BAHASA SEMBANG IN WEB FORUMS

Knowledge Management for Piles of Atopian Discourse

Mohd Zaidi Abd Rozan, Yoshiki Mikami

Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Niigata, Japan. 940-2188

Keywords: Bahasa Sembang, Web Forums, Knowledge Management, Bahasa Melayu (BM), Written Speech.

Abstract: The popularity of web forums has led to the creation of evolutionised bahasa Melayu (BM) known as

sembang language. Greatly accepted as common and sensible vocabularies for its communities, sembang

language has emerged as an avenue that supports knowledge-sharing-procreation practice. In this paper, we

are trying to explore the fact that bahasa sembang could serve as a melting pot for knowledge breeding

since it carries special characteristics that emulate spoken expression via explicit spelling. Furthermore, the

inclusion and blending of tacit and explicit knowledge are contributing to the Socialization and

Externalization process in knowledge management as proposed by Nonaka’s knowledge creation model.

1 INTRODUCTION

The inception of synchronous and asynchronous

collaborative system has given birth to a new lingo

called chat language or locally known as bahasa

sembang. Welcomed by netizens, bahasa sembang

is the language mostly used nowadays in web

forums, on-line chat, etc. While sembang language

is comfortably exercised for the transfer of ideas and

working out problems, this gives effect to the

growth of discussion forums as its channel. Since

the control of such neologisms is impossible,

looking at the bright side of its growth is somehow

essential.

To the best of our knowledge, up to now limited

research on sembang language was published.

Existing articles tend to superficially deal on the

existence and its negative aspect but not to any

special functionalities it carries. Those negative

aspect concerns with the numerous changes to its

morphology and syntax, (Awang, 2004) stressed that

Bahasa Melayu (BM) sovereignty will be facing an

awfully shaky journey as it is being mutated and

deteriorated in terms of its status and quality.

The following sections will relate to problem

background, objective and definition of sembang

language. This follows by our exploration based on

the Nonaka’s Knowledge Creation model elaborated

particularly on Socialization and Externalization

process for sembang language in web forums.

2 PROBLEM BACKGROUND

Even though bahasa sembang is so far infantile, yet

is seen as posing threat to its primary counterpart,

the standard and official BM. Linguists and

concerned individuals have shown their worries ever

since the beginning of the utilisation of this

language. But as language tends to develop, it is not

an easy task to get hold to (Rusli, 2005) as this kind

of scenario is being part and parcel of the Internet

technology consequences.

On the other hand, such dynamic characteristics

of this transformation are viewed as a fresh start

inculcating new sustainable force for BM in this

cyber age. While the dominancy of other foreign

languages (especially English) is regularly visible

on-line, still this modified version of BM could

easily be found and even vigorously used. This has

shown that this new breed of BM is being nurtured

rapidly without any sign of diminishing.

In this paper, our main objective will be

exploring that the usage of bahasa sembang could

possibly serve as a melting pot of knowledge

breeding in web forums. We are certain with its high

usage in discourse media, some special characteristic

do exist and aiding to the Socialization and

Externalization portion of Nonaka’s (1995)

knowledge creation model.

119

Zaidi Abd Rozan M. and Mikami Y. (2006).

BAHASA SEMBANG IN WEB FORUMS - Knowledge Management for Piles of Atopian Discourse.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 119-122

DOI: 10.5220/0001244601190122

 SciTePress

3 SEMBANG LANGUAGE BASICS

Originally the word “chat” is identified as

“sembang” from Malay language and the language

is well known as sembang language. Sembang

language is recognized in spoken and not in written,

this is in fact that sembang words are colloquially

inclined because the nature of on-line

communication at present, it is essential and only

possible that it has to be written down. This has been

the pushing factor for the modifications in spellings

particularly representing spoken words in a written

manner.

By merely looking at 10 randomly selected pages

from one specific web forum (http://asamboi.org/)

on the Malaysian cyberspace, there are not less than

300 unique sembang words that co-occurred 515

times. Based on this numbers, a considerable

amount of knowledge are being created, recorded

and updated utilising sembang language as the

discourse takes place.

Table 1: BM Evolution to the Sembang Language

Development.

