Covid-19 Issues in the Official Speech Text of Malaysian Prime Minister on the Movement Control Order (MCO): Semantic Field Analysis

In 2019, the world has been shocked by the emergence of an infectious virus called COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, the daily lifestyle of the people in the world has changed as they have to practice the new norms. Henceforth, many new terms and definitions that are rarely heard of before began to be used. However, these newly introduced terms might lead to confusion among the people which also could obstruct the messages from the government. Considering that, the researcher will focus on the application of Semantic Field Theory by Ullmann (1963) through the analytical model approach by Al-Attas (2001) in unravelling the meaning of the terms according to COVID-19 issues based on the speech text of the Malaysian Prime Minister on the Movement Control Order (MCO) in order to handle the pandemic. In the theory, five main aspects are being emphasized namely the focus word, key word, interwoven meaning, conceptional sphere and the formation of a semantic field. All of these aspects could unravel the complicated word meaning and at the same time show the real concepts that are tried to be conveyed by speakers and writers in a discourse. This study uses a qualitative approach. Researcher has investigated eight texts of the official speech by the Malaysian Prime Minister relating to MCO starting from 16 th March 2020 until 11 th January 2021. The result of the study shows that there are four main focus words namely safety, economy, education and health. From the focus words, other key words appear and surround the focus words which then form the conceptional sphere of COVID-19 in the Malaysian Prime Minister speech’s text on the MCO. For further research based on the knowledge about the COVID-19 issues, researcher perhaps can apply this theory directly into the study of other issues of the community.


Introduction
A study of semantic field analysis is a closure study that refers to certain terms meaning from a larger scale of a view meaning from the basic meaning itself. This is because of the existence of the focus word and keyword concept that in the end led to the formation of the conception circle until a semantic field of words and discourse is also formed. This ability has not only managed to explain certain words meaning as the basic meaning only, but also able to cross the limit of the basic meaning that could influence the conception thoughts of the people. This is paralleled as stated by Rodi (2013) whereas the principles that are contained in the semantic field analysis could form a conception structure of the people on the reality which is about the universe (cosmology concept), the formation and existence of human including the fact of self-existence (ontology concept) and of a value (axiology). Furthermore, the formation of the semantic field of certain concepts also relates to the formation of nature or a "world view" of a society.
Aligned with the changing of the norms of the people's life nowadays due to this world pandemic, many new terms or rarely heard terms among the society start to appear in order to convey the information everyday. There are even more new terms that are formed to fulfil the need of the current information. This has been mentioned by Kasdan et al (2020) where the Malaysian Ministry of Health (MoH) has to introduce these new pandemic terms as soon as they could (ad hoc) without any validation from the DBP. Although these terms are formed without any validation from the DBP, it is still needed to be checked thoroughly as it could result in any linguistic contradiction with the current word use (Abdul Wahid, 2021).
Besides, this study will examine the terms relating to COVID-19 issues, both the new ones as well as the previously existing ones but are rarely used. These terms will be analyzed using the Semantic Field Theory by Ullmann (1963) through the analytical model approach by Al-Attas (2001) in order to view the word meaning in it's foundation aspect until the semantic field that could bring to a clearer understanding to the people on the COVID-19 issues, is formed.

Problem Statement
The formation of the new terms that are actively formed nowadays shows that the Malay language itself is adaptive and flexible in accepting reformation. These positive reformations could enrich and include variation in language aspect especially in language expanding aspect. Nevertheless, terms formation that has to undergo many processes sometimes could trigger confusion to the society. The terms could trigger confusion and misunderstanding on the previously existing terms. Similar to the statement made by  whereby problems arose when the society could not understand the meaning and usage of the new terms relating to COVID-19 even though the terms have already been used widely. Therefore, the study explains the COVID-19 terms using the Semantic Field Theory thus the COVID-19 terms that are matched with the keyword and focus word can be exposed. Besides, the created terms have the focus word that actually becomes the focus of the terms' keyword.
Previous studies that are related to terminology focus more on comprehension according to Kasdan (2016) the terms formation procedures according to Mohamad (2020) problems in terms according to Kasdan, Baharuddin, and Shamsuri (2020) and student comprehension through studies by . Regardless, there is a lack of study that is focusing on words and unwoven conception. This can be noticed and supported just as stated by Saimon and Tazudin (2021) that many terms are formed mainly for knowledge provision and new comprehension to the society whereas the word meaning and unwoven conception are scarcely explored. Thus, based on the statements made, this study aims to see the word meaning and the unwoven conception in COVID-19 terms.

