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Institute
Thomas Bowrey, who was an employee of the British colonial government, visited the Malay-speaking region at the end of the 17th century and published a dictionary of Malay (1701) which consists of 12,683 headwords. It is one of the oldest and largest collections of data on this language, which was the first language of the people he came into contact with while travelling through the Malay Peninsula, spending most of his time in harbours along its west coast. Malay, which was spoken in the various trading centres of this area (e.g. Penang, Malacca), had long previously begun to develop into a form of lingua franca during Bowrey’s stay there due to the fact that traders, especially those from Arabic countries (beginning in the 12th century), China (from the 15th century onwards), Portugal (since 1511), the Netherlands (since 1641), and less so from England, came into contact with Malays speaking their local dialects in the various trading posts in Malaya and probably began to become acquainted with the trade-language variant. Thus, Bowrey must have observed and recorded elements of both.
The data he collected is not limited to Malay variants spoken in coastal areas, but includes material from dialects which he encountered during his travels throughout the Malay Peninsula, though without, however, describing the locations in which he took notes on the lexicon and clauses. Not all of his material was written into manuscript form during his stay in Southeast Asia. A large part of his notes taken in situ were prepared for publication during his long journey home. His notes, which were used to print his dictionary, are in part kept in British libraries. Most of the material accessible to the public was studied during the preparation of this thesis.
Earlier works on this dictionary are quite limited in scope. They deal with very specific aspects such as the meanings of headwords found between the letters A and C (Rahim Aman, 1997 & 1998), and the work of Nor Azizah, who deals with the lexical change found in Bowrey’s dictionary between D and F, and syntactic and sociolinguistic aspects (Mashudi Kader, 2009), and collective nouns by Tarmizi Hasrah (2010). This study will discuss Bowrey’s dictionary as a whole in order to describe its contribution to our knowledge of linguistic and non-linguistic facts in 17th century Malaya. Besides analysing Malay synchronically, this thesis also deals with historical-comparative questions and asks whether Bowrey contributes to our knowledge of the changes to the Malay language between the 17th and 21st centuries.
In order to answer the research questions, this study not only relies on the dictionary in its entirety, but also on the notes found in British libraries as well as other material on early Malay, such as the Pigafetta list (1523), Houtman (1598–1603), and the Wilkinson dictionary (1901) as a complement to Bowrey’s dictionary; at the same time, the Malay Concordance Project (online), the SEAlang Project (online), Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (online), and Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat (2007) will represent modern Malay. It should be borne in mind that in contrast to the Thomas Bowrey dictionary (TBD), Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat (KDE4) does not hold information on colloquial forms of Malay, many of which reflect features of lingua franca Malay. This study is divided into two different branches, namely the consideration of synchronic aspects and historical comparative aspects.
Finally, this study concludes that the Malay language in Thomas Bowrey’s dictionary is heavily influenced by both external and internal factors prevalent to the 17th century. The Malay language recorded in the Thomas Bowrey dictionary is very similar to modern Malay. The similarities between the Malay language of the 17th century and the Malay language of today are considerable, even though there are, of course, still some notable variances.
