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title: The Step-tongue : Children's English in Singapore

Multilingual Matters (Series) ; 101
author: Gupta, Anthea Fraser.
publisher: Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin: 1853592307
print isbn13: 9781853592300
ebook isbn13: 9780585126197
language: English
subject English language--Singapore, Children--Singapore--
Language.
publication date: 1994
lcc: PE3502.S5G86 1994eb
ddc: 306.4/46/095957
subject: English language--Singapore, Children--Singapore--
Language.
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Page i
The Step-Tongue
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Page ii.
MULTILIGUAL MATTERS
Attitudes and Language
COLIN BAKER
Bilingualism and National Development
GARY M. JONES and A. CONRAD K. OZòG (eds)
Continuing to Think: The British Asian Girl
BARRIE WADE and PAMELA SOUTER
Couping with Two Cultures
PAUL A. S. GHUMAN
Education of Chinese Children in Britain and the USA
LORNITA YUEN-FAN WONG
Language, Culture and Cognition
LILLIAM MALAVÉ and GEORGES DUQUETTE (eds)
Language, Minority Education and Gender
DAVID CORSON
Linguistic and Communicative Competence
CHRISTINA BRATT-PAULSTON
Multilingualism and Nation Building
GERDA MANSOUR
School to Work in Transition in Japan
KAORI OKANO
Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy
ROD ELLIS
Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Bilingual Education
CHRISTINA BRATT PAULSTON
Sustaining Local Literacies
DAVID BARTON (ed.)
System in Black Language
DAVID SUTCLIFFE with JOHN FIGUEROA
Teaching and Researching Language in African Classrooms
CASMIR RUBAGUMYA (ed.)
Teaching Composition around the Pacific Rim
M. N. BROCK and L. WALTERS (eds)
Please contact us for the latest book Information:
Multilingual Matters Ltd,
Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road,
Clevedon, Avon BS21 7SJ, England
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Page iii
The Step-Tongue
Children's English in Singapore
Anthea Fraser Gupta
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD

Clevedon · Philadephia · Adelaide
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Page iv.
Disclaimer:
This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character
set (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and
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diacritical marks.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Gupta, Anthea Fraser, 1951-
The Step-Tongue: Children's English in Singapore/Anthea Fraser Gupta
p. cm. (Multilingual Matters: 101)
1. English languageSingapore. 2. ChildrenSingapore language (new words,
slang, etc). I. Title. II. Series: Multilingual Matters (Series): 101.
PE3502.S5G86 1994
306.4'46'095957dc20 92-50650
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-85359-230-7 (hbk)
ISBN 1-85359-229-3 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, Avon BS21 7SJ.
USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA.
Australia: P.O. Box 6025, 83 Gilles Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
Copyright © 1994 Anthea Fraser Gupta
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by
any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Ltd, Bridgend.
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Page v.
To my Parents
Albert Shields
1919-1993
and
Joyce Fraser Shields
b. 1922
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Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
Tables and Figures xi
Conventions and Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Native Speakers of English in Singapore 5
5
Introduction
7
Diglossia in Singapore English
9
Features of SCE and StdE
10
SCE features
12
StdE features
13
Who are the Native Speakers?
19
How Numerous are the Native Speakers?
24
Singapore Censuses, 1980 and 1990
32
History of English in Singapore
35
The schools
36
The pupils
39
The teachers
39
The languages
44
Language situation in early schools
45
The present situation
47
SCE in Singapore Today
Acquiring Singapore Colloquial English 52
52
Introduction
53
Acquiring a Creole
57
The Children in my Study
60
The boys' family
62
The girls' family
64
Linguistic Repertoire
66
Learning SCE
69
Beginning to be Diglossic
79
Acquiring Pragmatic Particles in SCE
Acquisition of Interrogatives 84
84
Introduction
84
Interrogative Structures in SCE
88
X-interrogatives
88
Order of acquisition of wh-words
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Page viii
90
X-interrogatives with missing constituent
92
Development of x-interrogatives
94
What, where and who
101
Which and how many
102
Fronting of wh-words: why and how
110
Trends in Main Clause X-interrogatives
111
Polar Interrogatives
111
Auxiliary inversion
122
Other non-disjunctive polar interrogatives
126
Disjunctive polar interrogatives
129
Trends in main clause polar interrogatives
130
Embedded Interrogatives
133
Embedded x-interrogatives
136
Embedded polar interrogatives
136
Uses of embedded interrogatives
141
Development of Interrogatives in SCE
Languages in Education in Singapore 143
143
Introduction
145
Mediums of Education
152
Education System
159
Language in Pre-school Education
170
Academic Success and Social Background
178
Mother-tongue Education
188
Singapore's Bilingualism
Speech and Language Therapy in Singapore (by Anthea Fraser 191
Gupta and Helen Chandler Yeo)
191
Introduction
192
Speech and Language Therapy and Multilingualism
193
Pragmatically Rich, Morphologically Simple, Languages
196
Speech and Language Therapy Provision in Singapore
197
Estimates of Incidence of Speech and Language Disability
198
UK Northern Region Referrals and Singapore Referrals
199
Sources of referrals
200
1990 pediatric speech referrals in Singapore
201
Findings
204
Assessment of Language Disability in Singapore
207
Case Studies
210
Linguistic Tolerance Masking Language Disability
References 214
Index 227
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Page ix
Preface
The experience of prolonged life in more than one community deracinates and enriches. My childhood and education
were in the north-east of England, but most of my adult life, from 1975, when I was 24, I have lived and worked in the
Republic of Singapore. Along the way I have acquired a husband who happens to come from Calcutta (via seven years
in the United States). In the course of work, travel, and an international family life, I have seen many types of
bilingualism. However, the type of bilingualism I am most familiar with is quite different from the European and North
American experience of bilingualism. In Singapore, (as in many other parts of the world) few members of the
community are monolingual. Bilingualism is not associated with minority, immigrant, or socially marginal groups, but
is the common experience.
It is rare for children in Singapore to grow up in monolingual home environments. This study outlines the general
situation of children's English in Singapore, and includes a more detailed study of the longitudinal development of four
children's English, from which the quoted examples are drawn unless otherwise stated. This formed the data for my
DPhil thesis of 1990. The language in this study was from natural, spontaneously occurring speech. It was recorded on
a small but powerful Sony tape recorder placed openly near the speakers. Four children in two ethnically Chinese
families were recorded speaking English over a period of some 3 years. One family had two girls, and the other had
two boys.
I would first of all like to thank the two families who gave me their hospitality and allowed me to share the company of
their fascinating and wonderful children, without whose help this study would have been impossible. I am grateful also
to Yow Wei Meng for her introduction to one of the families.
Secondly I would like to thank the principal, staff, children, and parents of the anonymous PAP Community Foundation
nursery school referred to in Chapter Four. I enjoy my Thursday morning sessions there very much, and have been
made very welcome in the classroom and in the workshops. I look forward to a continuing association with this happy
place.
Next, my thanks to the National University of Singapore for giving me funding and leave, and especially to Edwin
Thumboo and the late John Kwan-Terry, the two people in the decision-making chain who encouraged me in my
research and supported my applications.
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Page x
I appreciate those colleagues and former colleagues in the National University of Singapore who argued with me, read
my work, and gave me theirs to read, especially Julie Bradshaw, Anna Kwan-Terry, Loke Kit Ken, and Ian Smith.
Bob Le Page told me I should do a doctorate, and I would also like to thank him for his many kind words and for his
help in finding an idyllic home in York in 1984. I would also like to thank Gina Le Page for her speedy intervention in
a domestic emergency.
My doctoral supervisor, Patrick Griffiths, has spent hours in detailed reading of my long documents. My examiners,
Lesley Milroy and Joan Russell, provided encouragement and valuable discussion and also had to wade through a
doctoral thesis that in length and style bore little resemblance to this book, which I hope is readable. This book is by no
means the book of the thesis. It contains material which was not in the doctoral thesis, and omits material which was in
the thesis and which has been published elsewhere. Only Chapters Two and Three bear much resemblance to the thesis.
Chapters Four and Five are entirely new, as is most of Chapter One.
Chapter Five is co-authored with Helen Chandler Yeo, Head Speech Therapist at the National University Hospital. I
would like to thank Helen for her stimulating discussions and cooperative research. Through her I have also become
involved in a multi-disciplinary assessment project with Susan Rickard Liow and Tng Siok Keng of the Department of
Social Work and Psychology at the National University of Singapore, and with Mr Jeya of Ghim Moh Primary School,
with whom I have also had many profitable discussions.
I have thanked Helen: Helen and I jointly would like to thank the speech and language therapists of Singapore who
have attended three evening sessions with us, discussed the issues, modified our questionnaires, and filled them in,
despite their busy caseloads. We also much appreciate the help and kindness of Shirley Smoult, Data Officer at the
Northern Regional Health Office, Newcastle upon Tyne, who provided the Körner Statistics. We would like to thank
Susan Rickard Liow for her efforts with the red pen.
I would like to add that I am committed to a sociolinguistics which feeds information back to informants. Like all my
previous papers based on data from them, copies of this book will be going to the two families who have been so
important to me, as well as to the nursery school and primary school with which I have been associated. The speech
therapists of Singapore have continually been informed of the work in which they are, after all, collaborators.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family for their encouragement and support. My husband, Avijit, for
putting up with his displacement by a computer, and for doing my share of the cooking as well as his own. My
daughter, Ella, for her tolerance of an eccentric mother. And, as always, my parents, Albert (who died shortly before
the final draft of this book was finished) and Joyce, for their encouragement, love and errand-running.
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Page xi
Tables and Figures

Figure 1.1 12
Overlap of two definitions of native speaker
Table 1.1 20
Languages children speak at home, based on Primary 1intake 1990
Table 1.2 22
Percentage success on selected language tasks administered by
BvLF study
Figure 1.2 25
Educational qualifications, Singapore 1980
Table 1.3 29
Persons aged 5 years and over by languages spoken
Figure 1.3 30
Male and female literacy in Chinese and English in the chinese
population
Table 1.4 31
Percentage using English to spouse by date of birth
Table 1.5 34
Ethnic groups as a percentage of the population (Straits Settlements
Censuses)
Figure 1.4 36
Rate of increase in enrollment in English-medium schools of the
Straits Settlements 1871-1931
Figure 1.5 37
Pupils of English-medium schools of the Straits Settlements 1874-
1938 by race
Figure 1.6 40
Teachers of English-medium schools of the Straits Settlements
1920-1938 by race
Figure 1.7 40
Percentage of European teachers in English-medium schools of the
Straits Settlements 1884-1938
Table 1.6 49
Language choice in furniture shops
Table 2.1 68
Brown's 14 morphemes: EG's and EB's
Figure 2.1 70
Diglossic behaviour of boys' mother
Figure 2.2 70
Diglossic behaviour of girls' mother
Figure 2.3 73
Diglossic behaviour of Younger Boy
FIgure 2.4 73
Diglossic behaviour of Younger Girl
Figure 2.5 75
Diglossic behaviour of Elder Boy
Figure 2.6 75
Diglossic behaviour of Elder Girl
Table 2.2 80
Use of Pragmatic Particles
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Page xii
Table 3.1 89
Use of wh-words in SCE and first age attested
Table 3.2 95
Formal features of what
Table 3.3 96
Formal features of where
Table 3.4 104
Order of because clauses
Table 3.5 107
Formal features of why interrogatives
Table 3.6 112
Formal features of polar interrogatives
Table 3.7 112
Verb groups in inversion polar interrogatives
Table 3.8 119
Verb groups in polar inversion interrogatives with DO support
Table 3.9 131
Forms of embedded interrogatives
Table 3.10 132
Verb of embedding clause and wh-word in embedded interrogative
clause
Table 3.11 133
Inversions in embedded x-interrogatives
Table 3.12 142
Development of interrogatives
Figure 4.1 157
The 1992 Primary Four Streaming System
Table 4.1 158
Students by type of housing
Figure 4.2 171
Two rectangles
Table 4.2 172
Percentage of PSLE passes, 1991 by subject and race
Table 4.3 175
Percentage with no school qualification by age
Table 4.4 177
Singapore Occupational Prestige Scale by ethnic group
Table 5.1 194
Speech and language therapists by language skill
Table 5.2 199
Initial Contacts for Speech Therapy, Northern Region, 1990
Region, 1990, Frenchay 1987-88, Singapore 1990
Table 5.4 200
Source of referrals in Northern Region and to NUH Singapore,
1990
Table 5.5 202
New pediatric speech and language therapy cases in Singapore,
1990
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Page xiii
Conventions and Abbreviations

A. Transcriptions
My concern in the transcriptions is to provide a contextual background for utterances under discussion, not to provide a
transcription that can be drawn on for other purposes. The following conventions are used in the transcriptions:
(1) normal punctuation where possible, to facilitate reading. The punctuation has no status with respect to intonation.
(2) [ ]
square brackets are used for comments; to indicate omissions ([ . . . ] whether for reasons of irrelevance or inaudibility);
and to record length of pause where relevant. Partly intelligible sections are transcribed in square brackets using
question marks. The dollar symbol ($) is used to indicate one syllable in such sections. Tentative transcriptions are
preceded by a question mark (?).
(3) / /
slash lines enclose broad phonetic transcriptions. The symbols so enclosed are not intended to have any phonological
status.
(4) | |
vertical lines in the transcribed speech indicate overlapped speech.
(5) :
A colon is used in orthographic transcription to indicate a lengthening, e.g. M::: (/m::/. Neve:::r (/neva::/)
(6) Underlined syllables are those pronounced with noticeable force or loudness.
(7) Line numbering corresponds to clause complexes. A speech may contain more than one clause complex. Where a
clause complex is interrupted by other speakers and either continued through their speech or resumed without syntactic
break, the number persists. A single clause complex cannot normally be divided into more than one speech act.
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Page xiv
D. Identification of participants:
The respondents for this study are two sets of siblings, two sisters and two brothers. Major participants are referred
to by mnemonic codes, as follows:
(Elder Girl)
EG
(Younger Girl)
YG
(Elder Boy)
EB
(Younger Boy)
YB
(Mother of Girls)
MG
(Mother of Boys)
MB
(Father of Girls)
FG
(Father of Boys)
FB
(Anthea Fraser Gupta)
AG
Other participants are identified as they occur.
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Page 1
Introduction
Derrick Sharp said many years ago that ''each bilingual community is unique" (1973:11). This book is about a
community which has extreme multilingualism, both individual and societal. Singapore has a small area (about 620
square kilometres) for its 3 million residents. Whereas many cities are multilingual islands in less multilingual
hinterlands (for example Bombay, Lagos, Nairobi), Singapore is a city-state in which speakers from the different ethnic
and linguistic groups have been relatively isolated from the rural areas of Malaysia and Indonesia, the two countries
which encircle Singapore. There has been no significant in-migration to Singapore since the early sixties. Furthermore,
in many places multilingualism is restricted to an elite, whereas in Singapore, although patterns of language ability
differ between the classes (and the races) multilingualism is the norm at all levels of society.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, a resident of Singapore could sustain a lifestyle which operated largely in a
mono-ethnic enclave. The Chinese community is drawn from many 'dialect groups' including Hokkien, Teochew,
Cantonese, and Hainanese: it was even possible to live and work within a community that was virtually mono-dialectal.
Members of the Malay community whose ancestors had emigrated from what is now Indonesia also lived in
communities that were, for example, almost exclusively Buginese or Javanese. Over the course of the 20th century
mono-ethnic living has become progressively harder, until now virtually all Singaporeans live in ethnically mixed areas.
Partly as a result of the extensive contact between different groups, monolingual Singaporeans are hard to find. A few
very old people have maintained a monolingual existence.
The overwhelming majority of the population are owner-occupiers of flats built by and controlled by the government
(Housing Development Board flats-HDB). According to the 10% sample of the 1990 census (Lau 1991), in 1990 86%
of all households lived in public flats (92% of them as owner-occupiers). The policy in these vast estates, which
dominate the landscape and social life of Singapore, is, as it has been from their inception in the sixties, to mix the
racial groups, preventing the formation of ethnic ghettos. The housing which the government flats replaced was usually
racially segregated.
In nineteenth century Singapore there was a policy of segregation, laid down by Stamford Raffles in his original plan
for Singapore, which led to the