Objective of the Study
As the problem statement has been notified and to find the solution out of it, this study has confirmed the three main objectives as shown below: i) To investigate the focus word on COVID-19 issues that can be found in the Malaysian Prime Minister speech's text on the Movement Control Order (MCO). ii) To interpret numbers of keyword that surround the focus words on COVID-19 issues. iii) To form the semantic field of the focus word on COVID-19 issues.

Literature Review
A study done by  entitled Students Comprehension to the New Terminology of COVID-19: Study to General University in Malaysia found that the public university students understood well on the COVID-19 terms. The study is done quantitatively using the observation method with questionnaire in order to notify the new terms of COVID-19 and to investigate the student's comprehension on it. About 200 students from four different public universities have been chosen using the stratified random sampling. The results are that the UIAM recorded the highest numbers on the comprehension, followed by UPSI, UKM and UM. Out of 3952 students, UIAM recorded 1001 students comprehending the provided terms, then the UPSI with 998 students, UKM 995 and UM 958. The results also show that most of the students understand the terms used in COVID-19. The terms that the students do not know the most from all four universities are R-Naught, Surveillance activity and Triaging. Most students are prone to use English terms compared to Malay such as mask, hand sanitizer, surveying activity, etc. Hence, the study concluded that students are well comprehend on the pandemic COVID-19 terms. Kasdan et al (2020) has undergo a study called Covid-19 in the Corpus of Malay Terminology: A socio-terminological Analysis and found out that the diversification of terms being coinage needs to be set in motion to ensure that the terms are well comprehend and used as these terms relate to the well-being of the people. Besides, the study aims to analyse and elaborate on the diversification of terms being coinage of COVID-19 that are spread among the people from the socio-terminology perspective. This study utilizes the terms used in the statements of Malaysian Ministry of Health's (MoH) newspaper from 16 th January 2020 until 10 th May 2020 as the data of the study. For the purpose of analysis, the terms are compared using the corpus of terms from DBP and the results are elaborated using the socio-terminological approach. The study shows that 67% equal to 96 terms used by the MoH are already standardized by DBP. Anyhow, part of the terms are new, yet the formation is still according to the terms formation guidelines regardless how it is not favored by the terms panels. Therefore, the steps taken to standardize the terms should be followed in order to expand the use of the Malay language.
A study entitled Formation of Health Science Terminology by Users in General Malay Language Texts by Mohamad (2020) studies about the health science terms in a public text by elaborating the terms corpus on how frequent it appears in the Malay language public corpus. This study uses the analysis method of text content that involves the text corpus in the medical field. This study concluded that complicated terms usage are less to be found in newspaper statements compared to the terms used generally. Based on the newspaper text study, comprehensive language and include extra information of a term thoroughly are being done very detailed and contemporary. The appearance of new terms in various fields has contributed to the Malay vocabulary and it is significant in order to support Malay language as the language of knowledge. Even so, the study regarding terms in general text of Malay language are still lacking. Most studies focus on the aspects of the terms formation and the terms acceptance. On top of that, the dumping of foreign terms phenomena into Malays' vocabulary, especially in the science and technology field displays that the current society always forms a term easily by adapting the foreign terms based on the current needs. Hence, the study explains more on the terms formation in the Malay text of the medical field (health science). The initial objective is to investigate the health science terms in general text while the next objective is to elaborate the terms corpus on how frequent it appears in the Malay language public corpus. The study uses the text analysis method that involves medical field text corpus (health science) from an online news, which is Berita Harian, Harian Metro, Utusan, Kosmo, dan Info Sihat from January 2015 until February 2018, which is 41000 words. A text analysis system, TextStat, is also used in order to present the data of the study regarding the word frequency as well as the order of the terms identification.
Referring to the previous studies done, many focus on the terms formation, comprehension and problems in forming specific terms like in the science and technology field. Nevertheless, study relating to words and unwoven conception are not being touched as a whole yet. To relate it with the previous studies, researcher of this study decided to dive into the terms on COVID-19 issues which are seen as actively formed by applying the Semantic Field Theory in order to elaborate the meaning concept of related terms as well as forming the semantic field for the notified focus words.