This study examines the political contestation among Malay Professional Satirists (MPS) through their selected political satire works between 2011-2018. Political satire challenges those in power and is often regarded as fake news and libel. Therefore, political satirists tend to be frequently subject to legal action and are accused of disrupting national harmony. However, there is another group within the social and cultural community, which I call Social and Cultural Professionals (SCP), who also use satire but are supported by the government. This group frequently received financial benefits from the state and are at lower risk of suffering legal consequences. These contrasting conditions raise several important questions: who are the Malaysian Professional Satirists? Who are the targets of MPS in their satirical work? Why do MPS satirise them? And why do the MPS still produce political satire despite the potential legal consequences? Therefore, this study attempts to identify the characters, themes, and issues the MPS highlight; it also considers the reasons and motivations that political satirists have for creating such allegedly controversial works. Malaysia’s Reformasi movement and the booming use of the internet in 1998 mobilised multiple alternative social movements, mainly through art-related activities. Art workers, NGOs, as well as musical and cultural groups, protested creatively against the UMNO-BN ruling regime. Creative protests that employed satire and humour somehow succeeded in attracting a significant proportion of the public to follow political and current issues, especially youths in universities who had been depoliticised with the inception of the University and University College Act (AUKU 1979). This study establishes a point of view that political satire is a fun, loose, free form of resistance, contrasting with formal procedural democracy. The previous literature proposes that the study of Malaysia’s political system should focus on formal political procedures, especially election and representation. However, the study of political satire vis-à-vis democratisation is often neglected and thus such studies are scarce, which might have resulted from how satire is strictly discussed in terms of language and media. There has been a growing interest in how satirist and satirical works are regarded; hence, this study attempts to fill a gap in research on political satire in Malaysia. In contrast, democratisation is often discussed in terms of history, politics, anthropology, sociology, and economics. This qualitative study presents a comprehensive account of interviews with four (4) art workers identified as MPS, as based on appropriate criteria. Each informant had either partaken in alternative social movements or faced legal action from authorities or, indeed, both. In this study, the Theory of Contestation and Two-Social Reality serves as a primary framework to lead to an understanding of the contestation of power in Malaysia through political satire. This study further intends to broaden the knowledge of political satire and humour in the study of democratisation, adding to the existing literature, particularly outside formal political procedures.
This study explores literary representations of gender and sexuality in contemporary Malaysian Popular Fiction in English (MPFE) written by Malay Muslim authors that are published in between the years 2010 to 2020. It questions why gender and sexuality are considered sensitive topics and the public discussion of these topics is deemed taboo by some Malay Muslim traditionalists and contemporary scholars of Malay literature. Previous studies suggests that Islamic rules and regulations influence the Malaysian Malays worldview. Its sacred book, the Quran, has established clear-cut prohibitions against any sexual indulgence among its believers. Muslim writers must learn to restrict themselves from indulging in sexual writings in order to prevent them from intentionally or unintentionally arousing their readers’ sexual fantasies that may lead both parties to sinning. However, at the end of the twentieth century, many factors such as the impact of modernisation through scientific and industrial revolution on Malaysian society, the influence of Western Humanities theories among local intellects, and the introduction of Internet culture have contributed tremendously to the dramatic social changes in Malaysia. These changes are reflected heavily in its literary culture. In recent years, the Malay people’s awareness of their body and individuality is heightened. There is a surge of curiosity among contemporary Malay Muslims about their gender and sexuality and they would want a discussion. Following this development, the first objective of this study is to provide the latest discussion on gender and sexuality in MPFE by Malay Muslim authors. The second objective is to provide observations on how MPFE authors employ their literary strategies to approach aspects of gender and sexuality in their literary works. It pays attention to how writers express their acceptance, negotiations, and/or rejections towards the dominant “normative” or “common” values in the Malay society with regards to their body and sexuality. Using textual analysis to examine one novel and six short stories from the MPFE genre, this paper cross-examines Malay literary theories on sexual and erotic literature available in Pengkaedahan Melayu (Malay Methodology), Persuratan Baru (Genuine Literature), as well as Western theoretical approaches in Postcolonialism, Postmodernism and Feminism on gendering system and sexuality, in its aim to explain the growing interest in the topics in spite of the red-tape around sexual taboos in Malaysian literature.
Quo vadis Papua: case study of special autonomy policies and socio-political movements in Papua
(2021)
This research discusses socio-political movements in Papua as a result of the implementation of special autonomy policies (Otsus) by the government for almost two decades. Theoretically, indigenous Papuans should support it but in empirical reality, Otsus has been considered "fail" by the indigenous Papuan people because there are still many problems that have not been resolved by Otsus. This negative response indicates public dissatisfaction towards the development planning process in Papua. This dissertation aims to examine these issues; why these policies and development plans failed and are protested, why protests against them are prolonged, how do protests develop into social movements, and whether indigenous Papuan movements can be classified as social movements. The study uses qualitative approach, through case study methods. Data are collected through interviews, observations and documentation studies. The research finds that the presence of Otsus in Papua in addition to being a source of new conflict, also triggers conflicts in the form of protests and resistance movements against the government of Indonesia, both physical and political. This research discovers that, indeed the Otsus management has succeeded in changing the face of Papua because of the many physical projects but the development of human aspects and supporting instruments has not been touched at all. Thus, only a small percentage of indigenous Papuans feel the benefits of Otsus, while most of them are still struggling. This paper finds that protests against Otus are due to the growing resentments from the community so long as their demands are not met. This study suggests that the presence of the state in Papua through the Otsus policy must be re-evaluated. The state must ensure that in the Otsus era, the indigenous Papuans should not be marginalized, so that aspirations for the welfare of all indigenous Papuans through Otsus can be realized.
