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LING307 Language, Ethnicity and Gender

Liam Der-Sarkissian 1. Introduction This essay gives an account of the current sociolinguistic climate in Singapore. As a country which embraces an officially bilingual education policy, the multilinguistic situation is particularly complex, reflected by the fact there exists four official languages within the Republic. A brief historical overview as to provide context to the discussion is detailed in the following sub-section. Section 2 considers the current sociolinguistic situation through exploring data from state censuses, providing a detailed account of Singapore English in particular. In Section 3, these issues are accounted for in the context of language policies implemented by the state and the wider language ideologies this produces. Finally, in Section 4, I reflect on the implications of the issues explored and touch on projected trends for what the future may hold for the island state.

1.1. Historical Overview The Republic of Singapore is a multiethnic island and series of islets situated at the heart of Southeast Asia. Following the countrys sovereignty from British rule in 1959, Singapore became united with its largest neighbour, Malaysia. However, following dispute regarding the rights of ethnic Chinese citizens, it was expulsed in 1965. The newly independent state was faced, quite suddenly, with the task of building a stable nation and economy out of a diverse population. Low (2010) discusses how post-independent language policies were dominated by the motivation to bring equality and fairness to the racially divided state, with political leaders officially declaring the state as multilingual, endorsing a community model of bilingualism within which four languages were

2 allocated official status English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. The National Language of the state remains Malay, owing to the historical position of the island state. However, as Dixon, (2005:626) comments, today this is almost exclusively used symbolically at official levels, such as in the military or the National Anthem. In fact, modern Singaporean society is characterised by a unique, heterogeneous condition in which these official languages are undergoing complex processes being shaped - as will be discussed - by significant intervention by the state.

2. Current Sociolinguistic Situation According to latest figures, Singapores resident population of 5,076,700
Figure 1 Language Most Commonly Spoken At Home, Aged 5+ (%)
Total 199 0 English Mandarin Other Chinese Dialects Malay Tamil Others 18. 8 23. 7 39. 6 14. 3 2.9 0.8 200 0 23 35 23. 8 14. 1 3.2 0.9 201 0 32. 3 35. 6 14. 3 12. 2 3.3 2.3 Chinese 199 0 19. 3 30. 1 50. 3 0.3 0.1 0.2 200 0 23. 9 45. 1 30. 7 0.2 201 0 32. 6 47. 7 19. 2 0.2 Malay 199 0 6.1 93. 7 200 0 7.9 0.1 0.1 91. 6 0.1 0.3 82. 7 0.1 0.2 201 0 17. 0 0.1 Indian 199 0 32. 3 0.1 0.2 14. 5 43. 2 9.8 200 0 35. 6 0.1 0.1 11. 6 42. 9 9.7 7.9 36. 7 13. 6 201 0 41. 6 0.1 Others 199 0 67. 2 2.8 3.3 19. 3 0.1 7.3 200 0 68. 5 4.4 3.2 15. 6 0.2 8.2 201 0 62. 4 3.8 0.9 4.3 0.1 28. 6

comprises of Chinese (74.1%), Malays (13.4%), Indians (9.2%) and other ethnicities (3.3%). Data was gathered from the Singapore Census of 1990, 2000 and 2010 (Department of Statistics, 2012) to illustrate the broader sociolinguistic trends which can be observed across these major ethnic groups in Singaporean society.

3 The demographic snapshot provided in Figure 1 shows, within the Chinese resident population, a dramatic decrease in the use of Chinese dialects (e.g. Hokkien and Cantonese) over the last few decades, decreasing from 50.3% in 1990 to 19.2% in 2010. On the other hand however, Mandarin demonstrates a sharp increase, and, by 2010, is the preferred language (as used in the home) for almost half of the Chinese community. Similarly, among Indian Singaporeans, Tamil demonstrates a very gradual and continuing decline in use. Within this ethnic group, English demonstrates an increased frequency of use since 1990, just recently having replaced Tamil as the most frequently spoken language by its membership group (now accounting for 41.6% compared to Tamils 36.7%). The trend of an increased frequency-of-use for English is a pattern reflected across all three major ethnic communities, now accounting for nearly a third of language use across the entire resident population (a total frequency of 32.3% as of 2010). These findings are compounded by Moyer (2005), who asserts that the multiethnic population is currently experiencing a tremendous shift towards English and it is occurring rapidly within a few generations. Before discussing the sociocultural reasons underlying these observations, the English Language as used in Singapore itself is a complex phenomenon worthy of elaborative discussion.