Research Methodology
In order to answer the problems and objectives of the study, a qualitative approach will be used. In this study context, a methodology of collecting data also is applied. A detailed collection of data is done thoroughly for the purpose of getting data and information relating to COVID-19 and Semantic field theory. Related reading materials like paper works, books, journal articles are also referred to elaborate more of the theory application whereas previous studies are referred as well to be adapted in this study. Text content analysis method is also implemented in the study. Researcher has chosen and investigated a total of eight texts of the official speech by the Malaysian Prime Minister relating to Movement Control Order (MCO) starting from 16 th March 2020 until 11 th January 2021. With the intention of getting the data, all texts of the official speech are being read thoroughly and the terms relating COVID-19 issues in the mentioned texts are also being notified earlier. The terms that are collected relating to COVID-19 issues are in the aspects of health, economy, education and safety; all recorded by the researcher to be coded as the focus word and the key word. Along with it, definitions of terms are also being defined properly so the base meaning of the terms also are being recognized. Next, researcher apply the Semantic Field Theory by S. Ullmann (1963) through the model approach by Al-Attas (2001) to analyze all the collected data.
The first step in applying the approach is by notifying the focus words existed from the COVID-19 issues terms in the text chosen. The focus word will be the content and the main thing to be focused on in a semantic field. After notifying the focus word is done, the keywords that will surround the focus words are also being recognized. Key words are the numbers of words that surround the focus word as the meaning of the words relate to one another (Ullmann, 1963). In addition, the key words also normally relate to another existing key word. Researcher will then interpret the key words until the unwoven meaning is formed and will finally form a conception circle of a field. From this, researcher will form a semantic field for the specific focus word. The formation of the semantic field does not only interpret the meaning of the focus word and the key word as a whole but also could explain in depth the real concept that is being conveyed in a text or a discourse.

Results and Discussions
Based on the investigation completed on all eight texts of the Malaysian Prime Minister regarding the Movement Control Order (MCO) starting 16th March 2020 until 11th January 2021, there are 41 terms relating to COVID-19 that have been detected. The terms are well defined with its basic meaning before being analysed using the Semantic field theory by Ullmann (1963) through the analysis model approach by (Al-Attas, 2001). The words meaning for the terms relating COVID-19 issues are based on the study of Students Comprehension to the New Terminology of COVID-19: Study to General University in Malaysia by . Besides, researcher presents the basic meaning of the terms relating to COVID-19 based on the reference found in the Malay Literature Reference Centre (PRPM). Yet for the purpose of this study, researcher had only highlighted 33 terms relating to COVID-19 issues that are dominant in the pandemic situation. The 33 terms mentioned are as such: Social distancing Increase the physical distance between humans to prevent viral infections, more than one meter, even up to two meters in some other countries.

2.
Pandemic An epidemic that has spread to a wider area or region and even to various continents and around the world.

Cluster
Happens when many infection cases occur from a place or a group.

4.
Subcluster A smaller group that is placed in a group. Face mask The mask has 3 layers to protect the nose and mouth from COVID-19 transmission. 12.
Hand sanitizer Materials in the form of liquids or gels used to clean contaminants such as germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.) the cause of the disease.

Quarantine
An approach in medicine, i.e., humans, animals or plants isolated for a certain period of time to prevent and limit disease transmission. 14.
Vaccine Preparations of dead or weakened bacteria, viruses, and others to be injected or implanted into the body to produce resistance against certain diseases 15.
New norm Practices that were previously not commonly practiced will become common practice. Healthcare worker People who serve in the health field. 25.
Risk evaluation Health screening of an individual to detect whether there is a health problem or otherwise.

26.
Essential Economic Sector Sector whose role is to support the supply of basic necessities such as food, beverages and household items as well as personal care; PPE equipment, medical devices and medicines to health workers; international trade activities; ensuring the supply chain is uninterrupted and supporting critical infrastructure and emergency cases.

27.
Home based teaching and learning Teaching and learning implemented at home or community centers or at any appropriate location. PdPR can be implemented online and/or offline with a structure and plan. 28.
Work from Home (WFH) Work that has to be done at home due to pandemic. 29.
Health service Location that provides related services health such as hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.

Mental health
Situations where an individual is aware of his potential to cope with the stresses of life, can work productively and can contribute to society. 31.
Pharmaceutical Drug-related industries of medicine or pharmacy.

