Authors : Imran Ho-Abdullah, Ruzy Suliza Hashim and Norhafizah Mohamed Husin
Abstract: Lexical collocation is a universal phenomenon in any language. Repetitions of any lexical item with other words form specific patterns. From the point of view of natural language processing, collocations can be divided into two categories. First, collocation which is formed by chance because of the high usage of any particular word in a text. The other category are words which collocate with other words for some significant reason. The patterns of collocation are different between texts and users. This study explores lexical collocations of the word Melayu in Hikayat Abdullah, the nineteenth century text renown as the first Malay autobiography by Munsyi Abdullah. This quantitative study investigates the strength of association of the collocates using the mutual information scores and the semantic fields of the collocates to discern the representation of Malayness in the Hikayat. The results indicate that the collocates with strong association with Melayu to the semantic fields of bahasa (language); bangsa (race); institusi (institutions) and nilai (values).
Imran Ho-Abdullah, Ruzy Suliza Hashim and Norhafizah Mohamed Husin, 2010. Lexical Associations of Malayness in Hikayat Abdullah: A Collocational Analysis. Research Journal of Applied Sciences, 5: 429-433.