The Nok Culture of Central Nigeria is known for its sophisticated terracotta figurines initially described in the 1950s by the British archaeologist Bernard Fagg. Since 2009, the Nok Culture has been the subject of research at the Goethe University Frankfurt within the scope of a long-term project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This book is the outcome of a PhD thesis that involved pXRF analysis of features associated with the Nok Culture, namely stone-pot-arrangements and pit features.
Stone-pot-arrangements are considered to be burials, indicated by arranged and modified stones associated with complete pots and, in a few cases, a necklace made of stone beads. However, the absence of bones and other skeletal remains meant that their interpretation as burials was unresolved. The interpretation of pits or pit-like structures, of various shapes and sizes, also remained inconclusive.
Employing pXRF analysis succeeded in revealing traces of a decomposed body, supporting the hypothesis of stone-pot-arrangements being interments. Together with the analysis of pits, new ideas about the formation and use of Nok sites were advanced. These culminated in a 'patchwork model' that assumes a repetitive cycle of utilising land for farming, settlements and burials, followed by abandonment and subsequent re-visiting and re-use of the formerly abandoned land.
The study focuses on the introduction of a health education curriculum in Cyprus’ public schools. The curriculum’s implementation is looked at as a project of modernization and is examined ethnographically in two primary schools in the Republic of Cyprus over a period of three years. Utilizing theories and methods from Science and Technology Studies and Global Ethnography, the study examines the entanglements of Science with Culture and of Tradition with Modernity as experts, teachers, parents and children encounter the new health education curriculum. Health education is compared to a project of biological citizenship and the curriculum is seen as an actant attempting to form a personal obligation towards health by promoting “common sense” knowledge and privileging “modern” individuals.
The dissertation studied reused Roman coins (AD 100 – 400) that were found in medieval cemeteries (AD 400 – 1400) in the territory of Serbia. The evaluation process was traced through three different periods and cultural contexts: (1) in the period of Roman domination in the central Balkans (AD 1 – 400), i.e. the “primary context” of their use and circulation; (2) in the time of transition from the late antiquity to early medieval period (AD 400 – 700); and (3) in the high and late Middle Ages (AD 900 – 1400), where the last two were considered to be a “secondary context” in which the Roman coins were no longer a valid currency.
It was observed that the reused Roman coins, as a distinctive category of archaeological finds, impose a necessity for reconsideration of the relationship between the disciplines of archaeology and numismatics; encouraging a greater cooperation and discussion between the two. Considering the use and evaluation of Roman coins in their “primary context”, it is possible to presume that the strength of the political Roman system was the crucial factor in the formation and maintaining the stability of the value of Roman coins. The act of reuse should not be automatically equalized with recycling; implying only to use value, but at the same time it was not possible to assume that the value was formed only on a purely symbolical level. The (re)use of Roman coins in the funeral practices from c. AD 400 to 700 was considered to be a part of wider and occasional practice of incorporating older Roman issues in the coin pool by the “barbarian” or Byzantine authorities. It could be then concluded that the value of Roman coins was understood more as a potential attribute than as a fixed category; enabling one to simultaneously “overvalue “ and “undervalue” these objects. In the period from c. AD 900 to 1400, the reuse of Roman coins was detected only within the cemeteries of the peasantry and in a context of gradual increase of general coin use in the central Balkan communities of the Middle Ages. This was understood as an indicator that the Roman coins were not perceived as particularly valuable per se, but since the were recognized as category of objects that became more important in defining social relationships they were then incorporated in the funeral rituals and reinterpreted by the medieval population.
