Papers by Selvajothi Ramalingam
Names and naming practices reflect the socio-cultural background of a community. The giving of na... more Names and naming practices reflect the socio-cultural background of a community. The giving of names is therefore not merely an act of labelling but represents constructs of identity that reflect the collective self-representation of a community and its worldviews. This study examines the naming practices of the Telugu in Malaysia and investigates the morphological structure and the semantic properties of Telugu names. To accomplish those research goals, survey interviews were conducted with 288 respondents in four different Malaysian states. Using descriptive statistics, a narrative analysis of the survey responses was used. Six experts in the Telugu culture were then invited for a focus group discussion. Before the results of this analysis are presented, detailed information about the Telugu and their naming traditions are provided. As will be shown here, among the Telugu, name-giving is a sacred act that is performed during a traditional naming ceremony called the Barasala. Durin...
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics which involves the study of the contextual meanings of wo... more Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics which involves the study of the contextual meanings of words and phrases as well as sentences in terms of spoken and written communication. As technologically-enabled means of communication, social media and YouTube are prominent and play important roles as marketing tools. In this context, TED Talks are useful for creating awareness among the young generation about significant issues, inspiring, motivating and cultivating their confidence so as to encourage them in the pursuit of their career goals. The ideas promulgated by TED speakers are often impressive, producing powerful influences on audiences. However, it could be rather difficult to comprehend the intended meanings of the language used by these speakers from the pragmatic perspective, where it has its own functions in relation to the choice of words in the speech. Therefore, the present study investigates the way speech acts are utilised by TED Talk speakers and how audiences are attracted to and convinced by their presentation skills. The data was collected from the TED Talks webpage and the talks were based on millennial workplace. The data was analysed qualitatively (Creswell, 2014) by applying speech act theory (Searle, 1979) in the analysis of assertive, directive, expressive, commissive, and declarative illocutionary acts. The findings show that assertive types were the most predominantly used by these three speakers in conveying their intended ideas. The findings further reveal that directive types were the second most used by the speakers, the purpose of which was to incite the listeners to deliberate on the ideas expressed in the talks based on the topics. It is hoped that the present study provides ideas to speakers for choosing the appropriate speech acts in conveying their intended messages in their talks.
Common Ground Research Networks, 2021
This study focuses on the spoken conversations between Millennial undergraduates and their lectur... more This study focuses on the spoken conversations between Millennial undergraduates and their lecturers regarding the manner in which the students plead with their lecturers for additional time to complete their assignments. The research aimed to investigate the approaches used by these students through analyses-based politeness strategies and also whether approaches divergent from those strategies have been introduced by the Millennial undergraduates. Ten undergraduates were selected for participation in simulated situations in which their assignments were delayed for submission to their lecturers. The duration of each simulation was 3 minutes, and they were recorded and transcribed with annotations based on transcription notation symbols and coding based on the politeness strategy. The lecturers involved in the study were interviewed to determine their perspectives on the students’ ability to converse courteously and their perceptions on the potential for success in obtaining assignm...
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2021
The primary objective of this study is to apply Aristotle's ethos, pathos, and logos framewor... more The primary objective of this study is to apply Aristotle's ethos, pathos, and logos framework to evaluate job interview performance by fresh graduates participating in online interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic (March-May 2020). Data were collected from twenty participants (males 12 and females 8 between 22 and 24 years old) from one of the organisations in Malaysia. The data were analysed qualitatively using NVIVO based on Aristotle's framework. The findings revealed that the selected candidates predominantly used ethos 75%, pathos 40% and logos 58% compared to the reserved and the non-selected candidates. Furthermore, the non-selected candidates had poor English language proficiency, persuasive skills, and communication skills. The present study highlights the value of Aristotle's framework for understanding interview presentations, points to the importance of persuasive skills mastery by university graduates, and also informs course designers and practitioners wh...