33.
Herd immunity A condition where the transmission of a disease cannot occur because a large part of the community has immunity or resistance to the cause of the disease infection.
The results of investigating the terms relating COVID-19 based on the official speech text of the Malaysian Prime Minister are as represented in table 1. To add on, researcher will investigate the focus word of COVID-19 issues based on the same text. In this study, focus word refers to a word that is the axis of concentration of meaning in the formation of a semantic field where at the same time is surrounded by numbers of keywords that the meaning relates to one another. A focus word will be identified based on its existence dominantly in the formation of conception structure of a society, text or discourse.
On top of that, investigation will focus mainly on the focus word that is also the content of the concept which the researcher is trying to convey based on detailed analysis on the terms relating to COVID-19 issues. In other words, through these COVID-19 issues, readers will understand more about the message that the Malaysian Prime Minister is trying to convey just by noticing the focus words that are identified. Moreover, four focus words on COVID-19 issues have been identified from the official speech text by the Malaysian Prime Minister. Anyhow, the aspect of abritarism in the decision process of a certain focus word cannot be excluded by the researcher. It is as according to Izutsu (1964) whereby:

"Almost unavoidably a certain amount of arbitrariness comes into his (researcher's) choice of the key-terms..."
Even though there is an abritarism element as mentioned as it depends on the closure and observation by researcher in the investigation aspect as well as the confirmed four focus words, the prioritising and significance of the selected four focus words are very well investigated. This is because all four focus words selected have their own strength and are dominant in explaining the main concept or main message that is trying to convey by the Malaysian Prime Minister to the people. The four focus words that are identified are as followed: i) Focus word "safety" ii) Focus word "economy" iii) Focus word "health" iv) Focus word "education" Despite that, in the discussion of this study, only one focus word that will be analyzed in order to represent the other focus words as the analysis process for each focus word are sufficient and same in the study.

Focus Word "Health"
Health is one of the fields that focuses on science and technology. However, this field cannot escape from the linguistic aspect especially from the terminology aspect. "Term" according to the General Guidelines for the Formation of Malaysian Terms (2004) refers to words or combinations of words that clearly describe a particular meaning, concept, situation or feature in a particular field. The development of science and technology also has an impact on the development of linguistics which is always ready to accept innovation and development in line with the nature of language itself which is adaptable or flexible. The development of a new knowledge requires terminology work to be done to describe the knowledge so that it can be understood and accepted by society. This is in line with the views expressed by Abdul Malek and Abdul Razak (2020) who stated that the development of a science or field requires a linguistic approach from the terminology point of view. In the meantime, a new term is formed to support the vocabulary for each knowledge developed. In other words, the result of the analogy of a term will produce new terms that are more suitable with the concept and maintain the Malay touch (Kasdan, 2020).
However, in the rapid formation of these new terms, it is found that not all communities are able to understand and accept a new term. According to Kasdan et al (2020), some community users are more interested in choosing to use English terms, while others use Malay terms or other sources. This is because of the inconsistency of terminology in Malay language due to the unavoidable factor of borrowing terms from English language. Based on that, the probability for some people not to understand a term related to an issue is high. This also happened in this COVID-19 pandemic situation. As claimed by , the problem arises when there is a society today that still does not understand the meaning and use of the new terms in COVID-19 even though they are being used widely.
Therefore, to formulate a concept or message that is trying to be conveyed in the form of text or discourse in society, the application of Semantic Field Theory Ullmann (1963) through the analytical model approach Al-Attas (2001) is seen to be able to solve this problem. Through the identification of the focus word "health", it can be seen that among the main messages or concepts that the researcher tries to convey are related to aspects of health in society. Various terms referring to the interests of society are used in a number of texts that have been examined by researcher. For example, the terms "vaccine", "social imprisonment", "hand sanitizer", "SOP", "quarantine" and so on refer to the importance of health issues to society. If these terms are not understood, then the message and recommendations that are trying to be conveyed to the community are not reaching the optimal level. This problem can be explained through the process of interpreting a number of keywords that surround the focus word in the next section.

Interpretation of a Number of Keywords Surrounding the Focus Word "Health"
In this section, the researcher will interpret a number of keywords that surround the focus word "health". Keywords are the most important number of words in an aspect of a vocabulary in a text or discourse. Ironically, the interpretation of a number of these keywords greatly influences the public's thinking on an input obtained either through text or discourse. A number of these interpreted keywords have a direct relationship with the focus word which is the axis of concentration of meaning in a field. In the meantime, a number of these keywords also in fact have a meaningful relationship between one keyword with another so that the formation of the unwoven meaning relationships will eventually create a conception circle. Each of these processes is clearly able to describe the meaning of words and concepts that are trying to be conveyed in a text or discourse due to the establishment of the semantic field for a focus word.

