Portraying economic competence in Malaysian federal budget speeches
Budget speeches are a fixed political event in Malaysia. Their content involves the whole country and a variety of domains. Despite the cornucopia of research on speeches, budget speeches are rarely selected and speeches from Malaysia have not been examined in detail. The discourse in these speec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2019
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14044/1/26497-96203-2-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | Budget speeches are a fixed political event in Malaysia. Their content involves the whole
country and a variety of domains. Despite the cornucopia of research on speeches, budget
speeches are rarely selected and speeches from Malaysia have not been examined in detail.
The discourse in these speeches can display how a developing country tackles economic
decision-making. The article explores the portrayal of economic competence in Malaysian
federal budget speeches. It conducts a linguistic analysis grounded in critical discourse
studies. The analysis employs frequency, concordance and the representation of social actors
to decipher monetary amount, politonyms, ethnonyms and toponyms. The discourse in
budget speeches can portray economic competence, which has three characteristics. First, the
government can claim to be financially solvent and propose significant initiatives. Second,
the government introduces desirable initiatives because it intervenes to ensure economic
growth. Third, the government helps citizens of several ethnicities and regions although
Bumiputeras, Sabah and Sarawak are prioritized. The portrayal entails an ideological
government-citizen binary because the government is the source of initiatives while citizens
are the target of initiatives. The portrayal was reproduced in other texts and was repeated in
the media. The portrayal became the endorsed way to think about the former Barisan
Nasional (BN) government but other parties questioned it. The article argues that BN sought
to legitimize its political power but its legitimacy became compromised, and it was defeated
in the 2018 general elections. |
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