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development of traditional geographical areas for the different ethnicities. Some of these areas were intensely urban,
such as 'Chinatown', and were composed largely of terraces of brick-built, tiled, shophouses fronted by a covered
walkway (a 'five-foot-way'): this design was also enforced by the colonial government. These areas are currently
undergoing government-controlled gentrification on a massive scale, although some maintain something like their
original character. Other segregated areas known as kampongs (from the Malay kampung, 'village') had a more rural
character. In the kampongs (some of which still survive) houses were usually made of wood with roofs thatched with
attap (and, later, with tin roofs). People of all ethnicities lived in both the urban areas and the kampongs, but not in the
same area. There were some mixed areas too, including some English-oriented areas, where, for example Eurasians and
Jews lived side by side. Some of the neighbourhoods popular with Eurasians are discussed by Clarke (1992), including
a central area where as late as 1932 a synagogue stood opposite a church (Clarke 1992:52), with the major English-
medium schools congregated together in easy walking distance.
This segregated housing continued beyond the period of its legislation and its heritage can still be seen in some of the
private housing, social provision, and shopping arrangements of 1990s Singapore. However, anywhere there is access
to the governmental or semi-governmental sector, all Singaporeans are operating in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual
environment. This includes most housing, schooling, and health care, and many of the leisure, shopping and marketing
facilities (all these facilities are provided on the estates).
The stipulation that the HDB estates should be ethnically mixed was further strengthened in 1989, when it was seen
that free market re-sale of flats was leading to the development of racially more homogeneous areas. This was largely
because the Malays, who have a strong community-based lifestyle, were being progressively drawn to certain areas. In
order to prevent the development of Malay estates, limits were placed on the percentage representation of the races in
each block (87% Chinese, 25% Malay and 10% Indian and Others) and in each neighbourhood. This regulation has
affected the minority races, the Malays and Indians, more than the Chinese, as in order to sustain a community in an
area minorities need to be represented in numbers larger than these figures would allow (Quah 1990b:51). As with
majorities anywhere, it is easier for the Chinese majority to operate mono-ethnically (although no longer mono-
dialectally) than for any of the minorities. As we shall see in Chapter 4, this has some impact in the area of education.
Domestic multilingualism is now almost universal, and the learning of two languages at school is required. Languages
come into families from various routes. The first is the leakage of school languages into the home. Since the 1950s the
school policy has promoted the learning of two languages by all

Page 3
children, one of them being English and the other being either Mandarin Chinese, Malay or Tamil. The emphasis on the
languages and the degree of choice available to the individual child has varied from time to time. For the Chinese
majority community taking English and Mandarin once meant that most children starting school had to learn 2 new
languages, as most Chinese families used Southern varieties of Chinese at home, not Mandarin. Over time, as education
was taken up by all children, from the 1960s, the school languages have been increasingly used in the home. Another
source of multilingualism in the home is intermarriage, especially marriage between speakers of different varieties of
Chinese, and intermarriage between Muslims of different ethnicities.
This is a community, then, in which bilingualism is not associated with minority groups, or with migrants, but one in
which knowing and using several languages is expected. This results in societal expectations which may be unfamiliar
to readers used to situations in which bilinguals are unusual, even marginal. Much of the literature on bilingualism
focuses on the experience of minorities (Skutnabb-Kangas 1981, Cummins and Swain 1986, Arnberg 1987, Martin
Jones 1989, Saunders 1988) because in the European or North American context bilingual families tend to be from
minority groups. Furthermore, there tend to be concentrations of bilingual families among migrant families who may
also be economically disadvantaged. Sanders points out that "most of the problems associated with bilingualism are
really social or cultural problems" (Saunders 1988:24), principal among them the majority-minority contrast. In these
communities where bilingualism has been seen as a problem: bilingual families therefore often need support in the
maintenance of bilingualism, such as that offered by Arnberg's book.
However, in Singapore monolinguals are rare, and would be seen as socially limited. There are ethnic minority groups,
but they are not more likely to be multilingual than the majority Chinese community-in fact, due to the proliferation of
varieties of Chinese, the most multilingual individuals are likely to be from the majority Chinese community.
Saunders's experiment in the use of German to his children was inspired by a visit to the Malaysian city of Kuching,
which has a pattern of language use similar to Singapore's, which is "very favourable to some sort of bi- or
trilingualism" (Saunders 1988:31).
English in Singapore is the principal school language, an ethnic link language, a major work-place language, the
language of government, and has become a native language for an increasing number of children. It is not restricted to
any single ethnic group, having its principal association with the English-educated of all communities. Bilingualism and
biculturalism do not generally go hand in hand in Singapore. New languages are acquired throughout life for functional
reasons-personal advancement, shopping, talking to neighbours or colleagues-rather than in association with a complex
personal

Page 4
identity (as in a mixed marriage) or to give access to another group. English has the position of a language of
Singapore. In its role as a badge of identity for the English-educated, Singapore English has developed a colloquial
form sharply different from its formal form. In it we see a non-standard dialect of English, a contact variety which can
be linked with creoles, but which, unusually, is associated with a high-prestige group.
In this book I will introduce you to the English-speaking children of Singapore. They are the second generation to have
benefitted from Singapore's economic prosperity. Their parents experienced the availability of a high-quality English-
medium education, good health care and housing. In many cases their parents have provided English as the step-tongue
for their children.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

Page 5
1
Native Speakers of English in Singapore
Introduction
The kind of English which the English-speaking parents of Singapore have supplied to their children is a variety which
is syntactically very different from Standard English. I call it Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). In Singapore, the
popular term is Singlish. 'Singlish' is also commonly used for the English used by people who have poor proficiency in
English, a variety which is similar to SCE. As I wish to make a distinction between the colloquial usage of proficient
speakers and the usage of those whose English may be very limited, I do not use this popular term.
Three factors have influenced all the languages of Singapore, and have led to the emergence, in this century, of SCE:
(1) The extensive contact between speakers with different language repertoires, including close domestic contact.
(2) The almost total absence of people who are monolingual in any of the languages.
(3) The widespread learning of English, both formally and informally.
I use the term Singapore Colloquial English, but in terms of its syntax, its phonology, and, on the whole, its lexis, the
colloquial usage of proficient English users in Singapore is currently little different from that of their equivalents in
Malaysia: most of the linguistic features discussed in this book could apply equally to Malaysia. However the
demographic distribution and social functions of English are rather different in Malaysia.
In Malaysia there are also differences in the functions of English depending on the region. In the multiracial cities of
West Coast Malaysia and of Malaysian Borneo, especially in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and Kuching, the position of
English is very comparable to that in Singapore, with English being a widespread lingua franca, especially among racial
groups other than the Malays. However, in the less racially mixed rural areas, English has a status much more like that
of a foreign language, as there is less need for it in daily life. Malaysia has a bilingual education policy which
emphasizes Malay, and

Page 6
also teaches English. Many non-Malay children also study a third language such as Mandarin or Tamil. The East
Malaysian states on the island of Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah), retained English as a principal medium of education
more recently than the states in Peninsular Malaysia. Although the demography of English speakers differs between
Malaysia and Singapore, the nature of the English which proficient and habitual speakers use does not yet substantially
differ. The difference is mainly in the handful of lexical differences between Singapore English and Malaysian English,
some, but not all, referring to different institutions in the two countries.
With the exception of Brunei Darussalam, the other South-east Asian countries were not colonised by Britain. Brunei
was once part of the Straits Settlements, but the demographic situation in Brunei has further differences from that of
Singapore or of Malaysia. Ozóg and Martin describe its English as similar to, but not identical with the English of
Singapore and Malaysia (Oz6g and Martin 1990:15). However varieties akin to SCE are little used, due to "the limited
use of English in informal communication" (Ozóg and Martin 1990:15). Thailand was never colonized, Indonesia was
colonized by the Netherlands, and the Philippines were colonized first by Spain and then by the US. This has resulted in
differences in the status and features of any English used in them. In Thailand and Indonesia English is a foreign
language, although an increasingly important one. The English of the Philippines is dialectally very different from that
of Singapore and Malaysia, with a different history of contact. The regional grouping of "Southeast Asia and
Hongkong" which is covered by Tay in Cheshire's collection (1991) is neither a contiguous region nor a logical
grouping. Tay has to do a country by country analysis. Both the status of English in Hongkong and the features of the
English of Hongkong are sharply different from Singapore, despite Hongkong's being a Cantonese city and the
Cantonese being an important group in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur. To some extent the discussion in this book can
be extended to Malaysia, but that is all.
It is only in the last 20 years that there has been any study of the varieties of English in Singapore. The majority of
these studies still see any form of Singapore English which is different from British English as being a 'deviant' variety,
whose features result from interference and error. What I call SCE is viewed in a particularly negative light, and is
frequently quoted alongside observations of 'falling standards' of English. The perception of 'falling standards' seems to
have arisen from the democratization of English, and has occurred alongside a rise in the number of people using
English in a range of contexts.
The examination of SCE as a native variety is a new trend in the study of Singapore English. I believe that we should
look at SCE as a dialect in its own terms. SCE is a contact variety which arose in a situation of extreme multilingualism
and has many traces in it of influence from other languages.

Page 7
Some of its features represent the direct influence of, mostly, Southern varieties of Chinese, and contact varieties of
Malay. Others of its features result from most of its users having been, as they still are, non-native speakers of English.
Proficient users of English still live in a community with people at all points of the proficiency range in English. Many
of the features of SCE may have had their origin in the 'mistakes' of non-native speakers, but these features have
become fossilized in the second half of the twentieth century, and it is no longer useful to talk about them as if they
were learner errors. Not, that is, if they are to be found in the speech of native speakers. But it is far from easy to sort
out native from non-native speakers in the mass of languages that is Singapore.
Diglossia in Singapore English
Singapore presents an extremely complex picture of languages in contact. For the individual, as well as for the society
as a whole, the situation is likely to be complex. English was introduced to the non-European people of Singapore in
the mid-nineteenth century as a language of education, at which point it also became a playground lingua franca
between children of different language backgrounds. Out of this situation grew a diglossic English (Gupta 1991a), in
terms of Ferguson's use of diglossia (Ferguson 1959). Richards (1977, 1983) was the first person to refer to the
situation in Singapore in this way, although he never fully linked the diglossia to linguistic features as I prefer to.
There is a High variety of English, which I call Standard English (StdE), which is much like Standard Englishes in the
rest of the English-speaking world (Gupta 1986). In this book I will only use the term Singapore Standard English
(SStdE) when SStdE differs from other Standard Englishes with which some readers may be more familiar (such as
British or American Standard English). The features which distinguish one Standard English from another are
principally in phonology, and in the use of a small number of culturally based lexical items (Gupta 1992c). This H-
variety is the norm in formal circumstances, in education, and in all writing except some representations of dialogue.
However, the Low variety of English in Singapore is sharply different from StdE, especially in syntax and morphology.
I refer to this variety as Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). SCE is the main kind of English used in the home and in
casual situations. It is the normal variety to be used to small children, outside a pedagogical situation. Nearly all those
children who have learnt English from birth will have SCE, rather than StdE, as their native language.

Page 8
Singaporeans are conscious of these differences, which are also exploited in written texts. For example, in the
Computer Bulletin Board of the National University of Singapore, students leaving messages in the "Personal Room"
sometimes choose StdE and sometimes SCE for their message. In both cases, punctuation and spelling conventions
associated with computer communications are used. If StdE is used, texts with StdE verb and noun morphology are
produced which could be from any informal bulletin board in the world, as in this example:
U seem to get pulled into weird conversations between ppl here hmm must be something funny happening with
your electronic brain (rem the teeny weeny little ol thingamajig tt u used to carry ard?)
('Winston' Aug 12 1991)
On the other hand, where the message is in SCE we find a text which needs a translation to be intelligible to those
outside the community. The correspondent below jokingly rebukes a friend for wanting to use her computer account
(the periods in these bulletin board extracts represent original punctuation, not omissions):
go get ur own ac first la..whole life tell pple you not ks . . . then make so much noise only
["Go and get your own account. You're always telling people you are not kiasu (loanword from Hokkien,
'obsessed with getting-on' ) and then you make such a fuss."]
('Pearly' 19 August 1991)
The use of SCE by those who have a command of both StdE and SCE is not the result of error in using a language
which may or may not be native, but a matter of choice based on context and affective message. Informal writing,
comedy sketches, and songs exploit StdE and SCE in ways which are meaningful in the community.
I am not suggesting that there is a hard division between H and L, but degrees of aim at H and L. In practice however,
features of SCE and of StdE tend to constellate in the usage of proficient speakers, and most utterances will be
identifiable as one or the other variety. Pakir (1991), for example, adopting a version of my approach, actually feels
able to italicize some sections of her discourses, identifying certain stretches as SCE, although she does not italicize all
the stretches where SCE features constellate. Willemyns (1987:37) draws attention to a situation (in Belgium) in which
there is in the community a continuum of H and L varieties but where individuals "experience a clear gap" between
their own H and L varieties. It may be that further research among different groups of speakers in Singapore will show
that this is the case here too: the picture I present at the moment is a simplification, but one which I

Page 9
hope can pave the way for a more complete picture when our data analysis has caught up with our good intentions.
In order to discuss the degree of focus on H and L rigorously I have devised a protocol for quantifying the features.
The shift must be described in terms of the presence of linguistic features, not in a circular way based on context, or
instinctively.
Features of SCE and StdE
There is much more to be said about the features of Singapore English than I say in this book. The features that most
distinguish SCE from StdE are syntactic. However, I would like to briefly mention the phonological structure of
Singapore English, something which StdE and SCE generally share. There are several descriptions of the phonology of
Singapore (and Malaysian) English (including A Brown 1988, Killingley 1968, Platt and Weber 1980, Tay 1982), all of
which offer a similar picture. The consonants of Singapore English differ from those of other standard varieties in two
principal respects: the first is that the distinction between voiced and voiceless is generally neutralized in final position,
and the second is that many final consonant clusters are reduced. The vowels differ in a more major way. Adapting A
Brown (1988), who "hesitate[d] to assign phonemic status" to his symbols, I would suggest the following as a
reasonable guide to the sound of the vowels of most varieties of Singapore English:
[i] fleece, kit [ ] lot, thought [ai] price
[e] face [o] goat [ ] choice
[e] dress, trap, square [u] foot, goose [au] mouth
[L] palm, strut [ ] nurse, (comm)a [ ] near
[ ] poor
I have found it useful to use a set of eight features to characterize SCE and StdE (Gupta 1989, Gupta 1991a). Four are
characteristic of SCE, and four of StdE. These are not the only differences between the two varieties, but are
analytically straightforward salient features. It is important to analyse the features of SCE in its own terms. Virtually all
analyses of Singapore English in the past (including my own, Gupta 1986, and Platt & Weber 1980) have analysed
Singapore English comparatively, using British Standard English as a benchmark, for which we were rightly criticised
by Bloom (1986:424f). The criterial features I use do not require comparison across varieties but are autonomous.
Many features, including the use of BE, tense marking, and the use of other verb and noun morphology in general are
required in StdE but optional in SCE.