BM words

(English

translation *)

Sembang

words

Evolution

Process

Transformati

on Factor

Bagi (give) Bg

Berhenti (stop) Benti

Duduk (sit) Duk

Begini (like this) Gini

No 1

Words

economisation

Ambil (take) Amik

Hantar (send) Antar

Baca (read) Bace

No 2

Similar to

spoken style

Serius (serious) Seryuz

Lepas (ago) Lepaz

Lupa (forget) Luper

Cerita (tell story) Citer

No 3

Similar to

spoken style

and

melodically

sound

*Only one literal meaning without listing all available

synonyms

(Gani, 2000) has identified few developments of

BM evolutions on the Web based on the lexical

characteristics of words. In Table 1, as an example

the transformations of Bahasa Melayu (BM) to

sembang words are shown. Evolution process no 1

occurred due to the need of words shortening or

economisation. For evolution process no 2, the

transformation were caused by the need to be similar

to its spoken component. Another transformation is

quite equivalent to process no 2 but with the

addition of melodically driven utterances. The

reason behind this is the need to drive close contact

or intimacy between speakers by having friendlier

positive (or even negative) expressions.

In Table 2, IPA is used to represent the exact and

unambiguous description for the pronunciation. Here

it is shown that three types of articulation style

involved; for written, spoken and sembang. The

original dictionary words are maintained or

transformed when being utilised in each of the style.

For the written style, words are spelled exactly as it

is. However for the spoken and sembang, normally

words are altered in spelling, for example, the word

“kenapa” are transformed to “kenape” and

“kenaper” in spoken and sembang style respectively.

These transformations occurred to suit the normal

colloquial presentation daily practiced in

conversation.

Table 2: Word Articulation Process based on International

Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Dictionary

Words

(English

translation)

Articulation Style

1. Kenapa (Why) Written Spoken Sembang

Normal Spelling

Kenapa Kenape Kenaper

IPA Spelling

Similarity with

sound perceived

Less

similar

2. Serius (Serious)

Normal Spelling Serius Serius Seryuz

IPA Spelling

Similarity with

sound perceived

Less

similar

3. Macam ini

(Like this)

Normal Spelling Macam

ini

Camni Camnie

IPA Spelling

Similarity with

sound perceived

Less

similar

Similar to words no 2 and no 3, these newly

formed words represents more expressive manner of

“written speech”. The words in sembang and spoken

shared similar resemblance for the sound perceived

if looked at the IPA spelling. Contradictory to its

typical written style, there is less similarity

compared to both sembang and spoken. This is

because standard written style does not emulate the

exact “sound” of the written words if pronounced.

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4 KNOWLEDGE CREATION

MODEL

In this paper, a knowledge management model

(Table 3) as introduced by (Nonaka and Takeuchi,

1995) will be employed. This provides the structure

for discussions by referencing to the notions of tacit

and explicit knowledge introduced by (Polanyi,

1966).

Table 3: Nonaka and Takeuchi’s KM Model or SECI

Model.

From

Tacit Explicit

Tacit

Socialization (S) Externalization (E)

Explicit

Internalization (I) Combination (C)

Managing knowledge includes its subjective and

documented type, known as tacit and explicit. Tacit

knowledge is what the knower knows, which is

derived from experience and embodies beliefs and

values. This is an actionable knowledge and

therefore the most valuable (Marwick, 2001) but

frequently unstructured, intangible and difficult to

codify because cumulatively stored in ones mind

(Fareed H. et. al., 2004).

Explicit knowledge is represented by tangible

entity, such as documents, writings or even

multimedia, which is intended to be use to transfer

its content to another person (Marwick, 2001). And

normally codified and ready to be distributed to

others without involving interpersonal interactions

(Fareed H. et. al., 2004).

4.1 Socialization (Tacit to Tacit)

Typical socialization process takes place when

sharing of experiences and information occurs by

means of face to face meetings (or telephone) and

basically due to the need of verbal communication.

Anyhow, this process could also be realized without

verbal interaction. According to (Bradner et al.,

1999), ‘chat’ evaluated as much like a conversation.

Since the style of words in sembang language is

‘chat’ alike, the structure of its spelling is very much

similar to the phonetics of spoken words. Here, the

ability to depict spoken component as conversation

is the biggest advantage of sembang language. In

this case, the spoken words that were typed by the

composer are usually rooted from colloquial style

writing. Furthermore, the inability to present the

message in speech has motivated the utilisation of

limited input device at disposal to create and achieve

spoken style as best as possible. The invention of

sembang language has very strong link to this factor.

