Gender construction in children’s literature
RAMESH Nair of the Academy of Language Studies, UiTM Shah Alam, proposed that language should be accorded greater attention in the evaluation of gender construction in children’s literature or in any other literary texts produced for children.
He made such suggestion after he found that children’s literature has served as a powerful medium through which children construct messages about their roles in society, and gender identity.
Although possessing mental schemas about gender differences is helpful when children organize their ideas of the world around them, problems occur when children are exposed to a constant barrage of uncompromising, gender-schematic sources that lead to stereotyping, which in turn represses the full development of the child.
Given the powerful influence of children’s literature, it comes as no surprise then that children’s literature has been widely researched for evidence of gender biasness and stereotyping over several decades. However, such studies have focused primarily on texts written and published in the West.
The renewed emphasis on the importance of mastering the English language in Malaysia has led to a significant rise in the number of children’s books that are being locally published. Besides the popular children’s stories from the West that have long been available at leading bookstores in Malaysia, local publishers have also begun introducing more Malaysian children’s stories in the English language. It is imperative that these local publications be measured for quality as they are an important tool for the transmission of knowledge. Considering the fact that young children are the consumers of these texts, the measurement of ‘quality children’s books’ must include a close scrutiny of gender construction.
Ramesh also explored the construction of gender in a selection of Malaysian children’s literature texts in the English language. The aim was to examine the subtle gender-based messages that these texts inherently contain.
While still relying on the content analytic method of liberal feminist researchers of the past, this study aimed to move beyond looking at just surface level features. Instead, the way in which the various characters were constructed linguistically and through visual language was also examined. It was for this reason that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was adopted as an approach to reading gender construction in Malaysian children’s literature. CDA is an approach that looks at how power imbalances are played out through choices made in language use and other semiotic modes. Four methods of analysis were relied upon - content analysis, lexical analysis, transitivity analysis and visual analysis.
The findings of the content analysis revealed significant imbalances in the distribution of female and male social actors, both in the roles that they played and their appearances in the accompanying illustrations. In both cases, males outnumbered females. Practices of stereotyping were found in the distribution of the characters in the various settings. While the home setting appeared established as a feminised space, the workplace and outdoor settings were dominated by males. The content analysis also pointed towards stereotyping practices in the way female and male characters were ascribed behavioural traits and status in society. The association between gender and behavioural trait appeared to firmly establish power in the hands of the male characters. In the next stage of analysis that focused on both written and visual language, strong nuances of sexism were identified in apparently neutral texts, revealing a weaker construction of females. The analysis of lexical units and clauses revealed deeply embedded linguistic structures that positioned males as predominantly more powerful than the female characters. The visual analysis focused on the roles the female and male characters took on in the illustrations and it was again found that male characters were accorded the more important roles of active doer while females took on the role of passive observer.
Ramesh concluded that an analysis of language, grounded in a CDA approach, offers researchers and decision-makers in the selection of texts for children greater insights into the way gender is subtly constructed.
Information Contact:
Ramesh Nair
Academy of Language Studies
UiTM Shah Alam
ramesh@salam.uitm.edu.my
Discolouring wastewater
CAPTIVATING colours, fostering the allure of batik, is now adorning the silhouette of supermodels in Milan, Paris and New York. They strut in tones and tints of our batik.
However effluent flushed by batik manufacturers is filled with dyes and chemicals. Habsah Alwi and team are working to clean batik effluent using the humble jering (Pithecellobium Jiringa). We seem to have this love and hate relationship with jering, having it as our delicious delicacy and salad but abhoring its pungent smell. Alas, now we are to love it more, it will help us clean our dirty water.
Habsah sees that Jering has the knack to reduce the colors of dye in the wastewater of batik factories. Traditionally jering is a type of vegetable, where the young seeds normally eaten fresh or raw for healthy living and medicinal values, especially believed to prevent diabetes and high blood pressure. When mature, the seeds are cooked. The young leaves of its tree, dark purple in colour, is also eaten raw. Unfortunately the new generations seldom eat this traditional ulam, both seeds and young leaves, in their meals because of its strong odour.
Jering , also called jengkol by the Malay community, belongs to the family of Legumnasea, a sub family of Mimosaceae. It is believed to have originated and widely distributed in Indonesia, Malaysia and South Thailand. The seed is 3-5 cm across with yellow testa when young, turns brown when mature. The strong odour from the seed has limited the consumption of this valuable herb. It is believed that alcholoid in jering is the main composition that helps to reduce sugar level and high blood pressure. However, Jering can only be eaten regularly in small amount as djenkolic acid from this seed may form crystalline in the kidney if consumed too much.