Page 10
SCE features
(1) Use of pragmatic particles. These are items, mostly loans from Southern varieties of Chinese, which are used to
indicate the attitude of the speakers to what they are saying. Pragmatic particles always follow a constituent and are
often, but not always, sentence final.
At this point, a note on the spelling of pragmatic particles. When the particles began to be studied by linguists, they
were seldom seen in print. When Richards and Tay (1977) wrote about the la particle they criticised the common
spelling of the item, lah, and introduced an h-less spelling more reflective of its Chinese origin and of its
pronunciation. Those of us writing on the particles since have followed this trend of using a semi-phonetic spelling.
Since then it has been more common for the particles to be used in print, and they regularly appear in the Straits
Times. The orthographic norm for the particles has developed differently from the linguists' norm. I now regret that
in my recent work I have persisted in the linguists' norm, and wish that I had used the orthographic norm (which one
might wish to call Straits Times standard!). In this book therefore I will use the orthographic norm, which has
developed a useful tendency towards final h or final r.
The particles of SCE have been described in many different ways. At times they have been described as
"semantically empty" (Chan 1991:213), a view first put forward by Platt and Weber (1980:76f) which few would
now hold. It seems to me to be useful to think of them as being ranked on a scale of assertiveness (Gupta 1992b)
adapting Givón's model as used by Tsuchihashi (1983) for Japanese. The tentative particles (of which the most
common is ah ) are the least assertive, and are used to put forward an idea tentatively, or to mark a request. The
assertive particles (of which the most common is lah ) are used to show the speaker's commitment to what is said, or
to mark a directive. The contradictory particles mah and what show that the speaker is forcefully contradicting
something that has been said.
EXAMPLES (particle underlined)
Her price is too high for me hah. (MB)
Make this one hah. (MB)
The card put inside lor. (YG, 2;8)
The first one downstairs ah. (MB)
I never ever draw what. (EG, 4;10, denial of sister's accusation that she drew on her book)
go get ur own ac first la. ('Pearly')
(2) Verb groups without subjects (PRO-drop). Where the subject can be retrieved from the context, SCE does not
require it to be expressed. Objects

Page 11
may also be deleted, but there are problems in identifying this without making comparisons across varieties.
EXAMPLES (retrievable subject indicated in parenthesis)
Go where? (EB 5;11you)
Because going Toa Payoh. (EB 5; 11they)
OK, fly away already. (MBit)
Still got fever? (FGyou)
Don't want. (all childrenI)
Also can urinate. (EG, 4;3indefinite subject, people in general)
The cupboard hit. Then scratch the dry part off, then got blood come out of it. (EB, 7;8, explaining why YB's leg is
bleedinghe is the subject of 'scratch')
whole life tell pple you not ks . . . then make so much noise only ('Pearly'you)
(3) Conditional Clauses without Subordinating Conjunction. Certain conditional and temporal clauses do not require a
conjunction. If translated into StdE the conjunction would usually be if, or when. There may be a correlative then
introducing the main clause.
EXAMPLES
You put there, then how to go up? (MB) ( = If )
Disturb him again, I call Daddy to come down. (MB) ( = If you . . . )
I sit here talk, can hear also. (FG) (= If I sit here and talk, the microphone can still hear my voice)
She says she go to school then got exercise. (10 year old granddaughter of baby-sitter) ( = She says when she goes to
school . . . )
I grow bigger I wear your dress. (YG, 3;6) ( = When )
You take pink flower is more nicer. (EG, 5;11) ( = If )
(4) -ing as Finite Verb and Verbless Complements. This has sometimes been referred to as BE-deletion. StdE English
requires a verb BE in places where in SCE it is optional, such as between a subject and complement or as an auxiliary
in a continuous verb group with and ing verb.
EXAMPLES (^ indicates where BE would occur in StdE)
He ^ scared. (EB, 5;11)
Today I ^ going swimming. (EB, 5;11)
Flower ^ there ah. (MB)
She ^ so naughty. (10 year old granddaughter of baby-sitter)
My no need. (EB, 5;11AG has told him how space travellers sleep strapped in. His remark is glossable as 'In my
spaceship there is no need for that')
This ^ for the bones lor. (YB, 4;6)
you ^ not ks ('Pearly')

Page 12
Figure 1.1
Overlap of two definitions of native speaker (not to scale).
StdE features
(1) Aux + Subject in Interrogatives. SCE uses inversion interrogatives with only two verbs: BE and CAN (see Chapter
Three). Otherwise, inversion interrogatives are characteristic of StdE.
EXAMPLES
What do you want? (MB)
Why did you cry? (MB)
Does your Malay servant still look after Ella? (MG)
D'you want a tissue? (EG, 4;10)
How do you know? (EB, 7;8)
(2) Presence of Verbal Inflexions (3 pers. sg. present tense, preterite, past participle ) SCE does not regularly mark
tense and agreement by inflexional means, but StdE requires it. The only verb inflexions required in SCE are concord
in BE.
EXAMPLES [inflected verb underlined]
The colour has sort of changed too. (MB)
My uncle also went. (EB, 5;11)
My mother bought for me. (EB, 5;11)
And she remembered her. (MG)
Last time I saw one big spider. (EG, 4;10)
In the morning also it shines. (EB, 7;8)
U seem to get pulled into weird conversations . . . ('Winston')
May her coming birthday brings her good luck . . . (university bulletin board, hypercorrect)

Page 13
(3) Noun Inflexions (genitive and plural ) As with the verbs, SCE nouns are not normally inflected (although pronouns
are), while this is categorial in StdE.
EXAMPLES [inflected nominal underlined]
I give teacher a teacher day's card. (EB, 5;11, hypercorrect)
The children have got no money with them. (MG)
Where's po-po's house? (MG) (po-po, Cantonese, grandfather)
She wear pajamas pants. (YG, 3;10, pajamas hypercorrect)
Every morning I hear the- all the old womans talk so loud, talkative meh. (YG, 3;10)
My mummy's friend. (EG, 5;8)
(4) Certain complex Verb Groups. Certain complex verb groups, using modal auxiliaries (other than CAN), and using
HAVE and DO are associated with StdE only.
EXAMPLES [Verb group underlined]
She's been going there three years now . . . (MG)
I will be number one. (EB, 4;6)
This kind may not last though. (MB)
She needs to be warmed up. (MG)
You'll still be going to this doctor when you're ten. (MG)
I had to tell her. (MG)
We had people coming, so we didn't go. (MG)
I going to take one paper and draw one butterfly. (EG, EG, 4;10)
The seat I shall colour what colour? (YG 3;10)
I have seen. (EB, 7;8)
You should try cooked rice. (MB)
As can be seen, utterances tend to contain a predominance of either StdE features or SCE features. However, the
concept of diglossia is to be seen as useful here rather than as constraining. There are varieties which do not show such
a clear polarization on either H or L variety as others. In the intermediate varieties, the pragmatic particles (especially
the two most common, ah and lah ) and 'BE-deletion' are used alongside StdE verb and noun morphology.
Who are the Native Speakers?
The English spoken in Singapore covers the full range of ability, upwards from individuals who have little more than
the ability to greet and engage in simple transactions.
Some speakers use both the H and L varieties, while others have little control over the H variety. Some writers on
Singapore English (notably Platt and his students) have linked the variety used by a speaker of low proficiency with the
informal variety of a speaker of high proficiency, but I feel it is important to separate these varieties (Gupta 1990).

Page 14
Linguists often use native speakers as a reference point for proficiency. The whole concept of native speaker becomes
problematical outside a monolingual context. The archetypical native speaker is a monolingual who has always lived in
a community which is monolingual in the same language. There are no archetypical native speakers of any language in
Singapore. However, it is useful to attempt to identify a reference point similar to the native speaker concept.
It would be meaningless to compare the proficiency in English of a Singaporean to proficiency in other communities.
When Singaporeans acquire English it is not the English of any group outside Singapore, but is the local variety of
English, used for local purposes. An internally meaningful sense of proficiency is needed. It is useful to use Tay's
identification of 'native speaker' (summarized in Tay and Gupta 1983:179) to understand the situation. However, I
would like to widen Tay's definition to include those who are native speakers of English in the more conventional
sense.
We can identify two groups of native speakers of Singapore English:
1. What Tay defines as 'native speakers', in the Singapore context: adults who have had their education in English from
an early age up to a high level, and who continue to use English in adulthood in all major domains, to the extent that
English is their dominant language.
2. The usual meaning among linguists: 'native speakers' of English in a personal biography sense, namely persons who
acquired English in the home from birth, not subsequent to any other language. They may however have acquired more
than one language from birth.
These groups overlap, in the way suggested (though not to scale) by Figure 1.1. The behaviour of the first group (Tay's
native speakers) is diglossicthey switch between Standard English and Singapore Colloquial English. However, not all
of those in the second group show diglossic behaviour. Some of them are children who have not yet developed StdE.
Most Singaporeans who have English as a native language in childhood do maintain English in adult life. Until recently
those who were native speakers of English from infancy tended to come from socially prestigious backgrounds which
sustained the development of the standard variety to a high degree. In more recent years, the domestic use of English
has spread socially, but at the same time a high level of education has become universal. Nearly all cradle native
speakers of English grow up to become native speakers in Tay's sense. In the language of adults, members of the
community are not able to distinguish speakers of English who have become proficient in it since starting school from
those who have spoken it since infancy.
Singaporeans almost never identify themselves as native speakers of English. This term is usually reserved for a white
person from a traditionally

Page 15
English-speaking country, regardless of personal history. The Ministry of Education has a policy of employing 'native
speakers' of English to teach English in some secondary schools. These people are never Singaporean native speakers
but come from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The advertisements may even stipulate ''a good received
pronunciation" as a job requirement (alongside the requirement for a relevant honours degree, teaching qualification,
and five years experience). A major responsibility of these teachers is in "helping the students to write and speak good
Queen's English" (this advertisement was run in The Guardian's Education Section in 1990). The current emphasis is
on the modelling of RP, which is the officially promoted accent (it is by no means apparent who will determine if
applicants fulfill this requirement), but in the past nationality was the sole determiner: one of the early 'native speakers'
who was personally known to me was a native speaker of Greek who had learnt English from the age of twelve.
Among Singaporeans, it may actually be impossible to discover from questioning adults what their language
background was in infancy. People may not remember, or may mis-remember, their own experience or their children's.
As we will see, the repertoire of languages used in the home is likely to change in the course of childhood. These
people are also bi-dialectal, and wherever speakers speak a standard variety alongside a non-standard one, there is the
possibility of leakage between the standard and the non-standard variety. However, the second group of native speakers
includes children, and children have not yet acquired the High form. Because it is usually SCE that is spoken in the
home to young children, that is what they acquire first. There exist therefore native speakers of English in Singapore
who speak SCE but not StdE. StdE seems to be introduced in the home by parents after SCE has been well developed.
By the time the child is four years old the parents have begun to use StdE in didactic situations, especially in
association with actual school (kindergarten) work, and when reading to their children, and their children begin to show
awareness of the two varieties (Gupta 1990, 1991a). StdE can be expected to continue to develop in the early Primary
School years in these children. My use of children as a source of data has given Tay (1991:321) the mistaken
impression that I equate Singapore English with child language. This is not the case. It is simply that it is hard to find
adult speakers of SCE who do not know StdE as wellit is children's monolectal ability in SCE that makes them
important.
We can assume that by the age of 5 children make few errors in their major native language, basing this assumption on
studies elsewhere. This does not mean that their language use is fully adult, however. For bilingual children the
situation is more complex, because of possibility of interference. The influence is usually from the dominant language
on to the weaker one, and:

Page 16
bilingual children seem to pass through the same developmental milestones in much the same order and the same
way in both their languages as monolinguals do in their respective languages . . .
(Romaine 1989:195)
Romaine identifies six types of bilingual acquisition in childhood (p166f). The usual form of childhood bilingualism in
Singapore, 'Mixed languages' involves bilingual code-switching and -mixing parents and a predominantly bilingual
community. There have been few studies of bilingualism of this type, despite its prevalence in many parts of Asia,
Africa, and South America. Once a child has separated the codes there is no reason to expect more interference in this
setting than in any other kind of child bilingualism. Even where code-mixing is commonplace, children do separate the
codes at a very early age. It must always be remembered, however, that the local varieties of all the codes show the
effects of prolonged contact.
SCE is a contact variety which has emerged from a situation of contact between speakers of different languages, and
from a community in which individual bilingualism is usual. The very languages which historically influenced
Singapore English are still available for influence both at community and at individual level today. However, we
cannot assume, as has often been done by those studying Singapore English who work in the error-analysis approach,
that transfer at the individual level is the principal element here.
In a similar situation, referring to the French of Brussels, Baetens Beardsmore (1983:5) pointed out that "if the same
feature [as found in the speech of bilinguals] is present in the speech of monoglots . . . one can hardly talk of
interference." One difficulty in Singapore is finding monoglots: there are very few monolingual speakers of any
language and of any age (especially among the majority ethnic-Chinese community). If a feature is found in the speech
of speakers of various other languages it is also unlikely to be a case of interference. However, the varieties of Chinese
are extremely similar syntactically, and in certain important respects (such as the lack of morphological markers) are
also similar to Malay. Furthermore, all the spoken languages of Singapore have over the years of contact been
influenced by each other. These criteria are not therefore available here to establish whether a feature is the result of
interference within the individual.
It has been suggested (such as by Platt 1987:395) that certain pragmatic particles are used only in the English of
"ethnically Chinese basilectal" speakers. We do not as yet have sufficient dialectal evidence to justify this claim, but
even if it were true that there are differences between the English of the different racial communities this would not
imply interference, as dialectal patterns could also account for such a distribution. Rita Roop Kaur's small insider study
(1993) gives evidence of widespread use of pragmatic

