Multiliteracies in a new era
Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - 21-09-2012
NEW LITERACY: Widen the vistas for mutual cooperation through a variety of languages, cultures and meanings
MY keynote address at the recent First International Conference on Tertiary Language Education was Multiliteracies in a Rapidly Changing World.
The event was organised by Taylor's University at its beautiful Lakeside Campus which opened its doors about two years ago.
Multiliteracies refer not to any specific school of thought, but the common understanding of the state or quality of being literate.
It is not limited to the ability to read, write and count.
It entails the capacity to learn and use all forms of visual media and communication, including pictures, maps, videos, ideas and even body language.
Taken in the context of a rapidly changing world, multiliteracies are needed to cope with the waves of globalisation or internationalisation as one needs to assume multiple identities.
This is because of the inability to cope with the various demands of not only the command of language, but also the nuances of cultures and norms of values of the diverse world population.
The language of nature also speaks to us every day as we live symbiotically with it.
Perhaps Rachel Carson's seminal book, Silent Spring, written some 50 years ago is a classic example.
Carson was struck by the absence of some species of birds and insects allegedly due to the widespread use of chemicals in the environment then.
This alerted her to the fact that humans are poisoning Mother Nature for their own greed in the name of "progress and development".
This is now a major concern as we battle to rid Earth of obnoxious chemicals that are threatening not just the animal species, but also the survival of the human race.
Likewise, as we champion the use of English -- spoken by no more than 10 per cent of the world's elitist population -- we are silencing many other languages spoken by the majority.
It is estimated that by the end of the century, fewer than 1,000 languages from about 7,000 will exist. A language dies every 14 days declared the National Geographic.
Far more important than this is the concurrent death of meanings, knowledge and wisdom associated with the cultural use of languages. English, for example, is weakest when it comes to describing anything related to the desert environment, the mountainous regions or the sub-arctic.
This is due to the fact that the language was developed in a totally alien environment.
As the world prepares for severe water shortages in the future, we will not be able to articulate the workings of the oasis that preserve and distribute water through the technology of khettara with its fine and sustainable engineering methods, primarily because of its indigenous origin that it is inadequately described in the English language.
Unlike in the Persian language and languages elsewhere in the West Asian region, there is no equivalent of khettara in the English language (which describes it as "pump" technology) as we learnt during the recent Conference on University Leadership in Knowledge Diversity for Sustainability at the Albukhary International University.
Without the ability to be multiliterate, we will once again be put into a colonised state of a techno-cultural dominance in an ironically diverse world.
The situation becomes even more untenable when education, especially tertiary, is insensitive to the need to be multiliterate as higher education institutions speak about being global citizens.
Understanding and bridging cultural context must be among the crucial tasks of universities.
This is to widen the vistas for mutual cooperation through a variety of languages, cultures and meanings that culminates in multiliteracies to develop the universal culture of peace and multiple identities.
This is the higher education's vital new role in the post-colonial era.
- The writer is the vice-chancellor of Albukhary International University