| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article conducts a linguistic analysis of the history textbook from Malaysia. It studies the way language portrays the Malaysians and British during colonization and independence. These periods are chosen because their economic and political changes resulted in social shifts which continue to influence modern Malaysia. The article analyzes the history textbook for secondary years two, three and five. Transitivity from Systemic Functional Linguistics is used as a method of analysis to explain the portrayal of the Malaysians and British during colonization and independence. The linguistic analysis of Participants (the nominal group) and Processes (the verbal group) discloses two major results. First, independence and the Malaysians are portrayed positively in the chapters about independence and identities of class and ethnicity are crucial to understand the Malaysians. Second, colonization and the British are portrayed negatively in the chapters about colonization. This posits a positive us and negative them distinction in the textbook. Hence the language of the history textbook can be interpreted as implying a nationalist version of history.
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