Page 17
particles by members of the Indian community, but also shows their use of two particles (not previously discussed in
SCE) which appear to indicate group membership. Other particles might perform the same function among the Chinese.
Any effects of interference are likely to be on the child's weaker language(s). We can say that the Singaporean children
of 5 and over, who are native speakers of English, are generally speakers of SCE and learners of StdE (my thanks to
Julie Bradshaw for clarifying this important distinction for me). It is important to me, throughout this study, that the
children I am looking at should be seen as what they are: speakers of a variety of English, who are no more likely to be
'held back' by their bilinguality than bilingual children anywhere else. Their English will be seen as a variety unlikely
to have been caused by transfer from their weaker languages. All features will be taken as features of the dialect of
SCE, given the impossibility of proving interference.
SCE is still generally seen as imperfectly learned Standard English, both by scholars and the general public. Even Platt,
in all his studies of Singapore English (e.g. Platt and Weber 1980) generally treats Singapore English as a non-native
variety. This leads Valdman (1983:227), quoting Platt, and apparently not realising that there are native speakers of
Singapore English, to refer to it as a 'semi-pidgin'. However as we will see, for many years something over a quarter of
Singaporean children have had English (in nearly all cases, SCE) as a principal native language. To refer to this contact
variety as a creoloid may be appropriate, or as a semi-creole, but 'semi-pidgin' is grossly misleading.
Educationists see Singapore English (especially, but not solely, SCE) as 'adulterated' (Thomas and Fam 1984:33). Even
the study of SCE can be seen as motivated principally by a desire to correct it. A concern with the stability of
Singapore English is one which frequently arises. Singapore English, like other dialects, is unstable only in the sense
that it is subject to change and has patterned variation. As will be seen from the discussion later, the studies of
Singapore English which have been done to date, while differing in interpretation, show a striking similarity in data, to
be expected if one is looking at a dialect, less so if one is looking at individual patterns of interference. A further
source of confusion is the term 'variation', which is sometimes used in studies of the English of the region (as it is by
Baskaran 1988:111, and by Gopinathan and Saravanan 1985) to mean 'deviance from British Standard English'.
Several writers (including Moynihan 1984a, 1984b, Sim and Lee 1992, and all Ministry of Education materials) identify
children as having English as their principal home language and as simultaneously being non-native speakers of
English. I have said earlier that I believe the normal definition of a native language among linguists (such as the one in
Crystal 1980:238, or in the UNESCO Report of 1951) to be based on personal biography. This is perhaps

Page 18
wishful thinking. There is a widespread use of the term 'native speaker of English' (not only in Singapore) to mean a
speaker of an 'old' variety of English, which as applied can lead to a distinction between white 'native speakers' and
non-white 'non-native speakers', regardless of personal biography. On a visit to Singapore in 1985-86, as Lee Kuan
Yew Visiting Professor, Sir Randolph Quirk, in lectures, in group discussion, and on television, even referred to
Singapore as having 'English as a foreign language' and to Singaporeans as 'non-native speakers'. This issue was also
alive at a British Council Conference (Quirk and Widdowson 1985), to which were invited what Jibril refers to as
'establishment figures' in the field (Jibril 1986). Quirk's separation of English as a Native Language ( = the "old"
varieties) from other speakers is apparent in all his assumptions. As Le Page (1988:30) remarks, "Mother tongue, or
native language, is a cultural stereotype with strong ideological implications varying from culture to culture." Linguists
can no more escape their cultural stereotypes than politicians.
In the rest of this book the term speakers of English will be reserved for the two groups of native speakers which I have
identified. The term English users refers to all who use English, at whatever level of proficiency. Much research into
Singapore English has focussed on the wider range of proficiency. The studies by Platt and his associates (such as Platt
& Weber 1980) appear to have been principally based on interviews of a range of Singaporeans with a foreign
researcher previously unacquainted with them. They analyse Singapore English in terms of a lectal continuum,
discussing three varieties (acrolect, mesolect and basilect). In this analysis, users are seen as moving up and down a
scale depending on both the level of formality and their own level of skill. Platt (1977) identifies lectal switching in all
members of the English using community in Singapore, equating the colloquial usage of the 'acrolectal speakers' with
the situationally formal usage of speakers whose ability is confined to the basilectal level. He links the three lects with
the level of education of the speaker. Thus (Platt 1977) the acrolectal speakers are "radio announcers, university staff
and business executives", the mesolect speakers are "sales and office personnel" etc. and the basilect speakers are
''waitresses, shop assistants and semi-skilled workers". We can see that it is likely that in interacting with a foreign
stranger interviewees would use their highest available variety, thus allowing Platt access to a range of proficiency. In
my terms, SCE is used by proficient speakers of English in informal settings: Platt and his associates did not have
access to it, as adult speakers would use StdE in a formal interview setting with a (possibly foreign) stranger. I must
emphasise that my SCE is not definitionally the same as Platt's basilect.

Page 19
How Numerous are the Native Speakers?
An ever-increasing proportion of children in Singapore are native speakers of English. There is no reliable method of
discovering how many, as most data is based on self-report of home language use, and may be published without a
clear statement on how it was collected. As we will see, to retrieve native language from the censuses of 1980 and 1990
is no easy matter. We will first turn to figures issued by the Ministry of Education on home language use.
The Ministry of Education collects information on home languages every year from parents of Primary One children as
they enter school. Every year more parents claim to have English as the most frequently spoken or second most
frequently spoken language in the home. By the 1990 intake, 25% of the children were claiming English as the most
frequently spoken home language, and 44% claimed it as the second most frequently spoken home language (Straits
Times 18 November 1990). This would imply that nearly 70% of the current generation of children have English as a
native language. There were ethnic difference, but no ethnic group was without substantial proportions using English
(Table 1.1).
This information, while based on self report, and perhaps reflecting parental aspirations, is nevertheless among the best
available on native language. The concentration of use of Malay by 'Others' is largely accounted for by the group who
are officially 'Arab' (by paternal descent) but who are well-assimilated into the Malay community in many respects.
The other large group of 'Others' are Eurasians, nearly all English-speaking. This 70% figure for the current generation
of school children is the top end of estimates of native speakers in the age group.
There may be a tendency on the part of Singaporeans to emphasize the use of English and (in the case of the Chinese
community) of Mandarin in the home for reasons of prestige. For this reason, observation should replace self-report as
the basis for figures on the children having English (or any other language) as a native language. This presents
problems of a different order. Different researchers examining the same children may use widely disparate modes of
assessment.
I made casual observations of functional language use by children entering an average nursery school at the age of
three, and found that I wanted to say that about half of them have adequate ability in English for their age, which
suggests that the Ministry of Education figure is rather high. However, the nursery school in which I have made my
observations has an average intake, and has few children from the elite families who are likely to have the most
extensive use of English. My estimate was based on the children's ability to interact functionally in English in a
teacher-pupil setting with me and with their teachers, who had a policy of speaking to them in English only (there is

Page 20
Table 1.1 Languages children speak at home based on
Primary 1 intake 1990. Adapted from Straits Times 18
November 1990
Most frequently spoken home language
Race
Chinese Malays Indians Others ALL
Language
English 26.2 10.6 46.6 70.3 25.4
Mandarin 67.9 0.1 0.4 1.2 49.9
Malay 0.2 89.3 19.4 27.4 18.0
Tamil - - 30.0 - 2.3
Ch. 5.6 - - - 4.1
dialects
Other - - 3.5 1.2 0.1
langs.
100 100 100 100 100
Second most frequently spoken home language
Race
ChineseMalays Indians Others ALL
Language
English 33.8 83.1 48.7 27.4 43.8
Mandarin 26.0 0.3 2.9 20.3 19.6
Malay 0.4 10.2 8.8 23.8 3.0
Tamil - - 24.3 - 1.9
Ch. 28.4 - 0.3 3.2 20.9
dialects
Other 0.1 0.1 8.9 4.7 0.7
langs.
Not 11.3 6.2 6.1 20.6 10.1
available
100 100 100 100 100
N 28,074 6,920 2,925 340 38,259

Page 21
more discussion of this nursery school in Chapter 4). However, what constitutes functional adequacy for a three-year-
old is based on my concept of adequacy. This concept, somewhat ad hoc, is informed by my longitudinal study of the
acquisition of English by four children from two families, who could be expected to be at the upper end of
developmental expectations, as they were from highly educated, middle class families. A different level of expectation
would lead to a very different assessment. If assessment was based on the English of children acquiring Standard
English in the UK or the US, for example, the Singaporean children would not be seen as having appropriate English
for their age. A comparative assessment of this sort was undertaken in a major study of the development of pre-school
children, based at the Institute of Education and funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation (Ko and Ho 1992).
The fieldwork for the Bernard van Leer/ Institute of Education study (BvLF) was carried out in 1983 among a similar
population to (but much larger than) that of my own observations. The researchers removed over 2000 nursery and
kindergarten children individually from their classrooms and gave them a battery of linguistic and developmental tests.
The developmental tests were administered in whichever of the children's school languages they were stronger in.
Languages other than school languages were not used at all. The major finding of the project, rather unsurprisingly, is
that speaking English and Mandarin at home gives kindergarten children an advantage in tests in these languages. The
recommendation of this group to parents is to ensure that the home environment is balanced between English and
Mandarin.
The writer's in Ko and Ho's collection (1992) give limited information on home language. 1684 of their subjects were
in centres with government involvement and 734 were in more expensive private centres. They record 16% of children
in the government centres as having English as a home language, and 53% of those in private centres. This is
presumably 'principal home language' (not necessarily the sole home language, excluding English as a secondary home
language), so their figure for government centres is close to the Ministry of Education figure (Table 1.1).
The researchers expressed concern over "the relative weakness of most of the children tested in their performance on
the verbal fluency tasks, although their word knowledge performance, from a developmental perspective, was
satisfactory" (Ko 1992:12). This test required children to choose a picture from a selection and talk about it. The coding
of fluency was based on "content analysis of the fluidity of speech, quantity and quality of verbal response, indications
of grammar development and communicativeness, i.e. is meaning conveyed?" (Sim and Lee 1992:37). I find it hard to
understand how either this or vocabulary knowledge could be pass/fail tests. Sim and Lee's and Lee's figures, which
give the 'percentage success' on language tasks imply an

Page 22
extraordinarily low percentage pass (Table 1.2). However the text refers to the figure for "verbal fluency" as a "level of
fluency". If it is really a percentage score, it is amazingly low and must reflect a tremendously stringent standard.
The difficulty of knowing how these figures were arrived at makes them hard to assess. Nevertheless it remains the
case that the writers are unhappy with the children's performance, especially on the 'verbal fluency' tests:
The Singapore children are non-native speakers of English. Some of them . . . use English as the preferred home
language but it is described as a variety of Singapore English. The majority of the children come from second
language speaking homes. So the children who succeeded on the verbal fluency task in English may be the
children whose preferred home language is English. However, the number of children who were successful has
been small ( . . . the average levels of fluency range from 2.40 to 2.93) suggesting that our children are weak in
spoken English. Since English is the medium of instruction at school, some drastic, perhaps innovative
intervention is probably necessary.
(Sim and Lee 1992:45)
The almost equally "weak" performance on the second language fluency test is explained in a different way. This they
attribute to poor interaction between mothers and children, which they claim is "confined to language regulating or
monitoring behaviour instead of encouraging talk" (Sim and Lee 1992:46). This is tantamount to suggesting a large-
scale cultural deprivation for Singaporean children. One suggested remedy (F Lee 1992b:130) is television viewing,
which is seen as ''beneficial in educational and developmental terms."
F Lee (1992a:62) raises another possible cause for poor performance in L2, which, it is claimed, is the preferred home
language of most children56% of
Table 1.2 Percentage success on selected language tasks administered by
BvLF study (adapted from Sim and Lee 1992:39)
Age (years ) 4 5 6
TEST
English Language Word Knowledge 65 74 78
Second Language Word Knowledge 72 82 85
English Language Verbal Fluency
2.40 2.65 2.93
Second Language Verbal Fluency
3.12 3.54 3.94
Listening Comprehension (English) 44 54
62

Page 23
those in government centres, and 300% of those in private centres. This makes one wonder even more about the nature
of the assessment:
Though communicative, our children were weak on the L2 verbal fluency task, which is puzzling as a majority of
them use L2 at home. Why were they weak on the verbal fluency task? Is it possible that there exists in L2 a
formal and colloquial variety, the latter of which is spoken at home?
(F Lee 1992a:62)
In reading Lee's (1992a) comments on extracts from the group's data one is struck by the simultaneously normative and
impressionistic nature of the comments. R Brown's (1973) classification appears to have been used for assessment of
development in English (F Lee 1992a:62), which, as we will see in Chapter Two, is inappropriate for Singapore
English. Brown's classification depends on the presence of grammatical morphemes which are not normally used in
SCE.
One four year old was "surprisingly expressive" in an account of a picture:
Seaside for shell, got boat, got people swimming, got ship. Sit boat. Sit ship. This baby don't know how to swim.
Must tie up. Then swim. Last time, I go swimming, very frightened. Now I not frightened. Got one boy
swimming,
(F Lee 1992a:62)
Lee does not indicate whether interviewer interpolations have been silently omitted here. The comment on this text is:
His speech conveys his experience clearly, and though it appears initially to be telegraphic, it slowly assumes a
structure with an emerging sentence pattern.
(F Lee 1992a: 63)
Later this child's "speech in English becomes more structured and there is evidence of a grammar appearing" by the age
of 5, while at six "he seemed to have acquired the basic English structures."
The late Ko (1992:139) reports that "confusion over words and language structures can be found through their
responses". The first three examples of this, in which "English is used, but the syntax is obviously Chinese" are:
Sit ship.
I go swimming.
Father bring me go seaside.
In an earlier study, Moynihan (1984a:31) referred to similar constructions as 'elementary mistakes' in the English of the
primary school children she

Page 24
studied. For example (p32) she found that there were problems in "word order and general uncertainty about the use of
do/does/did in asking questions and making negative statements," as in Why she don't know? Grandma, why you have
big teeth? You live where?, and a "failure to use correct past tense forms" (1984b:52) and so on. It is of course
legitimate to discuss any child's difficulties acquiring Standard English, but Moynihan, like the BvLF study, treats
English as monolithic: Standard English is a term never used, and there is no recognition that in speakers of a
nonstandard variety these may be not so much developmental errors as features of another dialect than Standard.
I would regard all of the mistakes identified by Ko and by Moynihan as SCE. They could be produced by children who
knew no Chinese, and do not reflect interference in the speaker. These structures are transmitted in English from adult
to child, child to child, and even teacher to child. In fact Ko realized this:
Perhaps, it was from adults that these pre-schoolers learnt their 'Singlish', i.e. Singapore English, but it does not
matter where they pick up the incorrect expressions. Their confusion and failure to master equally well two
languages have important implications for pre-school teaching and the curriculum. Something must be done at
this stage before their habits become so deeply rooted that they will need a long time to unlearn.
(Ko 1992:140)
The equation of SCE with the 'telegraphic' speech of Brown's subjects prevents Lee from seeing the presence of
structure and grammar in anything but the standard variety. This failure to value the children's abilities in SCE is likely
to have been a major cause of the apparently poor performance in 'verbal fluency', compared to my informal assessment
of a comparable group of children. The normative approach pervading the BvLF study prevents the data being of much
use in assessing the extent of knowledge of English among their subjects.
The majority of pre-school children are said to be "beginning to acquire English" (F Lee 1992a:73); "a few" are
"expressive in English"; "a small group'' are "competent in two languages"; a "moderate number" have "telegraphic" L2
and no English; and "a few children" have expressive L2 but "hardly any English at all". It is unfortunate that with such
a large sample and such facilities this project could not have made a better assessment of the language skills and
background of pre-school children.
Singapore Censuses, 1980 and 1990
Whatever measures are used, the use of English in Singapore has grown. Those receiving education in English at
whatever level have increased in both