SAGE, 2021
This study applied a “moves analysis” approach to examine job application letters written by 25 M... more This study applied a “moves analysis” approach to examine job application letters written by 25 Malaysian graduates obtained from an outsourcing organisation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The letters were analysed as to whether they adhered to the seven aspects of the “moves structure” used to analyse job applications (i.e. establishing credentials, introducing candidate, detailing advantages, enclosing relevant documents, ending appropriately, offering incentives, and using pressure tactics). Additionally, interviews were held with five human resource managers from five different organisations. From the interviews, the managers emphasised that it was important that job application letters should contain at least five of the seven moves from the framework. The findings obtained revealed that Malaysian graduates employed five out of the seven strategies from the moves structure and had covered the basic format of the job application letter. Most applicants omitted Move 5 (using pressure...
SAGE, 2021
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the words and phrases used by student gr... more The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the words and phrases used by student graduates in job interviews. Twenty-Seven Malaysian graduates participated in the study. “How to face challenges” was the focal theme chosen for analysis of the data. The findings indicated that successful interviewees covered six out of seven important employability skills, while interviewees on the reserve list covered only four of the employability skills, and the unsuccessful interviewees covered only three of the seven skills. Successful interviewees were deemed able to portray high level proficiency by using the most salient words and phrases to express their employability skills in the interviews. It is expected that this study will encourage current undergraduates to develop high level language proficiency regarding their employability and foster training in this area by educational institutions so as to benefit their students.
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 2020
Free online resources are user-friendly technologies which have become available through the Inte... more Free online resources are user-friendly technologies which have become available through the Internet in recent years and gaining popularity during Covid-19. Since learners use smartphones, free online resources are easily accessible. Books are portable, but learners find it somewhat difficult to learn English language via books which may only be available in the classroom context, whereas free online resources are easily accessed. The purpose of this study is to identify learners' perception learning English via free online resources and traditional learning. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the present study. Twenty-five international pre-elementary intensive English students took part in this study. It was found that learners perceived the free online resources as valuable tools for learning English in relation to reading, conversation, and vocabulary and also free online resources help promote free learning norms in learning the English language. The learners also had constructive attitudes towards free online resources. Free online resources always provide a motivating learning environment, enhance learners' analytical and critical thinking skills, and encourage social interaction between teachers and learners, learners and their peers, and learners and other participants.
Journal of Indian Studies
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities(MJSSH), 2020
Social distancing and other protocols required during the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularl... more Social distancing and other protocols required during the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularly difficult for students who are disabled, especially hearing impairments students. During the Covid-19, many disabled students were impacted physically, mentally and their interactions may have been hindered. That could be one of the barriers for full and active participation in society during the Covid-19. Therefore, this study aims to discover the challenges faced by hearing impairment students how it affects the communication and mainstreaming process. The data was collected from ten hearing impairments students and analysed qualitatively. The participants were aged between 19-22 and currently studying foundation programme in culinary arts in a skill transformation center. The participants were interviewed using impromptu interview questions via WhatsApp, which lasted about ten minutes for each participant. The findings show that there were four challenges faced by the hearing impair...
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 2020
The present study focuses on an evaluation of intercity Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) perfo... more The present study focuses on an evaluation of intercity Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) performance delivery on customer satisfaction and commuter services. Its objective is to evaluate the customers' satisfaction of KTMB intercity towards the performance delivery of various services. As such, a framework was proposed for major dimensions which have an impact on the level of services satisfaction provided by my KTM commuter. Furthermore, the study employed qualitative and quantitative methods for the purpose of analysis. Data was obtained using 600 questionnaires and 18 staff via interview session. The findings show that status and age of respondents have no significant influence on safety and security, cleanliness, facilities, as well as services except between the categorical variables; quality, punctuality and price which have significant differences tangled with the performance of commuter service. From all the responses that were pointed out by interviewees, the most si...