As its popularity as a dish is waning, Habsah and colleagues investigated if jering could be used for other uses. Biodegradable and containing active ingredients, it is believed that its pod and seed can be used to reduce pollutants in wastewater. This suits the textile industries. Textile manufacturers, especially local manufacturers of batik, produce a large amount of effluent. As jering is available in abundance, it could be another good means to treat this wastewater.
In the experiment, the pot and seed were cleaned and separated, crushed and sieved to get the homogenize size. Then both of them were put into the oven at temperatures ranging from 50-1000C for one day to dry. A few samples of batik wastewater were put into several beakers and the initial characteristics of the sample were recorded. The dried seed and pod powder were poured into these beakers. The reduction in colour was observed periodically and its changes were compared with the colour of the untreated water.
In the experiment, the blue wastewater turned lighter after a contact with the dried jering. Habsah explained that this might be due to the active ingredients, djencolic acid and alcholoid. Djencolic acid and alcholoid are believed able to entrap the blue pigment through their adsorption mechanisms. Furthermore, the elements of ferum and calcium also help in agglomerating the pigments and able to settle the pigments by gravity settling. The sedimentation of pigments was filtered, leaving a lighter blue wastewater (supernatant). Then it was treated by flowing it through an activated carbon to adhere to the requirements of the Department of Environment.
Our ulam jering treating wastewater? Indeed it is. Habsah thinks that further research need to be done to investigate the active compounds that help to remove colour. The research may benefit villagers and aborigines, who trade the jering, to improve their income and well-being. Habsah’s findings may also give rise to new ideas in the search for other ‘green’ resources to treat textile wastewater.
What about researching our humble ‘petai’?
Information contacts:
Habsah Alwi
Radziah Wahid
Nor Hazelah Kasmuri
Suhaiza Hanim Hanipah
Fauziah Marpani
Faculty of Chemical Engineering
UiTM Shah Alam
habsahalwi@salam.uitm.edu.my
No more smelly drains
THE drain may not be big but its smell is annoying. Many ways are suggested to avoid smelly drains – do not throw food in drains, pour boiling water, throw salt, put baking soda, use distilled vinegar and many more. Master’s student Saliha Mohamad and her professor, Suhaimi Abdul Talib of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM Shah Alam, discovered that sulphur and nitrogen can help us get rid of this old age problem.
One of the ways water in drains can be smelly is due to the transformation of sulphur compounds. Anaerobic decomposition of wastewater in sewer systems that generate sulphur compounds have been identified as a major cause of problems of toxicity, foul odours and corrodibility. This happens due to the transformation of sulphur compounds in wastewater that forms hydrogen sulphide.
Also, the emission of sulphide in sewer systems corrodes the sewer structures. It makes them smelly where sometimes wastewater treatment remains ineffective. Sulphide, as well as other volatile organics compounds, are very toxic and can emit obnoxious odour even at low concentration levels (10 mg/L). It is produced when organic matters decompose in the sewer system. Worse, lack of ventilation and reaeration in the sewer system makes it smellier. Hydrogen sulphide, which smells like rotten eggs, is also flammable and very poisonous to us and animals, causing death at high concentration.
Usually, sulphide will be produced more easily and faster in warmer climates countries. Thus Malaysia, being a hot-climate country, has a serious problem in her sewer systems in the midst of anaerobic conditions of hydrogen sulphide. Not only hot climate countries, temperate climate countries also face great problems of concrete deterioration in their sewer systems. The US Environment Protection Agency (US EPA) had investigated sewer systems in 131 cities and reported that 66 of them had corroded through the emission of sulphide into the sewer atmosphere as hydrogen. Then hydrogen sulphide will diffuse into a thin liquid film on the sewer surfaces. Here, chemoautotrophic bacteria will oxidize the sulphide to sulphuric acid. The biogenic sulphuric acid will react with the cementitious material of the concrete and corrode the sewer wall, eventual causing structural failure of the sewers.
The US EPA reported in 1991 that the range of concrete deterioration rate in the country’s sewer pipes was 2.5-10 mm year in its investigation of 34 cities. Similar observations were made in Denmark and Portugal. Corrosion of sewer walls will then cause ex-filtration of wastewater into groundwater, polluting the receiving waters, making it unhealthy and smelly.
Thus Saliha and her professor theorized that the microbial transformation in wastewater during transportation can improve the performance of wastewater system. As basic kinetics of anoxic sulphide oxidation in sewer systems serves as an important tool to reduce the hydrogen sulphide, (by adding of nitrate) they discover that odour can be reduced. Secondly, as sulphide is reduced, the workers responsible for sewer systems will also be protected from its toxicity. Thus the corrosion of sewer wall also can be reduced.
Their test was conducted on wastewater from a manhole near the In-Sewer Processes Laboratory of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM Shah Alam. The wastewater was collected as a raw wastewater sample in the peak rate of wastewater flow between 8:30 am to 9:30 am. The wastewater was collected from three different places that were, the Faculty of Office Management, the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the cafeteria. The grab sampling method was used to collect the sample wastewater. To ensure that the anaerobic condition occurs naturally and similar to the condition in the sewer system, the collected samples were kept in an air tight container for 14 days before being tested in a batch test.