Page 25
number and proportion; literacy in English has increased, etc.. Use of English in the home has also increased, although
the available figures do present some problems in demonstrating the extent of this. In the pre-war years, the use of
English socially and domestically was associated with a small elite, but as a greater proportion of the population is
being educated, and educated in English, English has been democratized in Singapore, and it is through this
vernacularization of English that SCE has come into being.
Education (in whatever language medium) has become more widespread in Singapore in recent years. A great burst in
education, which coincided, as we will see later in this Chapter with the dominance of English-medium education,
began in the mid-twentieth century, in the early years of Singapore's independence.
Over the years, a higher proportion of the population attended school. The development of education in Singapore can
be seen in census figures indicating the numbers of people with school qualifications (Figure 1.2). The 1980 and 1990
Singapore census gives details of the educational level attained by people who have finished their education. The most
elementary qualification in the Singapore school system is the Primary School Leaving Examination, taken at age 12.
Figure 1.2 shows those who have not attained this qualification, and those who have gone beyond it to a secondary
qualification.
Figure 1.2
Educational qualifications. (Data from Khoo, Table 2, Release 8, with
data for those born 1961-70 from information from Lau Table 99, Release 3)

Page 26
Here we can clearly see how those who were born after 1941 are likely to have had at least enough education to give
them a Primary School Leaving Certificate, and are increasingly likely to have some secondary or post-secondary
qualification. This change in the post-war generations will be seen over and over in the demographic description of
English in Singapore.
We will now turn to look at the data in the two most recent of Singapore's censuses, in 1980 and 1990. These two
censuses were different in several respects, and data from both needs critical inspection. In the 1980 census,
enumerators filled in the census form with whatever household members were available, and on the day after the censal
night checked household members for the censal night.
In 1990, however, the census forms were delivered to the household, without there being necessarily a personal visit.
Each individual in the household received a personal form and an envelope. Unless help was requested from the
enumerator, forms were filled in by household members and inserted in the envelopes, which were later collected by
the enumerator.
In 1990, there was not, in the administration of the census, a check with households on the censal day: instead birth and
death records were used to adjust the returns. Thus, in 1990 Singaporeans who were out of Singapore temporarily on
the censal day were included. Another major change in 1990 was that some information, drawn from government
records, especially identity cards, was pre-printed on the forms. This is described in the report as "a new approach in
census taking [which] . . . made extensive use of information technology and relevant information that had already been
captured in government databases" (Lau 1992, No. 1: iii). Thus, where in 1980 respondents had choice over the way
they described their race, ethnic group, and dialect group, in 1990 this was predetermined. The use of government
databases also gave access to Singaporeans not actually in Singapore at the time of the census. However the 1980
census dealt only with those in Singapore on the census date.
A further confusing factor in comparing the 1980 and 1990 censuses is that the definition of resident has been changed.
In 1980 residents included Singaporeans, Singapore Permanent Residents, and also foreigners on work permits,
employment passes, dependants' passes and so on (but not tourists). In 1990 however, residents are only Singaporeans
and Singapore Permanent Residents. In 1990 tourists were not required to complete census forms: information on them
came from tourist arrival forms. However, the definitional changes and changes in inclusion in the 1990 census are
unlikely to affect major trends.
The 1980 census was printed in full by March 1981 (Khoo 1981). The 1990 census has been much slower to appear. At
the time of writing (September

Page 27
1993) there have been three releases: a preliminary report in March 1991, and two full releases in June 1992, and April
1993.
Some of the changes made in the 1990 census have given rise to controversy. The executive director of the Singapore
International Foundation, Chan Heng Chee (a political scientist, and Singapore's former ambassador to the UN)
described the census's figure of 36,179 Singapore residents residing overseas as "a gross under-estimate" which did not
correspond with the foundation's figures, based on information from Singapore clubs overseas and other sources
(Straits Times, 28 June 1992).
A Straits Times report drew attention to changes in ethnic affiliation. What look like major changes in ethnic groups in
fact resulted from the forced categorization of the population in 1990, who had been free to allocate themselves to an
ethnic group in 1980. For the Indians the "dialect groups" appear have changed rather radically, from 1980's Tamil,
Malayali, Punjabi, Gujerati and Others, to 1990's Tamil, Malayalee, Sikh, Hindustani, Sindhi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati,
Sinhalese, Hindi, and Others. Not surprisingly the number of Punjabis dropped. The Census Superintendent described
the 1990 method as "more accurate". Singaporeans are allocated a race (Chinese, Malay, Indian or Others) and a 'dialect
group' (a subdivision of 'race') at birth which is based on their father's official racial and 'dialect' identity. Identity card
race and dialect group description is (as can be seen from the Indian list) a mish-mash of religion and language group.
The date at which the official identity crystallized for an individual's paternal line is one of many unpredictable factors,
as "dialect group" nomenclature varies from time to time. The "Hindustanis'' are presumably people whose paternal
ancestors got an assigned ethnicity a long time ago. It may safely be assumed that the Sikhs of Singapore understand
the difference between religion (Sikhism) and "dialect group", which was not necessarily the case for the official who
fixed their paternal ethnicity.
The attribution of ethnicity in the 1980 and 1990 censuses is problematical in both censuses, but at least in the 1980
census it was based on self-description with advice from the enumerator, which seems to me to be a more consistent
pattern than the chaos of Identity Card description. Official ethnicity in Singapore is based on Singapore's concept of
multiculturalism, which requires each citizen to belong to a defined racial and ethnic group (Benjamin 1976, Siddique
1990, Birch 1993:6). For many people, assigned ethnicity and volunteered ethnicity are the same and do make social
sense, but there may be difficulties for the products of mixed marriages, and for members of some of the minorities (for
an example of this, see Siddique 1990).
The 1980 census only asked language questions of a 20% sample (Khoo 1981: Release 8, Tay 1983), while in 1990
(Lau 1993, Release 3) they were

Page 28
administered to everyone. The questions on language use are not without their problems.
The language questions in both census years presented many problems for the complex multilingual families that are
the norm in Singapore. The questions divided households into dyads or pseudo-dyads of residents. Respondents were
asked only for the principal language spoken to each of a range of household members. Parents were lumped together,
thus not allowing for the (large) number of people who use different languages with their mothers than with their
fathers. In many families it is impossible to accurately list a principal language, where multiple languages are used.
Only persons resident in the household are covered. Thus the language you speak to your parents is not recorded unless
they live in the same household.
Households were classified as monolingual where everyone claims the same language as the principal language spoken
to every other addressee. This does not preclude the use of another household language. Households were classified by
the race of the 'head of household'. Racially mixed households would thus be classified by the ethnicity (or assigned
ethnicity) of the senior (usually) male, while heads of household who themselves were mixed would be classified by the
assigned ethnicity of their fathers.
Small scale studies (especially unpublished studies undertaken by students under R B Le Page) during the 1980 census
suggest that the effects of the enumerator on families faced with problematical questions were unpredictable. However,
in 1990 there was no enumerator supervision on these questions whatsoever. 1990's Release 3 gives no information on
what was done with bizarre answers. Bearing in mind the doubtful quality of these results the picture shown in Table
1.3 emerges.
This suggests that in 1980 and 1990 around 20% of the population were living in households where English was the
major language between some household members. This is an absolute minimum figure for households in Singapore
having English as a significant domestic language.
The census data reduced the amount of multilinguality by asking only for principal language in a dyad. It therefore
underestimates the percentage of households using each language. It is also based on self-report and, in the case of the
1990 census, it may be that inconsistent language labels have been silently 'corrected'how would they classify an
answer "Chinese", for example, which would have been impossible in 1980? I am also not very happy about the
apparent drop in 'multilingual' households in 1990, which may result from respondent fatigue. It is probable that
respondents take more seriously questions asked by an official enumerator. What is shown in all the Singapore data
however is a consistent shift to English and to Mandarin.

Page 29
Whatever measure one looks at, the use of English in Singapore has increased over time. General literacy has increased,
and literacy in English has dramatically increased. In 1980 general literacy (based on self-report) was already 84%. The
majority Chinese have the lowest rate of both overall literacy and of literacy in English. For example, literacy in
English and Mandarin for the Chinese has increased dramatically in those whose schooling began after the war years
(those born after 1940). The large gender disparity was more marked in the Chinese community than in the other
communities: the rise in female literacy is much higher than the male, and male literacy in Chinese has been very stable
over the years (Figure 1.3).
This trend reflects the extension of education to both sexes and all social groups after the 1940s. The extension of
English-medium education to Chinese females is, as we shall see below, of great importance in enabling the normal
transmission of SCE to succeeding generations of children. This change from pedagogical to parental transmission is an
important concept in the comparison of SCE to creoles, which will be mentioned in Chapter Two, and which I have
discussed elsewhere (Gupta 1992a, 1991b).
Literacy in English and use of English in the home are related. Census data shows that literacy in English, and domestic
use of English, both increase as educational qualifications rise, as income rises, as prestige of dwelling rises, and so on.
The higher the educational level of the household members, and the younger they are the more likely English is to be
used as a household language.
Table 13 Persons aged 5 years and over by languages spoken (adapted from
Tay 1983, Table 2.6, and Lau, Table 40, Release 3)
Percentage in
'multilingual
households with some
Percentage in English
'monolingual' English
household
Ethnic group of head 1980 1990 1980 1990
of household
Chinese 5.3 13.2 15.3 8.5
Malay 0.8 3.8 4.8 4.2
Indian 12.7 25.4 24.8 12.5
Others 65.1 66.4 7.6 5.1
ALL
6.2 13.3 14.1 8.2

Page 30
Children growing up in households where English is frequently used are native speakers of English. The fact that
census figures relate only to persons living together introduces some unexpected factors, in particular where we wish to
see the change over time. However, language spoken to spouse is a reasonable indicator of language spoken to
children, which allows us to see the relationship between parental age and the likely use of English as a native language
by children. In 1980, 89% of those who claimed to speak English to their spouse also claimed to speak English to their
children (Khoo 1981, Release 8, Table 50)the cross tabulation is not available for 1990.
Language used to spouse is linked to age (Table 1.4). It is reassuring to see the closeness of the 1980 and 1990 figures
in the older age groups. Once again we see the change in those educated in the post war years. The increase over the
ten years in use of English in those born in the fifties is largely a result of late marriage by the more educated groups,
who are more likely to be English-speaking. More than one quarter of children of parents under age 40 in 1990 were
said to be addressed by a parent principally in English. Many more would be addressed substantially in English.
Lim boldly asserts (1986:176):
The pre-school age group . . . are likely to be already speaking English with older siblings attending English-
medium schools. If their parents are
Figure 1.3
Male and female literacy in Chinese and English in the Chinese
population (Khoo 1981, Lau 1993)

Page 31
English-educated, it is also likely that they will be speaking English to their parents.
Lim did not use the 1980 census, which would not have supported this strong claim. Although it is likely that younger
children in contact with elder siblings would have English introduced into the home (as Poupee introduced English to
Elvoo, Kwan-Terry 1986a, 1986b, 1992), all families with children have a firstborn who cannot learn English from
elder siblings.
Parental and sibling interaction is not all that matters, however. The childcare patterns of Singapore are a further
confusing factor in assessing the language background of children, and are responsible for some of the dramatic shifts
in an individual's language repertoire which are accepted here. Female labour participation in Singapore is in general
high, and the labour participation of highly educated (upper secondary and tertiary) Chinese women is especially high,
at 87% in 1980 (Khoo 1981). These are the social levels where domestic use of English is most likely. Where both
parents work outside the home, children have significant caregivers who are neither parents nor siblings.
Such children may be cared for at home by the paternal (or maternal) grandmother in a joint family, or by a maid
working inside the home. It is also common practice to 'foster-out' pre-school children, either to professional
childminders, or (more commonly) to grandparents. Children may return home every evening, or at weekends, or less
frequently, and are usually brought back to the family home when they begin school. Those younger children would not
then be in frequent contact with their elder siblings, if any, nor in much contact with their possibly English-educated
parents.
Table 1.4 Percentage using English to spouse by date of birth (persons
living with spouse) (adapted from Khoo 1981, Release 8,Table 41)
Year of birth Percentage english to spouse
1980 1990
pre 1921 4 4
1921-1930 6 6
1931-1940 9 9
1941-1950 17 18
1951-1960 17 27
1961-1970 - 26

Page 32
The experience of children looked after by their grandmothers is linguistically likely to be the same as that of children
cared for by professional childminders (called foster-mothers in Singapore) outside the parental home, as women who
are free and willing to do this job are seldom speakers of SCE, due to the high proportion of educated women in the
workforce, and the association of SCE-speaking with high educational level and younger age groups.
Most families in which both parents work use a type of childcare outside the home: 59%, compared to 20% of children
who are cared for in the home by someone other than a parent. The remainder are 18% looked after by a parent at
homepresumably the children of shift workers, and those whose workplace is the homeand 3% at creches etc. (Report
on the Household Expenditure Survey 1982/83 quoted in The Straits Times 3 July 1985). The single most popular
method of caregiving where both parents are working is the grandparent outside the home.
Residential maids are normally foreign women, especially from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Educated
mothers are given a tax relief to allow them to afford this, as part of the policy of encouraging educated women to work
and have children (Gupta and Lee 1990).
For the children who are cared for outside the home, there is often a major linguistic dislocation between home
language and child-care language, and given the popularity of the grandmother as a care giver, the age-related use of
language has a jump back in time, as these children are likely to be exposed to the grandparental language in early
childhood, which is less likely to be English than the parental language is. They are of course also exposed to English
in the evenings and at weekends, when they are likely to be with their parents.
It is certainly the case that Singapore has now reached a point where a substantial part of the child population can be
said to be native speakers of English. However they are not native speakers of Standard English, but of the very
different SCE. This group are socially and educationally privileged: the use of English is linked with the level of
education and economic prosperity of the parents, and English is also now the medium of instruction in all schools. We
will now turn to see how this situation came about.
History of English in Singapore
Little is known about the history of SCE. English in Singapore has its origins in the education system established in the
British colonial period. Various colonial and post-colonial governments have made attempts to promote (or given
lipservice to the notion of promoting) vernacular (i.e. non-English) education, but English has always been seen as the
pathway to

Page 33
membership of the elite in Singapore, and has been the language of both the colonial and the independent governments
(Bloom 1986).
SCE emerged in the twentieth century from a complex contact situation. The locus of development was primarily the
English-medium schools of the 'Straits Settlements', as is suggested by Bloom (1986:348), and by Platt and Weber
(1980:18). An additional locus, not mentioned by these writers, is likely to have been in certain racially mixed, English-
focussed areas, such as the districts of Singapore where Eurasians, Jews, Armenians and (especially in later years)
Straits Chinese lived. Clarke (1992:51) reports that the oldest Eurasian enclave was in the very central area of Waterloo
Street and Queen Street, which was also the area where the principal English-medium schools were located. Similar
mixed, English-prone areas developed in suburban areas later, especially in the coastal district of Katong, which
maintains some of this character to the present day.
The brief historical coverage in Platt and Weber (1980) and in Bloom (1986) is based on the various histories of
education in Malaya. However, I have gone back to the primary sources, principally the annual Reports on the
Administration of the Straits Settlements (from 1855), which included a section on education, and the decennial
censuses from 1871 (see also Gupta 1991b).
The British Malaya of the 1930s emerged from the gradual extension of British control to areas of the region. The core
of the Straits Settlements consisted of the three non-contiguous centres (the capital, Singapore; Penang; and Malacca)
where the British were first established and which contained a predominantly urban, racially mixed population. They
were administratively distinguished from the two other areas (Federal Malaya and the Malay States) until the post-war
period.
There is no evidence of any use of institutionalized pidgin English in British Malaya, neither China Pidgin English
(CPE) nor a locally developed pidgin. Platt and Weber (1980:17) quote Dennys (1878) as mentioning the use of CPE in
the region, but add that "it would seem that its use was limited". In fact, to me, on the contrary, it seems that Dennys's
paper supports the view that CPE was not used at all in the Straits Settlements. Although presented to the Royal Asiatic
Society in Singapore, the paper describes CPE as a dialect "principally confined to Hong Kong and the 'Treaty' or open
ports of China": all references in Dennys's paper are to Hong Kong. Assuming that his hearers are unfamiliar with the
variety, Dennys summarizes the usual features of CPE and recommends Leland's work to the audience, which "will
give any one a tolerably fair idea of this singular dialect'' (Dennys 1878:174). If CPE was in use in the Straits
Settlements, Dennys would surely have indicated this. SCE is linguistically distinct from CPE as it has been described
(e.g. Shi 1986).

