Previous studies have delved into the analysis of motion verbs (MV) from both structural and theoretical perspectives. From a structural viewpoint, it was observed that MV is not mandatory in sentence structure, leading to the emergence of a specific pattern in Malay, DP-PrepP. On the theoretical front of previous theory, scholars suggested that MV still plays a role but implicitly in sentence structure, particularly when appearing with Prep. This conclusion implied thatMV becomes optional in the presence of Prep. However, these analyses exhibit notable gaps, specifically the absence of a comprehensive explanation regarding the factors that render optional MV in sentence structure. Consequently, the optionality of Malay motion verbs is reexamined through their morphosyntactic features within the Minimalist framework. Data for this study were sourced from the DBP corpus, focusing onMV coupled with the PrepP 'ke.'. The findings indicate thatMV is frequently associated with PrepP 'ke' tends to be a non-ergative verb. In the vP shells analysis, MV acquires explicit and implicit existence features [+Ov, +Cov] from the Prep carrying the [direction] feature. PrepP contributes locative information [Loc] to the MV within the sentence structure. Additionally, the study reveals that in a non-ergative structure, the MV when positioned as the head of V is elevated to the small kposition to fulfill theta and case marking requirements. This research is anticipated to serve as a valuable reference for future MV investigations centered on its morphosyntactic features and its influence on sentence structure.
This study presents the systematic development and validation of a Standard Malay (SM) version of the North Wind and the Sun (NWS) passage, a foundational tool for phonetic and clinical research. Grounded in Nida's (1964) Equivalence-based Model, the translation prioritised functional equivalence to ensure semantic and communicative parity with the original English stimulus while maintaining cultural naturalness. Using a qualitative design, the text underwent a rigorous process of forward and backward translation, expert harmonisation, and linguistic metadata analysis. Results indicate that the SM NWS captures 19 out of 23 primary SM phonemes. The absence of the remaining four segments, specifically the fricatives /f, v, z, integral/, is explicitly justified by their low functional load and peripheral status as loanword phonemes within the Malay phonological system. Consequently, the stimulus provides robust coverage of high-frequency segments essential for motor speech and prosodic assessment. This research fills a critical methodological gap by providing a linguistically validated, standardised stimulus that replaces structurally incongruent regional variants, thereby enhancing the reliability of clinical speech evaluation and cross-linguistic phonetic research in the Malaysian context.
Mother-daughter conflict has been widely discussed in family and communication studies, but linguistic analyses that explain how such conflict is constructed through language remain limited. This study aims to investigate how interpersonal conflict between mothers and daughters is constructed in two animated films, Brave (2012) and Turning Red (2022). A qualitative approach is used to explore how power relations, and emotional evaluations shape the intensity and escalation of conflict through a multi-layered linguistic analysis. Data were collected from purposively selected film scenes involving interpersonal conflict, including disagreement, interference, and negative emotion. The data were examined through content analysis, drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and the Appraisal theory. The findings show clear contrasts in how each film constructs conflict. In Brave, conflict is largely normative and reflected in the frequent use of prescriptive declaratives and high-value modality. Meanwhile, in Turning Red, conflict is more emotional and marked by repeated imperatives, pressured interrogatives, and strong inclination or prediction modality. Across both films, affect and judgement contribute to the escalation of tension by foregrounding emotional intensity and moral evaluation. Negative propriety in maternal speech and positive tenacity in daughters' resistance show how authority and autonomy are negotiated within the mediated discourse of these films
This study explores the linguistic preferences between the terms perempuan and wanita in reference to women in contemporary Indonesian society, highlighting how language reflects and shapes gendered identities and social positioning. While prior research has examined these terms in formal texts and news media, little attention has focused on their use in mediated spaces, where social media enables rapid circulation, negotiation, and reinterpretation of meaning. Employing a qualitatively driven mixed methods approach, this study combines an online survey of 271 social media users recruited through convenience sampling with a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of Instagram posts. The study reveals that perempuan is often preferred for its association with empowerment and activism, while wanita continues to be used in formal or professional contexts. Survey results further indicate that some participants strategically alternate between the two terms to navigate complex social and professional landscapes through evolving linguistic practices. Using SketchEngine software, corpus data of 516,633 tokens from Instagram posts support these patterns, demonstrating that perempuan appears more frequently than wanita in the social media discourse of this study's sample. The study also identifies a growing disconnect between the KBBI (The Official Indonesian Dictionary) definitions and societal usage, suggesting that official lexical norms may lag behind lived linguistic practices. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of how linguistic choices shape and reflect women's agency and identity in Indonesian society and underscores the evolving discourse of women's empowerment in contemporary contexts.
English loanwords have become an important feature of contemporary Malay, particularly in domains shaped by global knowledge, technology and academic discourse. However, previous studies have often treated loanwords as descriptive lists or as general evidence of language contact, with less attention to their lexical distribution and structural integration in Malay. This study adopts a corpus-based approach to examine English loanwords in Malay academic magazine texts and to identify patterns that reveal their broader linguistic significance. The data comprise approximately two million words of well-formed Malay academic magazine articles, supported by a digital Malay lexicon containing 12,504 lemmas and 49,933 lexical words. Using corpus linguistic procedures, the study distinguishes between lemmas and individual lexical items, identifies loanwords of English origin, and analyses their grammatical classes, morphological behaviour and frequency patterns through a relational database system. The findings show that English loanwords constitute 3,982 lemmas, or 32% of the lexicon, but only 6,794 lexical words, or 14% of the lexical items, indicating that they are numerous but relatively less morphologically productive. Most borrowings are nouns, while directly borrowed verbs are rare. However, Malay morphology forms verbs from borrowed nouns, especially through a certain circumfix. The study also identifies borrowed complex adjectives as a possible emerging subclass in Malay. Overall, the findings suggest that English loanwords not only expand the Malay lexicon but also contribute to ongoing structural innovation in contemporary Malay.