(Binder et al, 1997) stated that language is

defined broadly to include both phonological and

lexical-semantic functions and to exclude sensory,

motor and general executive functions. This means

that the usage of “sounds” embedded in wordings

are inline with the definition. The attentiveness to a

variety of signals given by a speaker such as

fluency, changes in prosody have strong effect

towards the control of comprehension for a message

(Isaacs, 1994; Titsworth, 2001 in Piolat, 2005).

Sembang language carries specific phonetic marks

that acts as attribute in transmitting special cues and

this stylistic method often signalled how important a

particular information is conveyed. Again the need

for “speech communication” through more informal

and simpler sembang language carries the biggest

effect for socialization process and this might ease

the sharing of knowledge and expertise in this

channel.

Talking about readability, a reader reads words

in text and tends to emulate by following to his own

rhythm or beat. By having expressions that are

compounded in sembang words, it will be much

easier to follow as such rhythms are noticeable and

straightforwardly digested by the reader. This

imitate as if the reader is listening to the sound of the

words being pronounced and promotes to better

comprehend the expressions shown.

Another point to look at is the function of

language as bonding tool. This means that utilizing a

substantial amount of commonly accepted language

(such as sembang) would build good ground for

linking up with web forum communities.

4.2 Externalization (Tacit to

Explicit)

When tacit knowledge is transformed explicitly to

written articles or even diagrams, this is called

externalization. In this process, having dialogue is an

effective method to articulate knowledge with others

(Nonaka & Toyama, 2003). The main strength of it

is the possibility of making tacit knowledge explicit

by archiving. As the recording of “spoken language”

takes place, this will imitate the way to disseminate

knowledge via sound and speech.

And because tacit knowledge involves ideas that

emerge promptly from the brain, this is a natural

tacit knowledge diffusing process. A simple medium

of communication such as telephone will involve

listening and decoding hence understood by the

BAHASA SEMBANG IN WEB FORUMS - Knowledge Management for Piles of Atopian Discourse

121

listener, but not necessarily recorded. However, by

using sembang language the spoken style

articulation could be nicely recorded.

As the slower pace of web forums compared to

on-line chat, this provides opportunity mostly for

critical discussions. This provides the reason that

sembang activity in web forums is not wholly

talking nonsense or about useless agenda (Mohd

Zaidi & Mikami, 2006). On the contrary,

synchronous discussion is often suitable for very

light discussions because of the lower mental

hurdles related to this type of interaction.

5 CONCLUSION

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview on

how sembang language acts as the avenue for

promoting knowledge creation. To this stage, we

have shown that the usage of sembang language in

web forums is contributing to motivate knowledge

sharing and procreation. Furthermore, we have

demonstrated that the tacit knowledge of individuals

that are expressed in sembang style can be captured

and specially treated for Socialization or

Externalization as in Table 4.

Table 4: Utilization of Sembang Language for

Socialization and Externalization Process.

Socialization

(Tacit to tacit knowledge)

Act as an emulation of

spoken phrase by its explicit

spelling

Externalization

(Tacit to explicit knowledge)

Spoken style articulation can

be recorded as text for

archiving purpose

Looking at the Latin expression “verba volant,

scripta manent” means “spoken words fly away,

written words remains”; here lays the fact that

spoken words are likely to disappear compared to its

written counterpart. However in this study, it shows

that the possibility to record the sembang form as

the verbal style would be a contributing factor for it

to be kept alive and stored.

For a long time, oral mode is possible for very

near distance people. But now, it is possible to bring

many people who have similar interest into a room

and have them talking their oral mode but in written

style. The importance of analysing what is

happening plus the changes in the communication

media that facilitates the stimulation of evolution in

a language must be taken into consideration.

The next steps remains for our future research

are to implement words and phrases analysis in

order to understand the value of knowledge creation

from it. The potency of utilizing sembang language

in web forums is a strong research topic that we

challenged for. This will provide insights to swerve

away from being paranoid since we have less

understanding of the so called “threat” we are

facing. This issue is technically and also socially

challenging because there are huge gaps between

sembang language devotees and disbelievers. This

paradox could be viewed as inducing towards BM

deterioration or perhaps as a new prop for

development of BM in the cyberspace.

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