This dissertation is an investigation of pitch accent, or lexical tone, in standard Croatian. The first chapter presents an in-depth overview of the history of the Croatian language, its relationship to Serbo-Croatian, its dialect groups and pronunciation variants, and general phonology. The second chapter explains the difference between various types of prosodic prominence and describes systems of pitch accent in various languages from different parts of the world: Yucatec Maya, Lithuanian and Limburgian. Following is a detailed account of the history of tone in Serbo-Croatian and Croatian, the specifics of its tonal system, intonational phonology and finally, a review of the most prominent phonetic investigations of tone in that language.
The focal point of this dissertation is a production experiment, in which ten native speakers of Croatian from the region of Slavonia were recorded. The material recorded included a diverse selection of monosyllabic, bisyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic words, containing all four accents of standard Croatian: short falling, long falling, short rising and long rising. Each target word was spoken in initial, medial and final positions of natural Croatian sentences. This research fills several gaps in the existing literature. Namely, the production of tone was investigated in words with a syllabic /r̩/, in pretonal syllables and in non-initial context. Acoustic parameters measured included duration, F0 in every 10% of the nucleus duration, overall pitch, pitch range and pitch peak alignment.
Results showed that differences between falling and rising accents in Croatian are produced mainly with tonal parameters and that the most salient features were pitch peak alignment and overall pitch. The difference between long and short accents was primarily durational and optionally tonal. Words produced in initial and medial sentence positions had a rising contour in their accented syllable, while in the final, segments were usually falling.
The research focuses on magic - the practice of performing tricks and illusions on stage aiming at entertaining the audience. In the late XIX-early XX century magic achieved an outstanding social recognition and became an important artistic phenomenon. This study aims to analyze the work of the most prominent magicians of the late XIX-early XX centuries and to define the historical role of magicians in the history of culture and art.
Using methods of art history and cultural studies, I analyze the autobiographies of magicians, the literature on magic published during the period in question, and contemporary press. I approach the history of magic from three different perspectives: magic as a branch of show business, magic as a cultural phenomenon, and magic as a type of performing art. It allowed me to create a detailed account of magic as a social, cultural and artistic phenomenon.
I argue that magic became a highly influential cultural phenomenon of the late 19th- early 20th centuries in Great Britain that represented the idea of real magic on stage. Magic shows reflected a complex relationship between rational and magical thinking that existed in society and produced narratives about science and the supernatural.
Moreover, very few studies have focused on the question of defining magic as an art form. In the thesis, I analyzed the theoretical works on magic written by magicians and developed a framework for further research on magic from the perspective of the history of art.
This research investigated variation in the pronunciations of three RP vowels phonemes /e/, /ɜ:/ and /ə/, among Ewe speakers of English in Ghana. It focused on variation at both individual and societal levels, investigating how social relations within these structures influenced the use of the three vowels among the speakers. In this study, social structures were seen as a system where individual members depended on one another and were linked through multiple ties. The distribution of the vowels was in respect with the social variables: age, gender and education, including dialect and social network. The study used a corpus of word-list recorded in a face-to-face interview from 96 participants selected through stratification and networking across two dialect regions: Aŋlɔ and Eveme. Using both aural and acoustic analyses, coupled with ANOVA and t-test, the study has shown that the three RP vowels exist in Ghana Eve English as independent phonemes. Each of them however has allophonic variants; /e/ has variants [e̠], [ɪ] and [ɜ:]; /ɜ:/ has [eː] and [ɜ:], while /ə/ has [ə], [ɪ], [o] and [ʌ] as its variants. The choice of the variants of /ɜ:/ and /e/ have been found to depend on speaker age, gender, and social network. But the geographical location of the speaker will largely determine how these vowels are spoken. Phonological contexts as well as speaker idiosyncrasy are also likely to condition the choice of some of these variants, however, their effects seem less important as determinant of the differences observed than those of the social factors. It is evident that age, gender and class differentiations that have been widely reported cannot be universal, they can vary from one society to another. Also though social structures as well as social relations in a speech community can play significant roles in the individual’s linguistic repertoire, the attitude of the speaker and the phonological contexts of a segment can have a huge impact on the use of that variable.