'Know know married': playfulness of Manglish in social media platforms

Manglish is often associated with negative prestige, such as broken English that arises out of inappropriate direct translations from the Malay language into English. In recent years, however, Manglish has evolved into a range of different functions, particularly in computer-mediated interactions am...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAsian Englishes Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 140 - 155
Main Authors Serip Mohamad, Nur Husna, Shafie, Hidayu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.01.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Language status
language variations
Language varieties
Malay language
Manglish
online platforms
Social media
Sociolinguistics
South Asian English
World Englishes
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Summary:Manglish is often associated with negative prestige, such as broken English that arises out of inappropriate direct translations from the Malay language into English. In recent years, however, Manglish has evolved into a range of different functions, particularly in computer-mediated interactions among users of Manglish, and this innovative usage is referred to as 'modern' Manglish. The use of modern Manglish expressions shows certain degrees of 'playfulness' as a common feature. In this article, we adopt a World Englishes perspective and unpack modern Manglish, comparing it with a number of other named colloquial varieties, particularly Chinglish, Singlish, and Taglish, and we argue that certain usages of Manglish may serve a positive function, so they are worth researching and analysing.
ISSN:1348-8678
2331-2548
DOI:10.1080/13488678.2023.2216862