Taming Babel : language in the making of Malaysia / Rachel Leow, University of Cambridge.

Author/creator Leow, Rachel author.
Format Book
PublicationCambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, New York : Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Descriptionxx, 261 pages ; 24 cm
Subjects
Language policy--Malaysia. --History. --19th century.
Language policy--Malaysia. --History. --20th century.
Multilingualism--Political aspects. --Malaysia. --History.
Malay language--Political aspects. --Malaysia. --History.
Chinese language--Political aspects. --Malaysia. --History.
Postcolonialism--Malaysia. --History.
Malaysia--Politics and government. --19th century.
Malaysia--Politics and government. --20th century.

Contents Part I. The Colonial State -- The technocrats : challenges of governance in a polyglot society -- The knowledge producers : taming sounds, scripts and selves -- Part II. Word Wars -- The lexicographers : dictionaries and the making of postwar politics -- The propagandists : public relations, psychological warfare and the making of the influential state -- Part III. The Postcolonial State -- The language planners : Dewan Bahasa in the invention and constriction of the postcolonial nation-state -- Postscript -- Appendices -- Glossary.
Scope and content "Taming Babel sheds new light on the role of language in the making of modern postcolonial Asian nations. Focusing on one of the most linguistically diverse territories in the British Empire, Rachel Leow explores the profound anxieties generated by a century of struggles to govern the polyglot subjects of British Malaya and postcolonial Malaysia. The book ranges across a series of key moments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which British and Asian actors wrought quiet battles in the realm of language: in textbooks and language classrooms; in dictionaries, grammars and orthographies; in propaganda and psychological warfare; and in the very planning of language itself. Every attempt to tame Chinese and Malay languages resulted in failures of translation, competence, and governance, exposing both the deep fragility of a monoglot state in polyglot milieux, and the essential untameable nature of languages in motion"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formebook version : 9781316668948
Genre/formHistory.
LCCN 2016016075
ISBN9781107148536 hardback
ISBN1107148537 hardback
ISBN9781316602607 paperback
ISBN1316602605 paperback

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks P119.32 .M4 L46 2016 ✔ Available Place Hold