Search

There is no denying that palm oil industry has long been the backbone of Malaysia's economy. It is an industry that continues to be relevant in order to meet both local and global demand for edible oil and biofuel markets. The idea that the industry holds no appeal for youth is a common belief frequently shared by the youth themselves, as well as other stakeholders in agriculture. The key to engaging Malaysian youth and to increase their participation is to first understand their attitude and motivation towards the oil palm sector. This is the first step in understanding the factors underlying their motivation and gauging their level of engagement towards the sector. A set of questionnaires was distributed to 50 FELDA respondents followed by a focus group interview of 5 FELDA youth. Our qualitative data gauged the level of FELDA youth engagement through attitudinal resources while the survey measured the categorical and ordinal level of 8 industry constructs with variables such as gender, age, and education level. In general, the findings revealed insights into palm oil industry’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to positive and negative attitude, motivation, and engagement of FELDA youth towards the sector.

The global discourse on food often pivots around the issue of food security. With the new media, the discourse of food as a signifier of a national identity is constantly renewed and contested. This constant renewal and perpetual debate about food authenticity as the nexus of national identity from the Cultural Studies perspective is both the significance and the problem that the present study acknowledges and addresses. The aim of this paper is to identify, analyze and interpret the rhetorical strategies used by the media audience to reveal their attitude towards the issue. Using convenience sampling technique, a set of discourse samples is selected from the comment sections of articles on food authenticity across the new media. The corpus is analyzed using key concepts or canons in rhetoric, which are Logos, Ethos and Pathos. In addition, three rhetorical canons, invention, arrangement and style, are also used as units of analysis. The study finds that rhetors did not use the Logos (logic and fact) as one of their strategies to persuade readers to be on their side. Instead, they appealed to ethos (character and credibility) and Pathos (emotion). This evinces the idea that the media audience writing in a comment section in the new media are not basing their writing on the need to appeal to logic and fact (Logos), or proactively, but instead they are more reactionary (personal and emotive). This finding contributes towards the understanding of the media audience’s rhetorical strategies in the new media.

Sebagai penyumbang keempat terbesar kepada ekonomi negara Malaysia, industri kelapa sawit telah menunjukkan kemajuan yang ketara dan perkembangan yang pesat sejak beberapa dekad yang lalu. Walaupun terdapat usaha yang bersepadu untuk mempromosikan dan mewujudkan kesedaran di kalangan belia sektor ini, kebanyakan golongan muda tidak berminat untuk berkhidmat dalam industri ini, malah memilih untuk bekerja di sektor perkilangan dan runcit. Mengguna pakai Teori Systemic Functional Linguistics Appraisal khususnya sistem Attitude, artikel ini membentangkan analisis linguistik makna interpersonal yang diungkapkan oleh 5 orang belia FELDA ke arah penglibatan industri minyak sawit. Kajian ini meneliti keterlibatan dan minat golongan belia dan bagaimana kekuatan dan kelemahan industri ini ditonjolkan melalui analisis wacana. 5 wawancara dianalisis dan dikodkan dari segi Affect, Judgement dan Appreciation. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan bagaimana setiap responden menyampaikan penilaian positif dan negatif terhadap industri dan tingkah laku masyarakat FELDA. Dapatan ini juga memaparkan tiga bidang kekuatan dan kelemahan yang melibatkan kemapanan industri dan sumbangan sosio-ekonomi yang penting kepada komuniti FELDA. Walaupun penilaian cenderung kepada nilai positif, kebanyakan responden merasa tidak puas hati terhadap sektor ini. Mereka menyarankan kaedah baru melalui teknologi dan media sosial untuk menarik minat golongan belia terhadap industri kelapa sawit.

Social media have gained astounding worldwide growth and popularity and have become prominent in the life of many young people today. According to various research studies in the field of online social networks, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp are greatly impacting the lives of youths. These sites have provided a platform whereby the young can create groups based on their common interests and build connections by updating various topics to discuss. However, with social media taking up such a large space in our lives, there is a concern as to whether it is impacting our communicative language; more importantly, our youth’s communicative language. In view of this phenomenon, this article is an attempt to add to the understanding of online communicative language used by youths in social media. Specifically, it reports on the linguistic features of online communicative language used by youths in an academic setting in Facebook. This study employed two research tools, namely Virtual Ethnography and Content Analysis. Data collected was in the form of screen captures and snippets of conversations. Content Analysis was employed to look into the occurrences of languages in contact in phenomena such as code-mixing, code-switching and borrowings of certain words from the first language-second language and vice versa. The findings of the study indicate that the language used by the participants on Facebook consists of a mixture of code-switching, code-mixing, fillers, emoticons, spelling modifications, foreign language words and colloquial Malaysian English.

