120 THE GENERIC PATTERNS OF THE MALAY WRITTEN WEDDING INVITATIONS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY Salihah Abdullah 1 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Academy of Language Studies, Cawangan Terengganu, Kampus Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. (Email: salih537@uitm.edu.my) Juliana Mohd Nor 2 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Academy of Language Studies, Cawangan Terengganu, Kampus Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. (Email: julia073@uitm.edu.my) Nor Jawanees Ahmad Hanafiah 3 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Academy of Language Studies, Cawangan Terengganu, Kampus Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. (Email: norja293@uitm.edu.my) Norhamimah Rani 4 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Academy of Language Studies, Cawangan Terengganu, Kampus Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. (Email: norhamimah@uitm.edu.my) Ngo Kea Leng 5 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Academy of Language Studies, Cawangan Terengganu. Kampus Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. (Email: klngo@uitm.edu.my) Received date: 31-07-2019 Revised date: 04-08-2019 Accepted date: 19-09-2019 Published date: 19-09-2019 To cite this document: Abdullah, S., Mohd Nor, J., Hanafiah, N. J. A., Rani, N., & Ngo, K. L. (2019). The Generic Patterns of The Malay Written Wedding Invitations: A Preliminary Study. International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy and Language, 2(7), 120-128. DOI: 10.35631/ijhpl.270010 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: In the Malay culture, a wedding invitation is regarded as one of the most essential parts of the nuptials. It does not only convey good news but also requests the presence of all relatives, friends and social acquaintances to gather at a certain place and time for solemnization and reception ceremonies. A wealth of research on patterns of wedding invitations has been conducted among various societies throughout the world. However, not much genre-analysis research relating to wedding invitations among the Malays can be found. Hence, the present preliminary study was conducted to explore various patterns of Malay written wedding invitations. Adopting the genre analysis model proposed by Swales, 60 samples of the Malay wedding invitation cards were analyzed in terms of move orders, obligatory and optional moves. The cards were randomly selected from a collection of invitations from 2015 to 2019. This study revealed that the Malays frequently employed seven generic moves in their written wedding invitations. Keywords: Wedding Invitations, Move Orders, Swales, Malays Volume: 2 Issues: 7 [September, 2019] pp.120-128] International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy, and Language eISSN: 2600-8270 Journal website: www.ijhpl.com