2.1 The English Language in Singapore Proficiency in English is seen to be essential for attracting foreign investment and excelling both scientifically and technologically for the Singaporean Government. Since independence in 1965, as well as being necessitated as the language of modernity, the state has promoted English as

4 the neutral form of communication between different ethnic groups (Dixon, 2005:626). The development of English in Singapore constitutes one of the many World Englishes (Jenkins, 2006: Crystal, 2003), a term which describes the pluricentric varieties of the English Language found throughout the world. Singapore English (SgE) is a recently nativised variety of English, which is a means to say it is one of the newer varieties that have developed in places where English was not originally spoken and which have been influenced by local languages and cultures (Kirkpatrick, 2007:5). In other words, in Singapores post-colonial era, having retained the language following independence, English has undergone a process of acculturation (Kachru, 2005) in which it has been appropriated by its non-European users and changed to reflect their own experiences (Mair, 2008:235). SgE essentially comes in two forms, Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), known also as Singlish. CSE is a colloquial variety displaying a high degree of influence from other local languages such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay and Tamil (Platt and Weber, 1980: 18). Gupta (2001) highlights that the relationship between SSE and CSE is diglossic. By definition, diglossia refers to situations in which two languages (or varieties of the same language) co-exist in the same community, yet are used for different purposes serving distinct communicative functions (Ferguson, 1959). One is the vernacular - in this case CSE - identified in diglossic environments as the L variety, designated use in home and community settings. In Singapore, CSE is essentially used in all informal exchanges, particularly inter-ethnic ones (Leimgruber, 2008:151). The H variety is a label assigned to the form of the language reserved for use in formal, institutional

5 settings. SSE constitutes this slot in Singapore used during school classes, in lectures and official speeches, in the white-collar workplace, and generally in the written language (ibid). The diglossic relationship is compounded by language planning policies instigated by the State, through which many argue that the government are working to eliminate the L variety and encourage use of SSE (an issue explored in Section 3). The government is openly concerned however that proliferated exposure to English will result in overt Westernization. Subsequently, the state has implemented a strategy of English-knowing bilingualism within its education policy (Pakir, 1993:24), an issue turned to now.

2.2 Bilingual Education Policy Since 1987, English has been the medium of instruction within education institutions throughout Singapore. In addition, it is mandatory for students to study their official Mother Tongue as a single subject, under the Mother Tongue Language Policy (MTL). Gupta (2001:117) clarifies this concept within the Singaporean political context, commenting; as officially defined, the mother tongue is the subordinate language of ones official ethnic group [corresponding] neither to the individuals childhood language(s) nor to the individuals ancestral language. MTL requires students to reach a second-language level of proficiency in their mother tongue (Dixon, 2005:626), meaning Dravidianspeaking Indians must take up Tamil, Chinese students must learn Mandarin and those of Malaysian ethnicity must take up Malay from the start of formal schooling (ibid). The rationale behind this policy is perhaps best expressed by the then Minister for Education, Tony Tan, in which he remarked, children must learn English so that they will have a window to the knowledge, technology and expertise of the modern world. They must know their mother tongue to enable

6 them to know what makes us what we are. (1986:33, quoted in Stroud and Wee, 2012:184). On a sociolinguistic level, this demonstrates a division of labour between English and the mother tongues (Wee, 2006:55) wherein the former is associated with Western values and the latter with Asian heritage, acting somewhat as a cultural anchor (Stroud and Wee, 2012:187). Dixon (2005) discusses assumptions made by the Singapore government which gives credence to such a division and characterises the language policies more broadly. One such assumption he identifies is that there exists a belief at an official level that language is a tool that should be carefully chosen for its utility to the national interest (p.232) Essentially, this aligns with the instrumentalist view of language (Tauli, 1968). By this, language is seen as a tool though which the instrumental value of a language [is put] above the sentimental or symbolic value (Wei et al., 1997:380) The post-colonial Singapore government believe English to be a tool to industrialize and modernize its economy, encouraging the spread of English, often at the expense of a Singaporeans Mother Tongue. As illustrated in Figure 1, which depicted the upward trend in the frequency of English as a home language, these efforts seem, on the whole, successful.