Figure 1. The Relation of Meaning between Each Keyword and the Conception Circle for the Focus Word "Health"
Based on Figure 1, the word health has become a focus word that serves as the axis of meaning concentration in the process of formation of the semantic field for the focus word. As a result of the identification of the keyword "health", there are 12 keywords presented. These twelve keywords have a direct relationship with the focus word "health". Not only that, a number of these keywords also in fact have a relationship from the aspect of word meaning to each other. This existing relationship is known as the interweaving of meaning relationships.
Based on the figure, when referring to health issues or words, words related to the focus word "health" can be present as keywords. This is one of the methods for the interpretation of the word's meaning. When discussing health issues, it is definitely closely related to the subject of "healthy" and also "sick". Similarly, in this situation of the transmission of this "epidemic" COVID-19. It involves the health of the world community. Instead of just one "epidemic" that existed in Wuhan, China in 2019, it has spread to reach "pandemic" status. The fact is, this "pandemic" has disrupted the health of the people globally. The world community is becoming "sick" due to this "pandemic" and the mission of the world today is to ensure that the world community heals and becomes "healthy". Therefore, to deal with this "pandemic" COVID-19, the government has introduced Standard Operating Procedures or better known as "SOP" in today's society that is in line with "SOPs' ' around the world. The COVID-19 "SOP" is designed to overcome and decide on the COVID-19 chain in Malaysia in particular and around the world in general. Among the basic "SOPs" that society must adhere to are related to "social distancing" of at least one meter between one individual and another, compliance with the use of "face mask'' and the practice of washing hands with soap or using "hand sanitizer". These three things are often repeated by the Malaysian Prime Minister in each of his speeches. These three recommendations are also among the measures in reducing the risk of spread to individuals and society. This has changed the scope of society's life today and has become a "new norm" that needs to be practiced all the time in the long run. In the meantime, another effort made by world health experts in dealing with this "pandemic" is to conduct various studies in the creation of "vaccine" for the people around the world.
According to the Special Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) (2021), "vaccine" contain antigens that function to stimulate the body's immune system and develop immunity to specific disease infections. "Vaccine" is not something that cures, but rather to protect and give a stronger resistance to the human body. From February to April 2021, the first phase of "vaccination" was done by prioritizing frontline workers who include government and private "health workers". In Malaysia, the receipt of the "vaccine" is voluntary and given free of charge to all Malaysian citizens. The government is targeting at least 80% of the adult population in Malaysia to receive the vaccine by February 2022 to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus (Special Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), 2021). The "vaccine" injection will also be done by a certified "health worker". When talking about health, it is also closely related to the subject of "medicine" in the aspect of finding ways to cure "illness" to be "healthy" and this aspect is also a responsibility as a "health worker" in giving advice on the matter.
Starting from the interpretation of the 12 keywords that surround the focus word "health", it can be seen that all these keywords have a meaningful relationship between a number with one another, and it is even a meaningful relationship one. A number of these keywords are not only able to describe the meaning of the focus word "health" from the aspect of its basic meaning only, but also able to influence society's conceptual thinking on this field. As a result of the formation of the unwoven meaning between a number of keywords that surround the focus word "health" earlier, a conception circle related to the focus word "health" will be formed. From the interpretation of a number of keywords and the unwoven meanings, it can indirectly reveal a conception circle that clearly highlight the real concept of "health" that is trying to be conveyed by the Malaysian Prime Minister based on his official speech text that is related to Movement Control Order (MCO).

Formation of the Semantic Field of Focus Word "Health"
Based on the discussion related to the interpretation of the word meaning for a number of keywords that are interrelated between one keyword with another keyword in order to form the unwoven meaning, then a conception circle can be highlighted. Starting from that, the semantic field for the focus word "health" can be formed as in the following figure:

Figure 2. Semantic Field for the Focus Word "Health"
Based on Figure 2 above, it is clear that the word "health" becomes a focus word that serves as the axis of concentration of meaning in the field. This "health" focus word consists of 12 keywords that surround it. All the keywords have a meaningful relationship not only with the focus word "health" alone, but also have a meaningful relationship between one keyword with another keyword to be able to form a conception circle for the focus word "health". As a result of the identification of the focus word "health" and the interpretation of a number of keywords that surround it so that there is a link between meaning and conception circle, the semantic field for the focus word "health" that is able to explain the concept of "health" as a whole is formed based on the terms relating to COVID-19 issues which is found in the official speech text from the Malaysian Prime Minister related to the Movement Control Order (MCO).

Conclusion
In this study, through the interpretation that has been done by the researcher, it can be identified that each keyword meaning is intertwined with one another. Starting from this intertwining of meanings, there is a conception circle that eventually forms a semantic field for a focus word. This semantic field is able to fully explain the concept or message of the Malaysian Prime Minister trying to convey regarding the Movement Control Order (MCO) based on the COVID-19 issue terms that exist in his official speech texts. Based on the interpretation of each meaning of the word that has been discussed, it is clear here that the community's misunderstanding of a term or concept can be clarified holistically.