Page 34
The Straits Settlements (and also other centres, including the Federal Capital, Kuala Lumpur, and Kuching, in Sarawak)
were settled by a particularly high proportion of Chinese. Although in the Malay peninsula as a whole the ethnic
Malays are the largest single group, Malays did not form a majority in the towns of the Straits Settlements, a pattern
which has been maintained to this day. The proportion of Malays and Chinese in the Straits Settlements changed over
time, with the other communities remaining proportionally stable (Table 1.5). The narrow Malay majority of 1871 was
eroded by the influx of the Chinese. There were differences between the three settlements, with the highest proportion
of Chinese in Singapore and the lowest in Malacca.
The Malays were encouraged by colonial government to attend vernacular schools. From the beginning they were seen
as the indigenous inhabitants, however, and their language as "the vernacular": it was Malay which colonial officials
were expected to learn, and it was Malay which became pidginised. A pidgin variety of Malay was used for interethnic
contacts, and still survives to a limited extent. This variety is usually known as Bazaar Malay, but the earlier writers
also called it 'Baba Malay'. Nowadays, the term 'Baba Malay' is used only to refer to the variety of Malay spoken as a
native variety by a subgroup of the Chinese community (on which see Pakir 1986). Until the early part of the twentieth
century Bazaar Malay was much more important than it later became:
Baba Malay is now, and is likely to be for an indefinite period, the business language of Singapore, Penang, and
the Federated Malay States.
(Shellabear 1913:51)
Table 1.5 Ethnic groups as a percentage of the population (Straits

Settlements Censuses).
1871 1881 1891 1901 191z1 1921 1931
European 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Eurasian 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
Chinese 34 41 44 49 52 56 60
Malay 52 45 42 38 34 29 26
Indian 10 10 11 10 11 12 12
Other 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

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Bazaar Malay is still heard inter-ethically (Indian-Chinese, Malay-Indian, Malay-Chinese) usually where one or both
parties do not know English, but also as a cross ethnic solidarity code, especially between Indians and Malays.
The importance of Bazaar Malay and Baba Malay in nineteenth century Singapore is crucial for our understanding of
the form of SCE.
The Schools
English-medium education in the Straits Settlements began in Penang in 1816. By the 1830s there was some English-
medium education in all three settlements. The term "English-medium" is something of a shorthand, the actual meaning
of which changed over time. In the early years some of these English-medium schools used or taught other languages,
principally Malay. However, over time, the teaching of languages other than English in the English-medium schools
diminished, as a second language was not a requirement of the Educational Code which determined the extent of
funding. Other schools, in the Malay or Chinese medium, did not teach English at all in the early years, but by the
1920s and 30s many of these schools were teaching English as a subject.
The Annual Report on the Administration of the Straits Settlements has a brief section on education from the report of
1856-57 onwards (not all reports were available to me). Details increase as government increasingly concerned itself
with the education service. Enrollment in English Medium schools increased dramatically in the first decade of the
twentieth century, much more steeply than the rise in population (Figure 1.4).
In 1856 the number enrolled in the English-medium schools was only 922. In 1872 (the nearest year to the census for
which records are available to me) there were 1722 students enrolled in these schools. This number was to remain
stable for twenty years, rising gently to 2883 in 1891 at the same rate as the rise in population. The enrollment in the
English schools then began to shoot up, with a particularly massive rise in 1899, when the enrollment rocketed from
1898's 4662 to 7264. This steep rise continued until the 1930s when the depression resulted in a slight dropping off.
After the hiatus of the second world war, the Straits Settlements ceased to exist as a political unit and Singapore
gradually became treated as a separate entity. In Singapore in the 1950s education became effectively universal
(although to this day it is neither free nor compulsory), and English-medium education became more and more the
norm. In Singapore, the numbers registering for English-medium education overtook the numbers registering for
Chinese-medium education in 1955 (Bloom 1986:365). Since 1984 all education in Singapore (except for schools for
members of foreign communities)

Page 36
Figure 1.4
Rate of increase in enrollment in English-medium schools of the
Straits Settlements 1871-1931.
has had English as the major medium of instruction. The current situation will be discussed in Chapter Four.
The Pupils
The huge rise in the enrollment in English-medium schools is linked with the changing ethnic composition in them
(Figure 1.5). The racial categories (and their ordering) are those of the reports and the censuses of the time and do not
fully correspond to modern characterisation, nor are they entirely consistent over time.
The races behaved differently with regard to English-medium education (Figure 1.5). The general picture is of a fairly
stable nineteenth century situation, with the school population composed of roughly equal numbers of Chinese and
European/Eurasian pupils, and small numbers of Indians and Malays. At the end of this stable period, in 1886, there
were 1009 European/Eurasian pupils, 1386 Chinese, 119 Malays and 124 Indians/Others. During the period of rapid
change around the turn of the century there was an influx of Chinese children such that within twenty years they
constituted two thirds of the English-medium school population. The rise in the number of children of other ethnic
groups was gentler. Again, there were slight differences between the three settlements. Penang was the oldest and, until
1891, by which time Singapore had overtaken it, the largest of the Straits

Page 37
Figure 1.5
Pupils of English-medium schools of the Straits Settlements 1874-
1938 by race.
Settlements. The proportion of Chinese in English-medium education was higher in Penang from an earlier date
The Eurasian community was important in early English-medium education, both as pupils and (as we shall see) as
teachers. Unfortunately, Europeans and Eurasians are not distinguished in the groupings of school students. The term
'European' is a racial, not a geographical term. 'Eurasians' may be children of parents of different races, but are more
likely to be the descendants of distant racial mixing. In many cases the mixing had taken place in some other Asian
country. The European component of a majority of Eurasians had been Portuguese, British or Dutch, and they were
mostly English speaking. In Malacca, where the European component was largely Portuguese this community used a
Portuguese creole (Hancock 1975). Over the years, members of the Portuguese community migrated to other Straits
Settlements and progressively switched to English. Members of the Eurasian community could also be expected to
speak Malay. Braga-Blake (1992:12f) discusses the complex origins of the Singapore Eurasian community. Families
with Portuguese, British, and Dutch surnames, and Indian, Macao, Malacca, Bencoolen, Burmese, Siamese and Ceylon
origins (Braga-Blake 1992:13) intermarried (as can be seen from the complex family trees traced by de Souza 1992) so
that from disparate origins a unified, Christian, English-speaking community had emerged before the end of the
nineteenth century.

Page 38
Platt and Weber (1980:19) say that it was "unusual for British children to attend" the schools of the Straits Settlements.
However, in the nineteenth century the number of 'European children' who remained with their families and went to
day schools locally was higher than it later became. As communications with Europe improved, especially after the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and as boarding schools improved, parents were more likely to send their children
to boarding school. Even so, when few local children were attending the English-medium schools, European children
still formed a significant proportion of the children. According to the 1901 census, 242 European and 976 Eurasian
boys aged 5-15 were in school in the Settlements. The Kynnersley Report (1902) identifies Raffles Institution and the
Free School of Penang as:
the principal centres of Secondary education in the colony, as well as large Elementary schools. Most of the
European boys of Singapore and Penang, many of the better class Eurasians and wealthier Chinese boys, attend
these schools.
Queen's Scholarships were awarded from 1886 for higher education for those who fulfilled a residence qualification in
the Colony. Over half the winners up to 1910 were Eurasian (Braga-Blake 1992:14), but several of the earliest winners
are described in the reports as "English boys". The 1915 report describes there as being only a "small sprinkling" of
British children. In later years still, separate schools were to develop to serve the British, and other non-local
communities. However, in the early years, the input from the European children is likely to have been important. These
European children would also have been able to speak Bazaar Malay, and often a variety of Chinese too (especially
Cantonese) learnt from their caregivers.
The superiority of the standard of English in the girls' schools is often commented on in the Reports on Education. This
was because the girls' schools had a much higher proportion of European/Eurasian pupils than the boys' schools, as the
European and Eurasian families were more likely than the other communities to educate both their sons and their
daughters. In later years, Europeans were less likely to send their daughters than their sons to boarding school in Britain
. The percentage of female pupils in the early English-medium schools was low: in 1874 10% of pupils were female
(228 were European/Eurasian girls and 9 were Indian/Other Asian): by 1899 the percentage of female pupils had risen,
but even then only 19% of the English-medium school pupils were female.
The rise in acceptance of English-medium education created an English speaking section of the community. The 1921
census included a question about ability to speak English (about the consistency of which Nathan, in the report on the
census, was not at all happy). Although only 6% of the Chinese

Page 39
community claimed an ability to speak English, the size of the Chinese community was such that they already formed
55% of English-speakers, while the Europeans and Eurasians (nearly all of whom spoke English) together made up
28%.
The Teachers
Meanwhile, the composition of the teachers in the English-medium schools was also changing (Figure 1.6). There is a
myth in Singapore that in the early years English was 'better' than it is now because of a high number of British
teachers. This myth is not supported by the figures, or by the statements in the Annual Reports. Until the early 1920s,
the largest single racial group among the teachers was Eurasians. There were roughly equal numbers of Europeans and
Indians. The number of racially Chinese teachers rose dramatically in the 1920s: these were the same people who had
filled the schools as pupils a decade earlier.
The races were not evenly distributed within the schools. The European teachers were mostly classified as 'Senior
Teachers' and they usually taught the higher Standards. The percentage of teachers of European origin hardly rose
above 25% from 1884 to 1938, and tended to drop over the period (Figure 1.7). Indeed, boys' schools with more than
16% of European teachers and girls' schools with more than 25% were financially penalized: keeping the proportion of
European teachers down was an economy measure. Men were more expensive than women, although European women
were paid more than non-European men.
The Languages
In order to understand the language composition of the English-medium schools it is necessary to translate these
proportions of races into language experience. This is altogether more problematical. In the early years, when around
half the children were European or Eurasian there is likely to have been a critical mass of English speakers which,
growing slowly as it did, could absorb the non-English speakers. The Eurasian pupils would have been the dominant
initial input. Some spoke the Portuguese creole, and in any case, where the language was English it was the Eurasian
variety of English. In the report for 1915 H W Firmstone, reminded his readers that "the home language of the
[Eurasians] . . . even where it professes to be English, is distinguished by a peculiar accent and idiom, and in many
respects must be classed as a different language." Filtering out the negative evaluation of 1915, one can indeed assume
it was a distinctive variety of English.
What then were the Chinese children speaking? The major Chinese dialect groups were not evenly distributed
throughout the Straits Settlements, nor did

Page 40
Figure 1.6
Teachers of English-medium schools of the Straits Settlements
1920-1938 by race.
Figure 1.7
Percentage of European teachers in English-medium schools of the
Straits Settlements 1884-1938.

Page 41
all language groups take up English education with equal enthusiasm. In all three settlements the largest dialect group
among the Chinese was (and is) the Hokkiens (a group that becomes even larger if merged with the closely related
Teochew). However, it cannot be assumed that Hokkien was the major Chinese input into SCE, certainly not the only
one. The second largest group was the Cantonese (who also happen to form the largest Chinese group in the Federal
Capital, Kuala Lumpur). As late as 1969 the Cantonese in Singapore were still taking up English-speaking with more
enthusiasm than the Hokkiens (Chia 1977:160).
The Straits settlements also housed (especially Malacca, and to some extent Singapore) an ethnically Chinese group
who had adopted certain Malay cultural habits, including the use of the Malay language. This group, variously called
the Straits Chinese, the Peranakan, or Baba Chinese, were among the leaders in English-medium education, and were
often employed in the service of the British colonial government, giving them at one point the soubriquet, 'King's
Chinese'. The report on the 1921 census (Nathan 1922:77) gives a history of the Baba Chinese, although it does not
identify them as a separate group in its tabulations. Nathan's comments, which reflect the official colonial view of the
community, also link their variety of Malay with Bazaar Malay:
Not only is the Baba Malay the language of the Straits-born Chinese, the best educated and wealthiest and most
intelligent section of the Chinese community, but it is the language of market and shop and counting house
throughout the Straits and Federated Malay States.
Over the course of the twentieth century the Straits Chinese became increasingly likely to use English in the home.
Their variety of Malay, Baba Malay, already influenced by Hokkien, was likely to be code-mixed with English (Pakir
1986, 1989). This group never lost its Chinese roots however, and was continually regenerated by marriage, especially
by marriage between Straits Chinese women and non-Straits Chinese men. The presence of this group reinforced a
Malay-speaking nexus in the English-medium schools. In any case, all the Eurasian (and the European) children would
be likely to be able to communicate in Malay. The small Jewish community are said have spoken either Arabic or
Malay within the family (Geoffrey Benjamin, personal communication), but have also moved to English over the
twentieth century. Malay attracted speakers of non-Malay origin but these communities were labile in the sense that
they were all prone to switch to English.
Some of the early reports comment on the extensive use of Malay in the English-medium schools, both inside and
outside the classroom. The Malay used by the schoolchildren (very few of whom were ethnic Malays) would not be the
vernacular Malay used by Malays, much less modern Standard Malay. It would be based on the pidginised Bazaar
Malay or the creolized Baba

Page 42
Malay: these were the varieties of Malay that had some impact on SCE. The report of 1874 referred to this as "spurious
Malay", while the Kynnersley Report (1902) called it "the wretched town Malay generally spoken by the Chinese".
This type of Malay was also used as a means of teaching English, and the syllabus required translation from English to
Malay in Standards I to III (except in the case of "English boys" who were exempted from this). When E C Hill began
his long tenure as Director of Education in 1889, however, the practice of using Malay to explain and teach English
was already being discontinued. He recommended its continuation:
In the lower standards [in Raffles Institution], the practice of giving instruction in English through the medium of
Malay has been discontinued. There appears to be no objection to this course in the case of the few pupils
possessing a colloquial knowledge of English, but as regards the greater number of the pupils to whom English is
a foreign language, I doubt whether instruction can properly be given without making use of some language with
which the pupils are already acquainted. As all nationalities attend the school, Malay, of which nearly every pupil
possesses some knowledge, is the most suitable and the language usually chosen for the purpose.
Hill's was a rearguard action. The influx of the Chinese pupils was about to reduce the proportion both of English-
speakers and of Malay-speakers. Under Hill's successor, J B Elcum (Director of Education 1895-1915) and his deputy,
R J Wilkinson, we see the development of a major concern with spoken language, understanding and pronunciation.
This change in attitude corresponded with the increase in numbers and the change in the proportion of Chinese in the
schools. Wilkinson (1898) describes the situation as he saw it:
Most of the boys attending the Straits Schools are not of English race and know no English when they come to
school. Indeed they come to learn it. They often (but not invariably) have a knowledge of a Malay lingua franca
which lacks copiousness in vocabulary and precision in grammar. Hitherto they have received their instruction
through the medium of this patois.
By 1900 Elcum felt the direct method was showing results with the children in most of the English schools of
Singapore "accustomed to frame English sentences conversationally from their earliest school days." In 1905 (in
reference to Penang, which unlike Malacca and Singapore had few Straits Chinese) it had become "generally
recognised that the use of Malay Vernacular as a means of interpretation for Chinese boys . . . is tantamount to a futile
attempt to teach two foreign languages or rather two lists of foreign words neither of which is fully understood." By
then English teaching began with conversation about everyday objects. By 1934 the varied linguistic background of the
pupils meant that "the 'Direct Method' of teaching English is practically obligatory."

