors are Singaporean or Malaysian, their age, or the texts’ dates of publication. The primary concern here is the use of language: localised standard English or its colloquial varieties, and the intrusion of lexical items or whole phrases from the other languages found in the two countries.

Among the local languages that are mentioned in the book is Malay. The use of Malay by the characters, including Baba Malay, can in fact be found in the majority of the works discussed. Other languages, such as Hokkien and Cantonese, are also featured. Hokkien and Cantonese are prominent in Lee Kok Liang' Flowers in the Sky (1981) and Suchen Christine Lim' Rice Bowl (1984).