Culturally dense classical texts pose persistent challenges for machine translation, particularly in reconstructing compressed semantic hierarchies and culture-specific references. Although Neural Machine Translation (NMT) and Large Language Models (LLMs) have substantially improved fluency and contextual coherence, previous studies have given limited attention to the evaluation of their performance on culturally embedded classical texts using MQMbased human evaluation alongside automatic metrics. Focusing on the English translation of the Shan Hai Jing, a culturally dense and semantically complex classical Chinese text, this study investigates whether different translation systems produce distinct error patterns in culturally compressed contexts and whether prompting strategies influence translation performance. Selected textual segments were translated using Google Translate and ChatGPT under minimal and enriched prompting strategies. Translation quality was assessed through MQM-based human evaluation alongside several automatic metrics (BLEU, chrF, BERTScore, and COMET-Kiwi). MQM analysis reveals clear differences in error patterns across systems: NMT outputs show a higher incidence of high-severity mistranslations, whereas LLM outputs tend to exhibit semantic generalisation and shifts in cultural references. By contrast, automatic metrics show limited differentiation in system rankings, with no significant main effect of system observed. Prompt enrichment does not produce consistent quality improvements and occasionally increases semantic drift. These findings suggest that translation quality in culturally compressed texts may be better interpreted through structural error patterns across MQM dimensions rather than metric-based rankings alone. Evaluation sensitivity appears to be shaped by text type, and increased prompt complexity does not necessarily enhance semantic precision in classical translation tasks.
This article examines how participatory fanfiction reconfigures the Joker as portrayed in Todd Phillips's Joker (2019), transforming Arthur Fleck into a "tragic villain" whose psychological depth invites sustained reader empathy. While the film already departs from comic-book canon by presenting the Joker as a socially marginalised and mentally fragile figure, the Wattpad fanfiction Joker (2019) by artham_asylum extends this transformation through emotionally immersive storytelling. Using qualitative textual analysis, this study investigates how fan-authored narratives advance character complexity through narrative mechanisms not typically explored in canonical media. Addressing a gap in existing research, which often overlooks how fans reshape both canonical and non-canonical reimaginings, this study applies an adapted conceptual framework from Henry Jenkins's principles of drillability and worldbuilding, extended here to include reimagined themes and role-swapping. Drillability explores survivor's guilt, fractured agency, and moral ambivalence, while worldbuilding reconstructs the social and emotional architecture surrounding Arthur's descent. These mechanisms allow fans to produce original meanings and critique structural violence through character revision. The findings position fanfiction not as a derivative expression, but as a critical and creative form of participatory authorship. It challenges fixed character archetypes and contributes to broader discourses on authorship, trauma, and narrative ethics in digital storytelling.
Cognitive reserve in everyday problem-solving and decision-making abilities is influenced by both demographic and experiential factors. Cognitive reserve should ideally remain stable across ones' lifespan; however, ageing is often accompanied by cognitive decline for some individuals, highlighting the need to identify factors that may help preserve cognitive reserve in later life. Malaysias' multilingual landscape provides a unique context for examining whether lifelong exposure to multiple languages contributes to cognitive resilience in older adults. Therefore, this study investigates whether or not being bilingual or plurilingual contributes to cognitive resilience among Malaysian older adults who participated in the MyAgeWell Program. 352 community-dwelling participants above 60 years old completed assessments of global cognition, everyday functional problem-solving, and decision-making tasks. Cognitive function was measured using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), whereas everyday cognitive processing and behavioural decision-making were assessed using the Malaysian Everyday Problems Test (MEPT). Age and Number ofLanguages spoken were treated as primary predictors, while Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion were included as control variables. General Linear Model (GLM) analyses were conducted to examine the associations between age, number of languages, and MoCA and MEPT scores, controlling for demographic factors. Partial eta squared (eta 2p) was reported as a measure of effect size. The overall GLMs were significantfor both MoCA and MEPT. After controlling for demographic variables, both Age and Number of Languages significantly predicted performance. These findings underscore the importance of age and language experience in cognitive and practical problem-solving functioning, contributing to a better understanding of cognitive ageing in Malaysia.
While numerous studies have explored formulaic language in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) across genres and registers, the linguistic demands of rapid digitalization, especially in online business news, remain underinvestigated. Unlike previous studies, this study analyses lexical bundles in business news articles published in 2025, capturing shifts in register driven by trade policy and tariffs. Specifically, the studys' objectives were to investigate the frequency of lexical bundles used in online business news from January to May 2025, and to examine the extent to which a functional taxonomy can characterize these bundles. A total of 450 business news articles from three news agencies, i.e., BBC, CNN, and Reuters, comprising 321,225 running-word tokens, were compiled and analyzed using the AntConc software. The analysis identified 67 four-word lexical bundles meeting the frequency and range criteria. Structurally, noun phrase-based bundles, e.g., the worlds' largest and a global trade war, were the most frequent, followed by prepositional phrase-based, verb phrase-based, and clause-based bundles. Functionally, referential bundles, e.g., in the first quarter and at the same time, were predominant, particularly those indicating identification/focus and time/place/text deixis. Stance bundles and special conversational bundles, especially reporting expressions, e.g., said in a statement, were also notable. The outcomes of this study provide meaningful resources for instructors to improve students' learning of lexical bundles, specifically in online business news. Furthermore, the findings suggest that ESP instructors should prioritize noun-phrase structures to help students master the linguistic style of modern digital reporting.