Malaysia is currently one of the largest producers and exporters of palm oil in the world. Despite the strength and vast potential of our palm oil industry, engaging the youth in this industry is a challenging task as most perceive the industry and agriculture unattractive as a career, without realising the importance of the sector in their everyday lives. Furthermore, the development of sectors such as ecommerce, digital technology and real estate is a compounding factor behind the decline of interest among the younger FELDA generation. The present study is designed to examine the attitudes and motivation of young FELDA generation towards the palm oil industry. A simple random sampling technique was adopted to select 50 working respondents from the age of 22-40 at 4 FELDA settlements. Questionnaire was distributed for primary data collection, where a four-point Likert scale was used to examine differences in attitudes and motivation towards 64 statements regarding aspects ranging from working conditions to promotion opportunities. The findings point to an overall positive attitude towards all aspects of the industry. The highest mean is revealed in the area of social status, with the majority feeling respected and proud to be a part of the palm oil community. In general, the majority of the respondents display positive attitude and motivation towards the palm oil industry. Based on the findings we would recommend trainings to empower FELDA youths to take advantage of the expanding industry and to claim their space in the palm oil sector.

Imej sebenarnya merupakan pernyataan realiti dan berperanan dalam mewujudkan hubungan khayalan antara peserta dalam imej dan pembaca. Buku teks sekolah dipenuhi dengan imej visual yang kadang-kadang dapat mengartikulasikan makna sosial dan budaya yang lebih kuat dan jelas berbanding teks bertulis. Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk mengkaji dan menggambarkan corak makna representasi yang berkaitan dengan gender dalam imej buku teks bahasa Inggeris Malaysia yang terpilih. Selain itu, kajian bertujuan mengkritik corak imej yang berkaitan dengan stereotaip gender dalam buku teks bahasa Inggeris Malaysia. Analisis data telah mengenal pasti dan membincangkan perwakilan gender melalui ciri-ciri penulisan naratif, budaya dan kategori biologi serta suasana persekitaran. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan terdapat ketidakseimbangan gender yang jelas, iaitu keutamaan diberikan kepada lelaki. Domain yang diletakkan kepada peserta wanita biasanya di ruangan persendirian sedangkan peserta lelaki kebanyakannya diwakili di domain awam. Wanita lebih kerap dikaitkan dengan aktiviti di dalam rumah manakala lelaki digambarkan terlibat dalam pelbagai aktiviti di luar rumah. Wanita turut digambarkan sebagai beremosi, sebaliknya lelaki dicerminkan sebagai bersifat tenang, tegas dan berdaya saing. Oleh kerana sekolah dan buku teks merupakan salah satu kaedah keterlibatan kanak-kanak dalam bidang sosial, adalah penting untuk memastikan bahan pengajaran adalah adil dan tidak berat sebelah terhadap kedua-dua gender. Oleh itu, disarankan agar pihak yang terlibat dalam pengeluaran buku teks sekolah mengkaji semula gambaran lelaki dan wanita yang digambarkan dalam imej. Pihak ini juga perlu menyediakan senario dunia nyata dalam mendidik generasi muda supaya mempunyai minda yang tidak stereotaip berkenaan dengan perwakilan gender dalam konteks Malaysia untuk membantu dalam pembangunan bangsa dan negara.

In the Malaysian education system, attention is highly paid on reading words. Visual images are often treated as “decoration”, or are dismissed altogether (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996). Many local researchers (Saedah 1990, Bahiyah et al., 2008) have only analysed written texts to see how social practices deemed negative such as gender biasness are reflected in the words (lexical items) and linguistic structures. Currently, no systematic research has been undertaken in Malaysia to analyse visual images in English language school textbooks to study how visual images can reflect gender biasness. This research project addresses gender biasness found in visual images in school textbooks, i.e., the treatment of one gender over the other especially of women and girls. The project adopts three widely used approaches for analyzing visual images; content, socio semiotic and ethno-methodology analyses. This paper will however highlight its preliminary analysis focusing on image analysis based on participation, gender and representational meanings. Its aim is to identify the types of images and the representation of gender biasness and stereotyping found in the textbook. The preliminary findings should expose the sexism and gender biasness in the visual images of a sampled textbook; i.e. an English school textbook that is abound with visual images that sometimes, more so than written texts, can articulate more forcefully social and cultural meanings.

This paper is written to report on the impact study of ‘1nita’ project, a Malaysian government initiative that provides a platform for women entrepreneurs to build strong businesses through the use of information technology and the internet. Both qualitative and quantitative data was gathered for this study. Results have revealed that the 1nita portal has given good impact to some, but not all the businesses. Recommendations have been given to ensure that the women entrepreneurs will become competitive at a global level through the exposure to technology-based learning.

This paper is written to report on the impact study of ‘1nita’ project, a Malaysian government initiative that provides a platform for women entrepreneurs to build strong businesses through the use of information technology and the internet. Both qualitative and quantitative data was gathered for this study. Results have revealed that the 1nita portal has given good impact to some, but not all the businesses. Recommendations have been given to ensure that the women entrepreneurs will become competitive at a global level through the exposure to technology-based learning.

Plagiarism is a contentious issue at best. Despite the common association between teaching, learning and plagiarism, the issue is seldom seen as pedagogical in essence. For that reason, this paper presents some examples of plagiarism in the form of professional anecdotes as experienced by the three researchers. After each anecdote, a juxtaposition is made with the review of literature on issues and studies of plagiarism. The literature review will provide a larger background that makes this paper not only uniquely Malaysian but also globally relevant especially in the context of global students’ mobility. In conclusion, the paper not only finds that the different and disparate perceptions of plagiarism among the lecturers and students contribute to the conflict in the process of teaching and learning, but it also evinces the idea that to communicate the ethical aspects of plagiarism is a tricky one especially when it involves students from different educational and cultural backgrounds.