A very interesting dissertation, with generous quotations in Malay and hyperlinks within the bibliography.

In the author's own words:

"This research is a first scientific and theoretical attempt to look into the logic and emotion of the Malays from their proverbs, peribahasa. Fascinated by the conclusions of Goodwin & Wenzel (1979/1981) that there are parallels between what the logic textbooks teach and what the Anglo-American proverbs teach, the author sets his objectives to explore whether the proverbs of Malay culture indeed illustrate a significant number of logical principles as well.

The author proves that the same “socio-logic” as described by Goodwin & Wenzel (1979/1981) can also be discovered in peribahasa. Nevertheless, he
rejects the dialectical approach (normally engaged by the western tradition), and believes that the ways of Malay argumentation are rather monolectical (non-dialectical). Apart from this socio-logic rationality, which represents the realm of the mind, there are also rather strong elements of emotions as shown by the regular use of hati as the source of passion in Malay proverbial literature."

Malay-Indonesian, Country Studies