Employability of graduates is a concern in many countries, including Malaysia, and the high unemployment rate among graduates is often attributed to their lack of English proficiency and communication skills. These two distinctive elements are often collated, and it is important to find out which is more important to employers. The study examined the employers' views on the importance of English proficiency and communication skill for graduates to be employed in the Malaysian private sector. The data were from semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 employers in the private sector who were in the position to recruit staff. The 21,433-word interview transcripts were analyzed. The results revealed that employers in the Malaysian private sector view language proficiency and communication skills as separate qualities. The employers are willing to consider employing candidates with average English proficiency if they have good communication skills, except for jobs which require more communication in English such as customer service and marketing. The results also revealed that good communication skills can increase employability and opportunities for career advancement. The findings highlight the communication skills that universities need to emphasize so that their graduates have the necessary skills to perform well in employment interviews and in their work.

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This study of the pragmatics of cross-cultural text messages throws light on the evolution of new hybrid forms of literacy and on the complex ways that culture is expressed and mediated in second language/ second culture contexts. An investigation was carried out into the pragmatics of apology in first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) short messaging service text messages of adult Malay speakers who are proficient users of English, living and studying in an English-speaking university environment; and into L1 English users' text apologies in the same context. Research questions included whether these proficient L2 English users would perform differently from L1 English users in this high-stakes speech act, and from their own L1 Malay use; and whether apologies in what has been called a hybrid medium would differ from those previously studied in writing, in speech and in other electronic media. Twenty-six native speakers of English and 26 native speakers of Malay responded via text messages to discourse completion tests (DCTs) in L1; the DCTs represented either high or low levels of offence calling for apologies. The Malay native speakers also responded to apology situations in L2 English. Data were coded using an adapted version of Cohen and Olshtain's (1981) coding scheme. Analysis of the messages sent by participants revealed clear signs of a hybrid type of text that is differently conceptualised by the two communities. It also showed that the Malay users' second language literacy was shaped in a complex way that sometimes accommodated the second language/second culture and sometimes retained first language/first culture values.

This study was conducted to examine the indirect effect of distributive justice in the relationship between adequacy of benefits and individual attitudes and behaviors (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) using 190 usable questionnaires gathered from employees in Malaysian public community colleges (MPCOLLEGE sector). The outcomes of stepwise regression analysis showed that the inclusion of distributive justice in the analysis had increased the effect of adequacy of benefits on job satisfaction and organizational commitment.Furthermore, this finding confirms that distributive justice does act as a full mediating variable in the benefits program model of the organizational sector sample. In addition, implications and limitations of this study, as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Training for effective communication in high-stakes environments actively promotes targeted communicative strategies. One oft-recommended strategy is closed-loop communication (CLC), which emphasises three components to signal understanding: call-out, checkback and closing of the loop. Using CLC is suggested to improve clinical outcomes, but research indicates that medical practitioners do not always apply CLC in team communication. Our paper analyses a context in which speakers’ linguistic choices are guided by explicit recommendations during training, namely out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) resuscitation. We examined 20 real-life OHCA resuscitations to determine whether paramedics adopt CLC in the critical first five minutes after the arrival of the designated team leader (a paramedic specially trained in handling OHCA resuscitation), and what other related communication strategies may be used. The findings revealed that the standard form of CLC was not consistently present in any of the resuscitations despite opportunities to use it. Instead, we found evidence of non-standard forms of CLC and closed-ended communication (containing the first two components of standard CLC). These findings may be representative of what happens when medical practitioners communicate in time-critical, real-life contexts where responses to directives can be immediately observed, and suggest that CLC may not always be necessary for effective communication in these contexts.