Page 43
The children in the youngest age groups in 1934 ''seldom have any knowledge of Malay, the "lingua franca" of the
country, and in teaching English, the language of the schools, the 'Direct Method' must necessarily be employed". By
this time children were beginning school at 6-7 rather than at age 10-11 as had been the case earlier. They had had less
opportunity to be exposed to the interethnic lingua franca.
The Kynnersley Report (1902) noted that the only school with an adequate playground was Raffles Institution:
Play-grounds would be of immense benefit to the boys physically, morally, and also as a direct aid to the teaching
of the English language and English habits of thought. Most of the boys as soon as they leave school go to homes
where they hear and speak no English. Had they a playground in which to associate and play English games, the
advantage would be enormous. The smaller boys would no doubt converse with each other in the wretched town
Malay generally spoken by the Chinese; but the nomenclature of our games is mostly English, the bigger boys
would certainly be encouraged to speak English, they would acquire a more manly and less selfish habit of
thought, and their health and physique would be greatly improved.
In 1905 it was noted (by R W Hullett) that it was important to support "that valuable part of his education which a boy
gets in the playground." The same report commended the introduction of grants for infant schools which would give "a
sound practical knowledge of colloquial English".
The playground was, and is, an important locus for the learning of SCE, not quite the kind of colloquial English
Kynnersley had in mind, but the result of the mixing he seems to tolerate. The ignorance of Malay of an increasing
number of pupils made it more and more likely that, even without direct encouragement from the school, English
would be used a lingua franca in the playground.
As for the teachers, they certainly cannot be thought of as monolithic speakers of British Standard English with an RP
accent. Not all the Europeans were British, but the majority were. In 1935, when this information is made available, of
the 161 European teachers, 12 were American, 15 were French (probably nuns) and another 14 were either German,
Portuguese or Italian. Of those who were British some would be Irish, or Scottish. There were no doubt a few who did
speak RP.
Eurasian English was already distinct from British types of English, and its effects on the pupils in the English-medium
schools are frequently deplored in the education reports. In 1895 Elcum commented on the importance of teachers
being:

Page 44
. . . thoroughly conversant with the grammatical structure, pronunciation, and exact meaning of words, in the
language they are teaching. This, I regret to say, is by no means always the case. At many schools the lower
standards are taught by Eurasian Masters or Mistresses who have anything but a correct knowledge of English, do
not even speak it correctly and are absolutely incapable of explaining niceties of meaning to their pupils.
The Indian teachers (many of them are known to have been from Ceylon) do not seem to have been mentioned in the
reports. They would have provided yet another type of English. The European teachers were always concentrated in the
higher grades, while the lower grades were likely to be taught by qualified or unqualified non-Europeans, or by pupil
teachers.
Many reports complain about the difficulty of getting "European" teachers, seen as necessary, especially for the higher
Standards, to improve and maintain standards (also discussed in the Kynnersley Report, 1902). Over the years there was
an increasing concern with the training of local teachers. The Kynnersley Report quoted a view that "recently arrived
Europeans are actually inferior to good local teachers for the teaching of the lowest Standards, where a knowledge of
the Vernacular used by the children is almost a sine qua non."
Thus the initial teaching of English was unlikely to have been a British version of English. It may not have been
entirely Standard English either. Those numerous children who never reached the higher grades may never have been
taught by a 'European' teacher. Historically, the starting point of English was never in a deviation from a British norm,
as it is often presented in writings on the 'New Englishes'. A contact variety was actually taught from the start.
Language Situation in Early Schools
The turn of the century expansion, then, is associated with a considerable linguistic change. Initially the Chinese
children were likely to know Malay, and would be able to use it with the large number of Europeans/Eurasians in the
schools. Increasingly, non-Malay-speaking Chinese entered the English-medium schools. These children would be
learning "town Malay" alongside English and would be as likely to speak English as Malay to their classmates of
different language groups. The Chinese vernaculars would also be used more, especially (but not only) among the
Chinese children.
The Malay that was most important was already a contact variety which had had input from Chinese, and perhaps even
from the Portuguese creole, as Hancock speculates (1975:217). The Portuguese creole (itself an enormously
complicated contact variety) may have influenced the variety of English spoken by the Eurasians, which, given the
preponderance of Eurasians as both teachers and pupils in the early years, may have been a major input into the

Page 45
early varieties of English used. In later years, Hokkien and Cantonese have become more important, while Malay has
receded, especially in Singapore. The 1920s and 30s saw a rise in the use of Mandarin as an educational medium in the
Chinese-medium schools (Bloom 1986:362f). Some of the differences between the Cantonese of Hong Kong and the
Cantonese of Singapore suggest that other Chinese varieties spoken in Singapore are influenced by Mandarin, while in
turn Singapore Mandarin is influenced by them. Mandarin can also not be ruled out as a minor influence on SCE, but
must take a back seat to Hokkien, Cantonese, and Malay, although it may be more important in future (see Chapter
Four).
The most important of the languages that were in contact in the turn of century period which saw the origin of SCE,
then, seem to have been:
(1) Standard English. (Eurasian, Indian/Ceylon, British, American).
(2) Assorted southern varieties of Chinese of which Hokkien/Teochew and Cantonese are likely to be the most
important.
(3) Baba Malay and 'Bazaar Malay'. These in turn had been influenced by Chinese and possibly by Portuguese creole.
The Portuguese creole may have had direct input too.
Some sort of Standard English would be presented to the pupils in the English-medium schools by their teachers. The
individual learners of English brought to their learning of English their own language backgrounds, but they also heard
the crystallizing variety of spoken English from their multiracial school mates.
The varieties which were in contact during the period of development of SCE are still in contact now. There are few
monolinguals (in any language) in Singapore. With the spread of knowledge of languages of education, the average
repertoire of young Singaporean Chinese appears to have dropped in recent years. In the 1960s and 70s Chinese
Singaporeans could be expected to speak on average three to four named varieties, normally English and a range of
named varieties of Chinese, plus some (usually pidginized) Malay (Murray 1971, Platt and Weber 1980). For the
current generation of schoolchildren the extent of knowledge of varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin appears to
have been much reduced. Malay is now less universally known by Chinese under 25. Some proficiency in Bazaar
Malay appears to be more likely for working class young people than for the more educated.
The Present Situation
The initial discontinuity in transmission, where English was transmitted as a second language to each generation of
school children, was soon supplemented by normal transmission in a small number of users. Once Chinese and Indian
girls began to have access to English-medium education, as they did

Page 46
increasingly from the early years of this century, English was available for transmission as a native language (normally
as one of several native languages). The Straits Chinese (who established English-medium schools for their daughters)
and the middle-class Indians were in the forefront of transmission of English as a native language, as they have been in
the forefront of wholesale language shift, in some cases to the extent of children being monolingual English-speakers
until they start school. Over the course of the century English has extended to other ethnic groups in the same way, as
English-educated women marry English-educated men, with whom their natural means of communication is English.
The Chinese community has also been affected by marriages across Chinese dialect boundaries. The Malay community
has been less prone to a total switch to English language: in English speaking Malay families, Malay is generally
maintained alongside English. In the case of mixed marriages (usually between Malays and Indian Muslims) Malay
culture and language patterns generally prevail.
The use of English (and in recent years, of Mandarin) in Singapore's highly competitive education system is a further
incentive to ambitious parents to develop the use of English in the home. For individuals who had established SCE as
an informal variety, that was what was transmitted to the children. This then gave rise to a normal transmission of SCE
which has helped it to develop a stability, in the sense that variation is dialectally and socially meaningful, rather than
resulting from different degrees and types of interference in the individual's use.
Three phases in the schools can be seen in this development:
(1) In the nineteenth century years there was a high proportion of English speakers in the English-medium schools
(many of them Eurasians) and of Malay speakers (few of them Malays).
(2) The early twentieth century expansion period saw a progressive reduction of Malay and of English speakers in the
school intake. Hokkien, and especially Cantonese speakers formed an increasingly high proportion of English-medium
school attenders, but the school population was still very diverse. Malay was still used to teach English.
(3) From around the 1930s Singapore English began to be nativised. In every generation a higher proportion of students
would be second-generation English-educated, which would often mean that they spoke some English on arrival.
Schools promoted the use of English on school premises. Diversity of the school population was maintained by the
multiplicity of dialects among the Chinese, and by the arrival of more Malays in English-medium schools.
We may never be able to discover the history of SCE. There has been a tendency for investigators to fall into the trap
of seeing in the colloquial

Page 47
English of Singapore and Malaysia features of the languages they know best. It is not enough to treat contact features
as a supermarket in which you shop around for commonalty: the areas of influence must be based on historical
likelihood as well as on linguistic similarity, which may be fortuitous. This linguistic similarity also needs to be
rigorously determined (Mufwene 1986).
For example, Richards and Tay (1977) regard the pragmatic particles as coming from Hokkien (Tay is a Hokkien),
while for Kwan-Terry, a Cantonese, (1978, 1986a, 1986b, 1989) Cantonese is a major influence. Baskaran, a Malaysian
Indian, who has no access to Chinese (Baskaran 1988:110), has not compared Malaysian English to Chinese at all,
attributing all features of Malaysian English to Malay and even to Tamil.
I have discussed the linguistic features of SCE and their sources in more detail elsewhere (Gupta 1992a, 1991b). To
establish the sources in full requires more extensive work than anyone has done in the spoken varieties of
Hokkien/Teochew, Cantonese and Malay as used in Singapore.
SCE in Singapore Today
SCE seems to have been a contact variety pioneered by children. It is still a vital lingua franca for children from their
earliest school years (see Chapter Four).
SCE is associated with prestige groups in Singapore. This does not mean that SCE itself has prestige, or at least not
overtly, nor that its status in the community will be expressed unambiguously by members of it. Lim (1986) discusses
the ambivalence of attitudes of the Singapore English-speaking community to SCE, revealing such anomalies as 67%
of her respondents saying Singapore English had little aesthetic value, while 60% of the same respondents, made to
believe that a society was being formed for 'The promotion of Singapore English for local literature and drama',
expressed an interest in supporting such a society (Lim 1986:274,305).
Audiences may react with amusement or embarrassment to the use of Singapore English even in sociolinguistically
appropriate enactments in drama (Le Blond 1986:117f), although since Le Blond wrote this paper SCE has become
more usual in serious theatre. It may be felt by some that the context of literature demands StdE, and this is a more
powerful demand than the desire to portray language use relatively realistically. There is a comparable situation in
Chinese drama, which is resolutely in Standard Mandarin, even when portraying Cantonese women labourers: other
varieties of Chinese are not allowed to be heard from the Singapore Broadcasting Company. In May 1993 there were
several complaints at the use of SCE in comedy on television: many Singaporeans felt that television had an educational
function and ought not to set this bad example. As a result of this, SCE was subsequently banned from

Page 48
television, although 'correct English' with a Singapore accent is permitted. Multilingual presentation in drama was
unheard of until Kuo Pao Kun's production in 1986 of Mama looking for her cat, which used English (StdE and SCE),
Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay and even Tamil in a meaningful way, and which dealt in part with the gap
between English- and Mandarin-speaking children and their Hokkien- (and Tamil-) speaking parents. This poignant
play did not produce laughter in the wrong places, but at the public discussion after the performance which I attended
there was a lively debate in which some of the Singaporean members of the audience exhibited concern about the
extent to which the play would be understood 'abroad'. Multilingual theatre has become common since then, although
not on television. Television services are divided according to language and multilingual productions are impossible.
In writing for children SCE is seen as positively dangerous: a children's novel I wrote (One Big Problem ) was finally
accepted by a local publisher (Graham Brash) despite 'all the Singlish' (i.e. SCE), but was rejected by three others, who
felt that the schools would not approve of the use of some non-standard English (which was in dialogue only), and
wanted me to remove it. Heidi Platt has written a series of children's mysteries set in Singapore: despite her own
research on Singapore English, her characters speak like the Famous Five.
SCE is characterized by its syntax rather than its lexis-although there are some lexical items that are used only in SCE,
there do not seem to be lexical items only used in StdE. Here, the lexis appears to be restricted by the general
knowledge of English lexis of the speaker, and by the speaker's perception of the level of comprehension of the hearer.
Thus erudite words can be found in the most SCE background. SCE would appear to be being used more extensively as
the use of English in the population rises. Speakers also introduce lexical items from other languages, and code-shift,
depending on their perceptions of the interlocutor's repertoire.
SCE is coming to perform in Singapore the role of an identity marker rather than that of a half-learnt version of
Standard English. Manessy (1981:62) suggests that the systematization of a creole may be based on the speech of those
who have adequate knowledge of the norms, but choose the creole in order to identify with a community. Similarly,
SCE has not emerged from those weak in English but from those who use it habitually as a language of primary
expression. For instance, the English-educated appear to use the lack of proficiency in SCE of the Chinese-educated to
poke fun at them.
It is not surprising that the forms of the languages spoken in Singapore should all show some convergence in syntax. It
would seem that Singapore is becoming, at least at the colloquial level, a vast Kupwar (Gumperz and Wilson 1971).
There has also been some cross-borrowing between English, Hokkien,