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2020
Malaysia faces several environmental issues, such as rising sea levels, water pollution, air poll... more Malaysia faces several environmental issues, such as rising sea levels, water pollution, air pollution, climate changes, acid rain and soil erosion for the past few years. It is important to save the environment because by doing so, it will not only attract more tourists from foreign countries to come for vacation in Malaysia, but it also encourages manufacturers and consumers to support green product. Therefore, Malaysia should allocate the use of green products in daily life. Still, there are marketers who face problems in identifying and specifying factors that influence consumers to go green, which are; price, knowledge, eco-label and social influences. The environmental problem as well as lack of literature research about green products purchasing intention and minor companies that are involved in green production are also one of the problems that lead to the difficulties of this allocation. This research aims to identify the relationship between price, knowledge, eco-label and social influences towards consumer green purchase intention in Petaling Jaya. A theoretical model was developed and tested using quantitative survey approach. The data collection which are designed in five Likert-scale were gained from random 150 respondents in Petaling Jaya based on non-probability sampling. The results indicate that the most significant relationship between consumer green purchase intention is price. While knowledge, eco-label and social influences play important role too in influencing consumer purchasing intention towards green product although they do not give the most significant relationship. It is concluded that price sensitivity is found to be relative and consumers are willing to buy green product if the price of the green product is the same as the other non-environmental-friendly product.
Asian Journal of University Education, 2020
The present study was conducted to analyse the use of word order in job interviews. The data was ... more The present study was conducted to analyse the use of word order in job interviews. The data was collected from participants in an organisation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ten candidates of different races between the ages of 23 and 25 participated in the study. Radford's syntactic theory of word order was employed to qualitatively analyse the data. It was found that positive sentences were predominantly used by the selected (n = 10; 47.4%) compared to the not selected (n = 10; 44.0%) and keep in view (KIV) (n = 23; 39.0%) job candidates. The findings further revealed that the types of word order used in utterances by the selected candidates were different compared to those who were not chosen for interviews. Selected candidates used more negative sentences, subordinate clauses, and time expression in sentences, whereas those who were not selected utilised adverbs of manner in negative sentences, subordinate clauses, and time expression in sentences, while the not selected candid...
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2020
It seems that many English language learners have deficiency to write persuasively. This portent ... more It seems that many English language learners have deficiency to write persuasively. This portent has been observed among university students, particularly those from technical fields. Therefore, the present study examines the use of ethos, pathos and logos in persuasive email writing and determines if these features were used appropriately. The participants involved in this research were 43 third-year Malaysian engineering students. The task evaluated was persuasive email writing, and the data was obtained from an official university website forum. The data was analysed qualitatively by using Aristotelian rhetorical theory. The results show that there were some persuasive techniques used by the students in their email writing. It appears that the appeal to pathos was preferred highly in directly connecting with the emotions of the instructors. This was followed by appeals to ethos, where the students used their own ethicality and credibility to persuade the instructor into giving them an extension deadline of their classwork. The findings further revealed that appeal to logos were not used in a very persuasive manner, which could also due to avoiding logical fallacies. Therefore, the present study shows the engineering students prefer to link with emotions in their email writing in achieving their goals. Key words: persuasive email, ethos, pathos, logos, engineering students
Journal of Language and communication , 2018
This study focuses on the evidence of self-repair and analyses the practices of self-repair in na... more This study focuses on the evidence of self-repair and analyses the practices of self-repair in naturally occurring conversations in an institution of higher learning between eight students whose mother tongues were not English. The aim of this study is to increase non-native English speakers’ attention to both language and the medium’s comprehensibility. This study utilized a qualitative method (Creswell, 2014), and content analysis was used to analyse the data. Audio-recorded face-to-face conversations were obtained from eight postgraduate students from one of the public universities in Kuala Lumpur. The data were transcribed using Jefferson’s (2004) transcription notation symbols. The data were analysed based on self-repair strategies, which were the lexical, morphological, syntactic, pragmatic, and explicitness strategies (Mauranen, 2006). The findings show the occurrence of self-repair participants applied in enhancing their language fluency to improve their language proficiency and increase the level of explicitness of their language production. The findings further reveal the ways that non-native speakers of English use to improve proficiency and explicitness so that they become more understandable and able to communicate with others in daily life.
Keywords: language proficiency, non-native speakers of English, self-repair, explicitness strategies
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Papers by Selvajothi Ramalingam
Keywords: language proficiency, non-native speakers of English, self-repair, explicitness strategies
Keywords: language proficiency, non-native speakers of English, self-repair, explicitness strategies