Manuscript Title: A Discourse on the Malay Cultural Identity within the Malaysian Society Author(s): Khalidah Khalid Ali Accepted Date: 02-December-2020 Please cite this article as: Khalidah Khalid Ali. 2021. A discourse on the Malay cultural identity within the Malaysian society. Kajian Malaysia (early view). This is a provisional PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. © Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2021. This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Kajian Malaysia (early view) A DISCOURSE ON THE MALAY CULTURAL IDENTITY WITHIN THE MALAYSIAN SOCIETY Khalidah Khalid Ali Department of Management & Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Perak, MALAYSIA Email:
[email protected] ABSTRACT The Malays are the main ethnic group of Malaysia, representing 50.4% of the total population and 63.1% of the population distribution in Peninsular Malaysia. They are among the identified bumiputeras, together with the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia and indigenous groups in Sarawak and Sabah. This discourse study relates to the cultural identity of the Malays and investigates on their ethics and values from social constructionist approaches. Cultural identity includes the cultural background, religion/spirituality and socialisation. This research concurs with other studies that the Malay culture was characterised by a mix of Animism, Hinduism and Buddhism, although the Malays have been identified with Islam as their religion.