On oral Malay folktales

Abstract

Studies on written Malay folktales are abundant, but more work needs to be done on the oral nature of these folktales. The literary and the oral versions of these tales are completely different and should be analysed separately. Thus, this thesis presents an in-depth analysis on the oratory nature of Malay folktales. The methodology undertaken to study this topic was through audiorecorded oral interviews with 11 respondents. This thesis adopts a qualitative analysis in order to study this topic. It hopes to contribute to the expanding literature of oral Malay folktales and encourages readers to offer new ideas and perspective to this research as well.