Investigating The Role Of English Language In A Malaysian Public University: The Case Of Administrative And Support Staff.

Abstract

Towards these ends a study was conducted using respondents from two Universities in Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). As Malaysian public universities cannot help but' be affected by globalization, a study that looks at how they are equipped linguistically to meet the challenges of globalization is appropriate and timely and may serve to provide the general picture desired. Hence, the present study concentrated on two Malaysian public universities and focused further on a segment of the population of the universities, namely the administrative and support staff of the universities. The administrative and support staff represents an entity that sees not only to the administrative matters of the university and but also the public relations and promotion of the university. Within this category, respondents were selected from the "front liners", i.e. those involved directly with the universities' clients, and the ''back benches", i.e. those involved primarily in administrative. work and not directly with clients.