Malaysian English and the English Teacher

Abstract

There is no doubt that we do speak a variety of English which is commonly called ‘Malaysian English’. The extent to which it is spoken however varies with the educational levels attained by the speakers. In general, like all other dialects of languages, it is the initial variety of English most of us are familiar with; and in the process of developing competency in ‘Standard English’, we start to shed the salient features of this variety of language. Nevertheless, in a sense, most Malaysians can regard the Malaysian variety of English as a native language, and because of this we are able to use it in casual and intimate situations with a facility which defies non-Malaysian English speakers.