Foreigner and Foreign in English-language Newspapers in Malaysia: A Frame-semantic Approach

Toshiko Yamaguchi, Huixin Yeo

Abstract


This paper explores the usage of two morphologically related words, foreign and foreigner, in two major daily English-language newspapers circulated widely in Malaysia. On the basis of 285 tokens, the study shows a striking tendency indicating that they do not share exactly the same semantic content. While foreign is used neutrally to modify things or people from a country other than Malaysia, foreigner is found frequently in four negative contexts (running illegal businesses, entering Malaysia illegally, bringing diseases to Malaysia, and misusing marriage in Malaysia). Using Fillmore’s frame as a theoretical construct, the study seeks to explain why foreigner tends to correlate with negative connotations, while foreign does not. The central idea is that the person attribute attached to foreigner invokes positive/neutral and negative values, and that the semantics of foreigner and foreign incorporates our schematic knowledge about everyday life. In conclusion, these results are stated to shed light on ‘the changing tenor of English’ in Malaysia.

 

Keywords: English-language newspapers in Malaysia; foreign; foreigner; frame; person attribute


Full Text:

PDF

References


Barsalou, L. W. (1992). Frames, concepts, and conceptual fields. In A. Lehrer & E. F. Kittay (Eds.), Frames, fields, and contrasts: New essays in semantic and lexical organization (pp. 21–74). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A. (2004). Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Egharevba, S. (2004). Rethinking the concept of prejudice: Immigrants-knowledge-based analysis in Turku, Finland. International Journal of the Sociology of the Law, 32, 191–221.

Evans, V., & Green. M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Fillmore, C. J. (1982). Frame semantics. In The Linguistics Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm: Selected papers from SICOL-1981 (pp. 111–137). Seoul: Hanshin.

Gawron, J. M. (2011). Frame semantics. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. H. Porter (Eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning (Vol. 1) (pp. 664–687). Berlin/Philadelphia, PA: De Gruyter Mouton.

Itkonen, E. (2008). The central role of normativity in language and linguistics. In J. Zlatev, T. P. Rachine, C. Sinha, & E. Itkonen (Eds.), The shared mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp. 279–305). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Kagan, J. (2007). What is emotion? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago, IL & London: The University of Chicago Press.

Leimgruber, J. R. E. (2013). Singapore English: Structure, variation, and usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oropesa, R. S. (2015). English, Spanish and ethno-racial receptivity in a new destination: A case study of Dominican immigrants in Reading, PA. Social Science Research, 52, 132–146.

The Oxford English dictionary (2nd ed.) (1989). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

The new Oxford dictionary of English. (1998). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Platt, J., Weber, H., & Ho, I. M. (1984). The new Englishes. London & Melbourne & Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Plutchik, R. (1994). The psychology and biology of emotion. New York, NY: Harper Collins College.

Schreier, D. (2005). Consonant change in English worldwide: Synchrony meets diachrony. Basingstoke & New York, NY: Palgrave.

Semyonov, M., Raijman, R., Tov, A. Y., & Schmidt, P. (2004). Population size, perceived threat, and exclusion: A multiple-indicators analysis of attitudes toward foreigners in Germany. Social Science Research, 33, 681–701.

Taylor, J. R. (2009). Linguistic categorization (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157