The Many Faces of Malaysian English

Table 3

Lectal varieties of Malaysian English [45].

Sociolinguistic	Official ME (Acrolect)	Unofficial ME (Mesolect)	Broken ME (Basilect)
Linguistic	Standard ME; (Spoken & Written); Formal Use; International intelligibility	Dialectal ME; (Spoken & Written); Informal Use; National intelligibility	Patois ME; (Spoken only); Colloquial use, patois intelligibility & currency
Phonology	Slight variation tolerated so long as it is internationally intelligible	More variation is tolerated—including prosodic features especially stress and intonation	Severe variation—both segmental and prosodic, with intonation so stigmatized—almost unintelligible internationally
Syntax	No deviation tolerated at all	Some deviation is acceptable although it is not as stigmatized, as broken English, (intelligibility is still here)	Substantial variation/deviation (National Intelligibility)
Lexis	Variation acceptable especially for words not substitutable in an international context (to give a more localized context)	Lexicalization quite prevalent even for words having international substitutes	Major lexicalization—heavily infused with local language items