Identity construction in Malaysian food blogs in English

Abstract

As a former British colony, Malaysia had chosen Malay as her national language and English as the second most important language. Besides Malay, the descendants of Chinese immigrants speak a fair number of dialects. There are also the Indians and Bumiputeras who make up the diverse peoples of Malaysia, a hybridized country with multilingual citizens and myriad of cultures. Although, culture can be defined by language and customs so too can cuisine as every culture has a distinguish value embedded in food. Realizing this fact, a study on the five top Malaysian food blogs in English was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods for analysis. Only blog entries posted during Hari Raya 2008 (one of the major festive seasons celebrated by the majority of the Malaysians) were selected. The result showed that loan words from Malaysian English was universally accepted amongst the bloggers when gourmet was concerned. The five Malaysian food bloggers in English managed to portray their multicultural identity in forms of relishing appetites through cuisines.