A Malaysian Literary Researcher’s Explorations and Contributions in the Context of Current Trends in Literary Analysis

1. A Malaysian Literary Researcher’s Explorations and Contributions in the Context of Current Trends in Literary Analysis Malachi Edwin Vethamani, PhD Professor and Dean School of Education, Languages & Communication Wawasan Open University

2. Introduction • Why carry out research? • What do you want to research on? • Will your research contribute to a body of knowledge? • Do you or anyone care? • Do you present your research findings at conferences? • Do you publish your research findings and papers?

3. The Beginning … • Finding a niche area of one’s own • Researching on an area that would of interest • Researching on an area that has both academic and personal interest • Sustaining interest in research area • Researching in area that has continued academic interest

4. Contemporary literary research concerns: • Driven by critical theory reading of texts • Various forms of discourse analysis: • Stylistic analysis • Text analysis: Examines texts as communication systems and uncovering and describing text grammars.

5. Critical Theories Reading literary texts using a range of critical/literary theories from Formalist reading to Deconstruction to gender-based, politically-based and post-modernist readings

6. Discourse Analysis Stylistic analysis: A more scientific reading of texts that examines the effects writers affect through the use of words on readers Textualinguistic Analysis: Examines texts as communication systems and uncovers and describes text grammars.

7. My research journey • Choosing a niche area of research • Bibliographical research • Anthologising creative writing • Discourse analysis: • Stylistic Analysis • Post-colonial theory • Malaysian Literature in English in the Malaysian school system

8. Choosing a niche area of research • Malaysian Writing • Malaysian Literature in English

9. Bibliographical research • Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English • Long-term project • 7 years of research before publication in 2001 • Still on-going

10. Anthologising creative writing • Compiling literary texts for publications • 2003 Published anthology of Malaysian poems • Currently working on a volume of short stories and second volume of poetry

11. Discourse analysis Reading literary texts: • modality • transitivity • conversation analysis

12. Stylistic Analysis Reading literary texts: From lexis to syntax to discourse Cohesion Graphology Phonology Dialect Register Period

13. Post-colonial theory • Theorising Malaysian literature in English • Diaspora • Hegemony • National and Sectional literature • Emergency of Malaysian literature in English as a literary tradition

14. Malaysian Literature in English in the Malaysian school system • Malaysian Literature in English in language education • Malaysian Literature in English and current issues • Malaysian Literature in English for multiculturalism

15. Conclusion There is a need to document the development of Malaysian writing in English, especially by Malaysians, when there are misreadings by foreign critics. … These omissions and misreadings of Malaysian Literature in English indicate a need for Malaysian scholarship on one’s own literary tradition. Vethamani (2005:1)

16. Thank You www.edwinvethamani.com