Local Academic Attends Int'l Malay Language Conference.

A local academic in the Malay language and linguistics will be delivering his views on multilingual as one way to empower the regional lingua franca at the Conference of International Malay Language to be held at the Hotel Holiday Villa, Subang, Kuala Lumpur from tomorrow until November 20.

Dr Yabit bin Alas, Head of Malay Language and Linguistics Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), will deliver his working paper entitled "Multilingual Empowers the Malay Language".

Dr Yabit will also answer enquiries on his paper as well as explain the subject in detail, which will be posed by conference participants.

A total of 20 working papers will be up for scrutiny at the three-day conference, 10 by language experts in Malaysia and the rest from foreign nations.

Organised by the Institute of Malaysian Malay Language Teachers in Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, the conference will analyse ways to further improve the language in areas of semantic, morphology, syntaxes, dialectology, dictionary, language history, extinction and language development, cooperation in language works, education and development in Malay language, Malay as a language of knowledge, research and development, Malay Language as Lingua Franca, Malay Language in the era of post-lingua franca (1500) and Malay language in the era of technology and globalisation.

Themed "Empowering the Malay Language at International Level", the conference will be opened by the Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi tomorrow.

The objectives of the conference include studying the development, distribution and usage of the Malay language in the world today; sharing experiences in enhancing the education and usage of the Malay language at higher learning institutes, related organisations and the public sector; forming cooperation network and circles in education and developing the contents of the Malay language at the international level; finding strategies and approaches towards the empowering of the Malay language at the national and international levels; and introducing Malaysia and an institute specifically as a training centre for teachers of Malay language, Malay literature and culture, as well as centre of language development.

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