After the test, they found that the wastewater in sewer systems could oxidize the sulphide biologically under anoxic conditions, thus they created a process to oxidize sulphide to sulphate in a single-step process. Also, nitrate was reduced to nitrogen gas through a two-step process. Hence less odour occurred then.
The result of this study usable by our local authorities to provide guidelines to enhance municipal wastewater treatments in sewer systems. On top of that, the results may be useful for wastewater engineering companies in Malaysia to upgrade the existing sewer systems to reduce odour, prevent corrosion problems and reduce health risk from hydrogen sulphide formation.
In the same vein, this study has also contributed to establish basic kinetics and pathway of sulphide oxidation under anoxic condition in bulk water phase. However, it is recommended that investigation on the transformation rate of sulphide in biofilm to establish full anoxic sulphur oxidation be conducted. Likewise, studies on micro level should be conducted as knowledge on microrganisms activities at molecular level will enhance understanding on microbial transformations of sulphur compounds.
Information Contacts:
Saliha Mohamad
Suhaimi Abdul Talib
Faculty of Civil Engineering
UiTM Shah Alam
ecsuhaimi@salam.uitm.edu.my
sal_saliha@yahoo.com
Marrying Mathematics and tudung saji
AT the Plato’s Academy in Athens, reads ‘Let no one ignorant of Mathematics enter here.’ Recall our Mathematics class at school? It did crack and tease our brain somehow.
Being one of the oldest fields of knowledge, Mathematics, introduced by the ancient Greeks, Arabs and Indians, now is assisting the tudung saji weavers in Malacca and Terengganu – deepening the art and mystique of the tudung saji.
Mathematician Daud Mohamad of the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences and his research team conducted an ethnomathematics study on tudung saji weaving.
The tudung saji is a type of food cover used by Malaysians, especially those in rural areas. They are a woven conical shape cover, from the strands of mengkuang (Pandanus family) or a type of palm plant called sal (Licuala species). The pandan strands, dipped in dyes, dried, and later softened, are woven in a specific technique called triaxial or hexagonal weave, where the strands are plaited in three directions.
Weavers use five-strand plaits to weave a tudung saji. Traditionally, five strand-weave is the most favorable to get the right proportion of shape and size. The weaving is begun by building a cone-shaped latticework of triaxial weave. The latticework, functioning as a framework, is begun by plaiting five strands to form a pentagonal opening. This is followed by interlacing another five strands at the vertices of the pentagon to form five hexagonal openings. Adding five strands each time will enlarge the structure, developing it into a conical shape. From the edge of the cone, colored strands are then interlaced upward and across in between the openings on the framework, resulting in a hexagonal tessellation, presenting an illusionary three-dimensional cubes. The illusion deepens the mystique of a tudung saji.
Interestingly though, in this study, the weavers claimed to Daud that more patterns could be accomplished if the weaving of the framework favors the right strands (where the right strands are placed on top of the left strands) and the five-pointed star at the top is turned counter-clockwise. As experienced weavers, they also claimed that a left-handed weaver will produce a different pattern of weave had he or she woven right-handedly. They concluded that a left-handed weaver weaves a different pattern from does a right-handed weaver.
However, Daud and his colleagues, engaging their Mathematical skills and logical mind, thought otherwise. They argued that the employment of either left-hand or right-hand weaving leaves no impact on the number of patterns produced. To them, the patterns created by left-hand weaving are just mirror images of the ones that of a right-hand weaving. Both patterns are just chiral to each other.
Daud and colleagues also believed that the turning of the five-pointed star, either clockwise or counter clockwise, should not make any difference in the number of patterns created. They said that it was that there are two chiralities in weaving. Thus if a cover is made with a particular chirality, then a similar one could also be produced with the opposite chirality. Hence, the weavers’ claim was deemed unacceptable.
Then, they ran an experiment. The weavers told that the weaving of the framework must begin with five strands of pandan to form a curvature at the pentagon and attain the conical shape. But the mathematicians mulled this over and wondered whether there was some significance attached to this number, and whether it would be possible to build the framework with a different number of strands. They accepted the weavers’ claim that the structure would lie flat if the weaving was started with six strands, but they were curious and wanted to know what would happen if the framework was begun with three, four or seven.
In the first trial, a conical-shaped, triaxially-woven latticework that was started with four strands was built based on the structural construction of an old Chinese hat. This structure was shown to the weavers and they were invited to reconstruct it and figure out possible ways of filling up the openings. Since they had always believed that the cone shape could only be obtained with a starting point of five strands, all of the weavers were quite amazed to see that if the cone shape could still take shape if only four strands were used instead.