3. State Campaigns and Monolingual Ideologies As touched upon, the state is widely recognized as a particularly authoritative and influential institution in regard to implementing language ideologies (Blommaert, 2005). Following the Bilingual Education Policy, this is perhaps most explicitly realised in a series of state campaigns aimed at adjudicating language use. For example, the Speak Mandarin Campaign, which began in 1979, aims to encourage the Chinese residents of Singapore to speak

7 their official mother tongue Mandarin. The Governments motivation for introducing such a scheme was based on the assumption that dialect use fragmented the resident Chinese community whereas Mandarin would unify it. Pakir (1993:81) criticises this approach, emphasising the problem of real gaps between generations. Subsequently, cultural values cannot be effectively transmitted from one generation to the another due to gaps in language use and language proficiency (Cheng, 1997). Returning to the census results of Figure 1 in Section 2, we can observe that the states efforts to instigate this language shift from the vernacular to Mandarin is marked by significant success. A second and more recent campaign, the Speak Good English Movement, has the objective to encourage all Singaporeans to speak SSE. The current 2011/12 theme is named How You Speak Makes A Difference providing a particular focus on encouraging Singaporeans to broaden the environment where Standard English is spoken and heard in Singapore particularly around younger children (Speak Good English Movement, 2012). The campaign is criticised by Kwan (2003:33) who suggests a comparative approach in establishing this language planning policy, wherein CSE, the nativised vernacular, is compared to SSE, effectively equates CSE with bad English. This has profound ideological consequences, particularly when Singlish is observed as a marker for Singaporean Identity. As one prominent celebrity blogger in Singapore writes - our tourism slogan is 'Uniquely Singapore', and what could be more uniquely Singaporean than Singlish? (Leow, 2006). More broadly, the consequence of these language policies, as Stroud and Wee (2012) articulate, is a system of stratification (p.10) in which one language is assigned greater value than another and one varietys promotion (SSE, Mandarin) is dependent on the removal of another (CSE, Other Chinese Dialects).

8 In effect, the strategies are realizations of verbal hygiene (Cameron, 1995) in that the state is initiating deliberate attempts to clean up the language and shape the linguistic climate in Singapore through the prescription and proscription of favoured and disfavoured forms. Subsequently, the mixing of elements from different languages, surely the norm in multilingual societies, becomes construed as a form of linguistic contamination (Stroud & Wee, 2012:11). The wider sociolinguistic effect this produces is argued to be an appeal to monolingual ideologies (Spolsky, 2004) by which the state manages the countrys diversity through an ideological assertion that a single variety of language equals one culture. This has resulted in numerous scholars speculating whether or not the Republic has more broadly undergone a shift from being linguistically heterogeneous to one characterized by linguistic homogeneity, for example, rooted in a monolingual ideology, the ultimate effect of the Speak Mandarin Campaign is one of homogenizing the Chinese community (Blackledge, 2000:33), a notion which transfers to SgE as well. Thus, despite being explicitly imagined as a multi-ethnic and multilingual society, the implicit (hegemonic) discourse is more about homogeneity within each ethnic community than heterogeneity within the nation (ibid). Dixon (2005:631) concludes nonetheless that Singapores efforts at the sociocultural and educational level have been largely successful, in, firstly, shifting home language use from Chinese dialects to Mandarin and from vernaculars and official Mother Tongues to English - observations reflected in Figure 1 produced in Section 2.

4. The Sociolinguistic Future of Singapore

9 In response to this unique situation, some sociolinguists suggest the state shift away from the current mother tongue policy towards a more open bilingual policy (Wee and Bokhurst-Heng, 2005:176) in which students would be provided the chance to learn the language they want, for any number of reasons, rather than a mother tongue mandated to them by the state. As Stroud and Wee (2012: 215) propose, a re-evaluation of the notion of a Mother Tongue from one fixed to specific identities to one reflective of an individuals lived experience would allow the language policy to better accommodate the growing diversity of the population. This implies a fundamental shift away from appealing to the monolingual ideologies established earlier toward embracing a multilinguistic diversity, which would mean CSE and Chinese dialects are no longer decried at the official level. The reciprocity of the relationship between language and identity can additionally not be ignored, particularly when considering the case of Singlish. This seems undermined in the current ideology held by the state, beliefs articulated by former PM Goh-Chok Tong who posits [Singlish] reflects badly on us and makes us seem less intelligent or competent (2000, quoted in Speak Good English Movement, 2012). Contrary, Dixon (2005:645) suggests, as Singlish continues to be a marker of identity, the diglossic relationship between SSE - the H variety - and Singlish - the L variety will continue.

5. Conclusion This esssay has outlined a number of sociolinguistic issues relevant to Singapore. Foremost, it has provided insight into the language shift to English and Mandarin characterizing contemporary Singaporean society, a process reflected in data collected from censuses since 1990. An instrumentalist view of

10 language has been discussed, resulting in a number of state interventions such as bilingual education policies and prescriptive state campaigns. An extension of this paper may include research into actual language use, contrasting the discussions made here, in particular the emergent patterns as indicated by the censuses, with empirical investigations into oral and literacy proficiency as to gain a more accurate view of the sociolinguistic landscape of the island state.

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