Lexical Characteristic in Malaysian Inter-Religious Discourse

Abstract

The numbers of religious issues in Malaysia within 30 years indicates that inter-religious discourse among different religious adherents is not always easy to handle and cannot be easily understood due to the complexities of various issues involved. This study aims to (1) identify the keywords in inter-religious issues in Malaysia, and (2) discuss the lexical characteristic in inter-religious discourse in Malaysia. The discussion is based on the meaning concept suggested by Russell (1940). The data in the discussion relate to the three religious issues in Malaysia which are interpreted as having sensitive and provocative words from 2011 until 2015. The data were gathered taken from local newspapers and interviews with religious authorities. The discussion shows that keywords in inter-religious issues, such as hurt, disappointment, misunderstanding, ignorance etc. are based on negative perception toward the practice of people from different religion. The result also shows that negative gradable for all the issues, such as religious hatred, shocked and angry need to be encountered. The study suggests that the negative perception toward different religious practice needs to be understood comprehensively by examining the reason behind the disagreement of the practice, and any circumstance to create religious misunderstanding must be avoided.