In the world of Sinophone cinema, Malaysia has played a significant role in its creation and production though its pioneering contributions have often been underestimated in past decades. The early...Show moreIn the world of Sinophone cinema, Malaysia has played a significant role in its creation and production though its pioneering contributions have often been underestimated in past decades. The early 2000s saw a resurgence of Sinophone Malaysian cinema with the Malaysian New Wave, led by independent filmmakers, which subsequently spurred a rise in Sinophone Malaysian film productions throughout the 2010s. This thesis examines multiple sounds of Sinophone Malaysian independent cinema in the 2010s, focusing on its linguistic and sonic elements in relation to the identity of Malaysian Chinese. It provides a close reading of four recent films by Malaysian Chinese filmmakers: “The Story of Southern Islet” (2020) directed by Chong Keat-aun, “Absent Without Leave” (2016) and “Boluomi” (2019) by Lau Kek-huat, and “Malu” (2020) by Edmund Yeo. The analysis centers on the role of multilingualism, creolized languages, accents, and sounds in constructing Malaysian Chinese identities, and representing diverse, sliding positions of minoritarian voices, as well as the ongoing tension between diaspora and anti-diaspora. In doing so, this thesis affirms the subjectivity of Sinophone Malaysian cinema and argues for its significance in studying the intersection between Sinophone cinema and Malaysian cinema.Show less
Non-native English accents, imprinted with the organic condition of a foreign tongue, sometimes can trigger harassment and violence from native speakers. Being a ‘scandalous’ linguistic performance...Show moreNon-native English accents, imprinted with the organic condition of a foreign tongue, sometimes can trigger harassment and violence from native speakers. Being a ‘scandalous’ linguistic performance of an alien body, non-native accents epitomize how the body demarcates the agency of speech, and at the same time how speech impinges on the bodily domain. To understand accent-related violence and the intertwined relation between body and speech, this paper examines accented speech within a hate speech paradigm, and seeks to add a further degree of nuance to this area by including a close reading of certain scenes depicted in literary texts. Accented English, often labeled as ‘broken’ or ‘fractured,’ determines to a large extent the social relevance of the speaking body. Moreover, accented speech functions not always as a voluntary ‘coming-out;’ in some cases, the accented speaker is not socially sanctioned to remain silent, but is forced to speak out his/her foreignness. However, accented speech does not necessarily point to passivity; it questions the native speaker’s ingrained perception of his/her ‘natural’ bond with the mother tongue, all the while giving rise to a different kind of survivability for the accented speaker.Show less