... THE DYNAMICS OF LITERARY REPRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION IN A MULTILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT: A STUDY OF SELECTED MALAYSIAN AND SINGAPORE NOVELS IN ENGLISH ROSALY JOSEPH PUTHUCHEARY (M .A, in English ... language and mother tongues as the second The National Language (Bahasa Kebangsaan) which is standard Malay became gradually the medium of instruction in all schools in Malaysia after 1976 Although English ... was slow and somewhat erratic, it is not surprising that the main lingua franca among the non -English educated remained Bazaar Malay, while among the English educated, a new lingua franca, Singapore-Malayan...