After several attempts, they succeeded in forming a peak out of four strands, and proceeded to fill up the rest of the openings. However, due to its shape, which when compared to the regular 5-strand peak cover, is sharper at the apex and narrower around the edge, the weavers unanimously decided that the new structure was unsuitable to be used as a food cover.
Two of the weavers later claimed that it is possible to make a 3-strand-peak, conical tudung saji. However, the triaxial weave occurs only at the apex, and the succeeding weaving technique follows the rectangular mat weaving style, where the strands are interlaced perpendicularly to each other. In other words, this piece of work does not permit any openings and therefore requires no insertions. As a result, it allows no creation of the typical tudung saji patterns.
This style is unpopular with the weavers because it is much more difficult to make, time-consuming, and costly since it requires the use of more strands. Furthermore, only weavers who are skilled at mat-weaving patterns can weave a tudung saji of this type.
However, the mathematicians helped the weavers see a new concept in weaving and to a certain extent, change their views in weaving. Thus later, they produced a 2-peak and 3-peak tudung saji which helped them gain more sale. An innovative narrow tudung saji that one of the weavers built by interweaving 4 strands at the starting point which produced a 2-peak tudung saji, sold more. Customers seemed to appreciate a high tudung saji as it can cover tall objects like a tea set.
Isn’t it stylish to cover your tea sets? Mathematics is a challenging but an engaging discipline, training the mind and stretching imagination, in this case, the weavers’.
Information Contact:
Daud Mohamad
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
UiTM Shah Alam
daud201@salam.uitm.edu.my
Reviving the Iban alphabet
BROMELEY Philip of UiTM Sarawak attempted to revive the Iban alphabet. The Iban (Iban refers to people) is a plural term in itself, similar to the usage of the term Chinese) of Sarawak. It does not possess any form of writing system that can be universally used by its large community. There was however an interesting individual effort at inventing some forms of a writing system. One known writing system is that invented by Dunging anak Gunggu, acknowledged in the Encyclopaedia of Iban Studies (2001). This Iban Alphabet is not an ancient system of writing as the inventor lived well into the mid-80s. The alphabet manifests the dynamism of a modern alphabet suitable for practical inscription. It comprises syllabic writing and alphabetic writing symbols. The former consists of syllabary, representing syllables in the Iban language. The latter comprises true alphabet of consonants and individual vowels or vowel clusters.
The earliest recognition of Dunging’s Alphabet can be found in a comprehensive Iban-English Dictionary written by Anthony Richards (1981). A very meaningful recognition of Dunging’s Alphabet was made in the Encyclopaedia of Iban Studies published by Tun Jugah Foundation in 2001. His alphabet can be found under the ‘alphabet’ entry which devotes several pages to Dunging’s related work. It is very clear that Dunging’s Alphabet is the only known writing system within the Iban community which therefore strongly suggests that his alphabet could be the only alphabet ever to have come into existence within the Iban society. In this respect, it is possible therefore to acknowledge that Dunging’s Alphabet may well also be known as the Iban Alphabet. In 1947 Dunging invented 77 characters/symbols representing phonological sounds in the Iban language. His alphabet was taught to a few of his nephews while the rest of the people in his community were too illiterate to appreciate the significance of his alphabet then. Undaunted by the poor response from the surrounding community, Dunging kept revising and refining his alphabet until after almost 15 years he managed to discard some overlapping and redundant characters.
The alphabet is practical in terms of usage as it can be used to spell Iban words accurately. There are several sounds in the Iban language that cannot be distinguished distinctively in terms of spelling using the Roman alphabet; the word ‘mata’ (for eye) and ‘mata’ (for raw – fruits/food). The Iban alphabet however can distinguish between the exact sounds of the syllables to represent each sound in accurate orthography. In fact, it is very clear that Dunging’s Iban alphabet is a comprehensive system of writing that provides sufficient characters representing accurate syllabic sounds in the Iban language. The alphabet is characterised by features of modern alphabet. It comprises 59 characters whereby 16 characters symbolise consonants and the rest (43) represent vowels in the forms of vowel clusters and diphthongs. The Iban alphabet in its computer fonts is known as LaserIban which is available in the form of software for installation in computers. LaserIban fonts for Windows and Macintosh are completely cross-platform compatible, as regular Word files, in the same manner as regular English fonts. By developing the characters into computer fonts, the system of writing will become more systematic for inscriptional purposes. With a systematic set of alphabet, it should enable the users to use it more conveniently considering the fact that there are 59 characters to remember. In other words, a systematic system of writing enables its practical use with much ease.
Information contact:
Bromeley Philip
Academy of Language Studies
UiTM Sarawak
jurorbp7@lycos.com
bromeley@sarawak.uitm.edu.my
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