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Corpus Planning

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Language Choice in Postcolonial Law

Part of the book series: Language Policy ((LAPO,volume 22))

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Abstract

Less overtly political than status planning, corpus reform is nonetheless generally undertaken by institutions related to centralised power structures. Bourdieu (1982:21) argues that language standardisation becomes indispensable with the emergence of nations as abstract, legal entities.

Laras perundangan khas, orang biasa tak faham [the legal register is special and not understood by ordinary people]. So it will take time to build up legal Malay.

Dewan Bahasa lexicographer (2013.12.17)

At the time of Maha Wangsa [the Great Dynasty] we were the power and Malay was used in law and everything else. But if we want to show our greatness again, have more dictionaries, more glossaries. Don’t just dwell on the past.

Shah Alam advocate (2013.12.08)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    University of Malaya law student, class of 2012.

  2. 2.

    Interviewed in Kuala Lumur, 2013.12.

  3. 3.

    Interviewed at UM, 2013.8.

  4. 4.

    Sri Lankan attorney, interviewed Tokyo, 2011.2.

  5. 5.

    ‘Standard language’ commonly associated with initiatives by Anwar Ibrahim, as minister of Education in the 1980s, to promote pronunciation to the written form, a practice more common in Indonesia than Malaysia.

  6. 6.

    Interviewed at a corporate law firm in KL, 2013.12.

  7. 7.

    Interviewed in KL, 2013.12.

  8. 8.

    The term used for Chief Justice until 1994.

  9. 9.

    Also the first female Chief Judge of Malaya; the current holder, Zaharah Ibrahim, is the second. In May, 2019, Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat was appointed the nation’s first female Chief Justice.

  10. 10.

    Bertikaian, for example, is to be substituted for berhujah for (‘contentious’).

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  1. Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

    Richard Powell

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Powell, R. (2020). Corpus Planning. In: Language Choice in Postcolonial Law. Language Policy, vol 22. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1173-8_4

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