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Cantonese and Malay, so that certain lexical items (such as makan, 'eat, food', roti, 'bread' from Malay koon, 'sleep'
from Hokkien perm and ice-cream from English plus innumerable food and cultural items) may appear, in varying
degrees of indigenization, in any language background. The most striking mass borrowing into English, Malay, and all
the Chinese varieties including Mandarin (Lock 1988:359f, Tay 1989:409), however, is a systemic one, the borrowing
of a selection of the pragmatic particles of assorted Southern Dialects of Chinese.
Multilingualism is the norm in Singapore, and even domestic multilingualism is the norm rather than an exception.
Creoles emerge out of multilingual situations (Chaudenson 1978:77), and Singapore can be regarded as a laboratory in
which an English contact variety is emerging. First generation native SCE speakers are being created in Singapore now,
very few of them monolingual. In these children growing up with SCE, SCE has become a native language, not an
interlanguage.
In the last twenty years English has become a major native language in Singapore. It is the only language in relation to
which the three major racial groups are equivalent. It is a major functional lingua franca, which has replaced Malay as
the cross-racial language of preference. Singaporean strangers who find themselves in a transaction of any sort have to
negotiate a common language. Choice is based on personal repertoire and prediction of the other party's repertoire. One
of my students (Tan Ai Koon) exploited her husband to elicit data on how choice relates to perception of social class.
Her husband, a Chinese, was dressed in two guises: in a middle class professional guise he wore white shirt, trousers,
and tie, while in his factory worker guise he wore a worker's overall. He looked around 20 furniture shops in each
guise, the second visit being after an interval of a week. The shops were in two categories: HDB shops (in government
housing estates) and up-market shops. When he was approached by an assistant Tan noted down the language of
approach. In some cases the same assistant approached him on both occasions. Results can be summarized as shown in
Table 1.6.
Table 1.6Language choice in furniture shops (from data of Tan Ai

Koon)
Guise Middle class Working class
Shop Engl. Mand. Hokk. None Engl. Mand. Hokk. None
HDB 1 6 3 - - 4 6 -
Up-market 9 1 - - 1 4 3 2

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Given a customer who could be assumed to know English, English was the language of choice in the up-market store,
even though in one case Tan noticed the sales assistants conversing in Mandarin among themselves. The sales assistant
in the up-market shop who used Mandarin to the 'Middle Class' customer was in his fifties. The same assistant switched
to Hokkien when faced with the 'Working Class' customer. The switch from English to varieties of Chinese (or neglect)
in the up-market shops would have been complete had it not been for one Malay assistant who kept to English in both
cases. One of the assistants who spoke to the 'factory worker' in Hokkien was reading a novel in English. In the HDB
shops, on the other hand, English was used only by one assistant, who was very young. The same assistant switched to
Mandarin when faced with a 'factory worker'. The three assistants who spoke to the 'Middle Class Professional' in
Hokkien were old. Just as the assistants in the upmarket shop tended to shift from English to Mandarin when faced with
the 'factory worker', the assistants in the HDB shop tended to shift from Mandarin to Hokkien. Guesses like this, which
may be followed by a negotiation for a suitable language, are part of everyday life in Singapore and any child who
accompanies adults about their everyday activities cannot fail to observe them happening. One of my students (Sim Ay
Nar) examined the language choice considerations of her own child (aged 3;11), who spoke English, Mandarin, and
some Cantonese. She made naturalistic observations, and displayed photographs. She also asked him to explain his
reasons. This child associated older people with Mandarin, and younger with English. However, a variety of clues,
especially dress style and setting, could modify this basic pattern, and he would also match any languages used by his
interlocutor either to him or overheard. When presented with strangers he would also compare them to known people,
and even pick up minor details on one occasion he said he would speak Mandarin to two children in a photograph
because the woman with them (in deep shadow in the background) looked as if she would speak Mandarin.
In addition to its functional role, SCE, the Low variety of English, is used to express solidarity functions, which gives it
a particular role in inter-ethnic contacts. SCE is a means of expressing national, rather than ethnic, identity, and is now
the major inter-ethnic link language.
Singaporeans have many ways of expressing solidarity within and across ethnic boundaries, of which SCE is only one.
The National University of Singapore electricians, who all can speak English, are a group of young Indians, Malays and
Chinese who communicate among themselves in a habitual solidarity code which is a mixture of Hokkien and Malay.
Solidarity codes can be used between strangers too. For example, at the up-market shopping area of Holland Village, I
observed a Chinese woman at a magazine stall, asking in English for the availability of Number Fourteen in a series she
was

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collecting. The middle-aged Indian vendor said, "Not in yet." The woman replied, "Illet", Tamil for Don't have. The
vendor repeated, "Illet". This was probably one of a handful of Tamil formulae known to the customer (as it is to me),
and was used in a gesture of solidarity. Similarly, a young Indian vendor was selling purses at the 1992 Lunar New
Year Market. Two Chinese women of his own age approached him and, in English, asked for the price of an item . He
gave them a price in Mandarin, to which they responded, in English, "So expensive!'' A lighthearted bartering
discussion (with flirtatious elements) in English followed. These formulaic uses of the other party's language are not
related to the need to search for a common language, but serve to express friendliness. Both these exchanges took place
in a situation of English having first been established as the functional communicative language of the transaction. The
use of a language other than English cross-racially is potentially insulting as avoidance of English may be seen as
implying that the interlocutor is uneducated.
SCE is more suitable as an element in the marking of solidarity than is StdE because while StdE is ethnically neutral,
ability in it is a class marker. Once, children from English speaking homes were from an elite minority. However,
English as a domestic language has recently begun to spread out of the upper class population, as we can see if the
Ministry of Education figures are anywhere near right. What this means is that there are an increasing number of people
who have been speakers of English since infancy. In the past children who spoke English at home have tended to grow
up to be proficient in StdE, due to the links of English as a domestic language with high social class and educational
level. However, it may be that in the future there will be substantial groups who are proficient in SCE but not in StdE.
Then the varietal pattern of English in Singapore will become much more like that in the traditional English-speaking
world, or in the English-speaking Caribbean, where most citizens are fluent in a spoken variety of English which may
be very different from StdE. Proficiency in StdE will continue to reflect level of education and social class. Even now,
we need to begin to take care not to confuse proficiency in English with proficiency in Standard English.

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2
Acquiring Singapore Colloquial English
Introduction
Studies of the acquisition of English generally focus on the development of inflectional morphology, the syntax of
negation and interrogation, and the order of acquisition of similar elements of syntax. As we have seen, SCE is a
language with little inflectional morphology. Accounts of normal acquisition of English such as R Brown's (1973) or
Wells' (1985), and assessments of language disability (Crystal 1982, Crystal, Fletcher and Garman 1976, 1989) all refer
to a point at which features such as tense marking or plurality become categorial. For example, children begin to speak
without tense marking, then begin to use the past tense sometimes, until finally the use of the past tense becomes
obligatory, as it is in the adult model. However, in SCE tense reference is never categorial.
Tense is obligatory in StdE but to assess a speaker of Singapore English, especially to assess a child, on the basis of
categoriality in speech presumes that the use of StdE is obligatory, which it is not. Many of the StdE features which
show a late and interesting pattern of acquisition in StdE are not found in SCE, such as, as we will see in Chapter
Three, inversion and DO insertion in interrogatives. Like many contact varieties, SCE could be described as having a
'simple grammar.' It has been suggested that contact varieties show more features of universal grammar than languages
which have followed normal transmission for generations. This might suggest that they are easier to learn.
In this book I will not address the issue of the extent to which the features of SCE reflect universal grammar, which I
have discussed elsewhere (Gupta 1990, 1991b, 1992a). Instead, I will outline what appears to be the normal pattern of
development of SCE in children. My approach to children's language acquisition reflects a trend in language acquisition
studies which recognizes:
the degree to which language acquisition is a social as well as a cognitive accomplishment, the need to recognize
the complexity of the social-prag-

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matic as well as the formal linguistic systems acquired, the impossibility of studying or understanding language
acquisition outside its natural social-linguistic context [and].. the acceptability of a variety of research methods in
the study of child language . . .
(Conti-Ramsden & Snow 1990:2)
The most detailed information in my study is on pragmatic particles (this chapter) and interrogatives (Chapter Three).
Both these features raise pragmatic issues, and many formal issues are raised by interrogatives.
Acquiring a Creole
Bickerton's concept of a bioprogram is "the floor beneath which human language cannot fall" (Bickerton 1981:296). It
is the intrinsic human language structure that humans resort to in circumstances of stress, such as are engendered by
slavery with relocation and by language acquisition. The bioprogram leads speakers to express tense, modality and
aspect with preverbal particles, to make no difference in syntactic structure between questions and statements, and so on
(Bickerton 1981). There is a particularly clear account of this concept in Bickerton's action-packed novel, King of the
Sea, in which the hero is helped to an understanding of dolphin communication by his earlier mastery of Guyanese
Creole (1979, Granada: London). The dolphins communicate in their bioprogram.
Bickerton's definition of a creole is so narrow that if we follow it there are probably no creoles. He asserts that the
substratum (languages other than the one from which the lexis predominantly comes) had no part in forming the
grammar of the creole. He tells us that his theory of the bioprogram can be tested by a study of the "present-day
acquisition of creole language" (1981:210) but places so many conditions on such a study that one can never imagine it
taking place.
Of course the results will be more meaningful the more that creoles relatively free of superstrate influence, which
have remained relatively unchanged since their origin, are made the subject of study. Little value would be
obtained from a study of HE [Hawaiian English] acquisition, for example, given the rising tide of English that is
presently eroding it, and the fact that in its purest [sic] form it is spoken only by a minority of the population, few
if any of whom are now under forty-five.
(Bickerton 1981:210)
Studies of the first generation creole speakers would be even more fraught, as Bickerton's analysis presupposes an
unusual family life:

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Since none of the available vernaculars [in Hawaii] would permit access to more than a tiny proportion of the
community, and since the cultures and communities with which those vernaculars were associated were now
receding rapidly into the past, the child born of pidgin-speaking parents would seldom have had any other option
than to learn that rudimentary language, however inadequate for human purposes it might be.
(Bickerton 1981:5)
Such children, he says, do not have "a referentially adequate language to learn" (p. 5), and the parent cannot teach them
because "the parent knows no more of the language than the child". Snow's view that children do receive a "simplified,
well-formed and redundant corpus" is, says Bickerton:
. . . quite simply untrue. The input that the first creole generation in Hawaii received was over-simplified rather
than simplified, and was as far from being well-formed as anyone could imagine. . . . Mother could not teach
these children to speak, for the simple and inescapable reason that Mother herself did not know the languagethe
language didn't exist yet. But even so, without Mother, those children learned how to speak.
(Bickerton 1981:139)
Bickerton seems to envisage a very nuclear-family style of upbringing. In most societies child-care is diversified:
mothers, even fathers, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, cousins, and especially elder siblings and other children
participate. Snow (1986:69) reminds us that the term 'motherese' can give a false impression that a child-directed style
is restricted to mothers.
Several writers have criticised Bickerton's reliance for his definition of a creole on a complete dislocation. Sankoff and
Mazzie (1991) say that this 'orphaning' of languages is hard to find in the world. In his later work Bickerton admits that
the first generation speakers were exposed to a variety of languages, but claims that they did not make use of these
languages in their creation of the creole (Bickerton 1989). The situation of rampant and fluid multilingualism described
by Crowley (1990) is a much more normal setting for creole genesis, and much more like the situation experienced in
Singapore and the Straits Settlements. Creolists such as Mufwene (1986, 1990 etc), veteran of several vitriolic attacks
from Bickerton, consider all the languages of the environment as potential sources for structures in creoles, a form of
analysis which makes a great deal more sense for the multilingual situations which contact varieties emerge in.
Romaine and Wright (1987) give a brief picture of the first generation speakers of Tok Pisin, again not living in the
deprived environment envisaged by Bickerton. The parents of first generation native speakers seem to ignore the
limited usefulness Bickerton ascribes to their ancestral languages, and

Page 55
persist in using them in their homes, and to their children. It is difficult to imagine why a whole family should feel
obliged to restrict themselves to one limited and inadequate pidgin. Families can tolerate bilingualism within a
household, even bilingualism to the extent that some family members cannot communicate with others, as is common
in Singapore (see Tan 1984, 1988). First generation creole speakers are normally bilingual, as there is no need for (say)
the mother to speak to the child in the language she uses to her husband, or for a paternal grandmother to speak to the
child in the language (if any) she is obliged to use to her daughter-in-law. The children thus do have access to a non-
pidgin (or more than one) grammatical system. This does not imply that the child maintains proficiency in the ancestral
language(s), but merely that it/they was/were available to the child in the period of acquisition. They do not suddenly
stop being used (Alleyne 1986:308f). Bickerton's assertion (Bickerton/Muysken 1988:302) that first-generation creole
speakers "heard an indefinite number of ancestral languages; these however they ignored" is not borne out in practice.
In point of fact, in Bickerton's own study it was found that "all the older, locally-born subjects we interviewed spoke at
least one other language besides HCE [Hawaiian Creole English] when they were children" (Bickerton 1981:16).
Bickerton has made (p16) a sharper break between pidgin and creole than others have been able to identify (Alleyne
1980:3). It would indeed be surprising if learners of creoles did not vary from the near-native proficiency to the
rudimentary proficiency that learners of standard languages show. It is also in Bickerton's interests to demonstrate sharp
acceptability judgments in a 'pure' creole (Bickerton 1981:15, 1977:34). Baker and Corne (1982) have shown that the
creole of Réunion emerged in a situation with a high proportion of white, ex-France, native French speakers. This
seems to imply the absence of a pidgin stage, but instead a "'shift' in the target language label from French to its
approximated forms" (Chaudenson 1986:81). Many other languages that have been classified as creoles have, on closer
examination, proved to be less than classic creoles. Lefebvre (1986:282) looks at the possibility of processes having
taken place in the genesis of a creole "without involving a pre-creole stage", such that (1986:282) "there should be no
assumption on a universal pre-creole pidgin phase". Bickerton has recently (1986:226) come to the revolutionary
conclusion that even in archetypical, plantation slavery situations, the acrolect came first, then mesolect, then basilect.
In other words, that all creoles are, in Platt's terminology, creoloids, if I understand him. Terminology apart, I take the
position that important conclusions "can be drawn from language situations involving some other combinations and/or
degree of simplification, mixing, elaboration etc. than that required by definition for a language to qualify as a true
pidgin or creole" (Woolford 1983:8). Non-classic creolization processes are much more common than Bickerton's

Page 56
strict scenarios. Any contact situation lends itself to the creation of contact varieties which are involved in processes of
'non-natural' change. If the new contact variety has "a form palpably different from either stock language" (Weinreich
1953:69) that is what matters: it is not important if one uses the word 'creole' or not. These varieties are referred to by
Thomason and Kaufman as 'mixed languages':
there are indeed mixed languages, and they include pidgins and creoles but are not confined to them; mixed
languages do not fit within the genetic model and therefore cannot be classified genetically at all; but most
languages are not mixed, and the traditional family tree model of diversification and genetic relationship remains
the main reference point of comparative historical relationship owing to the fact that it is usually possible ( . . . )
to distinguish mixed languages, whose origins are non-genetic, from languages whose development has followed
the much more common genetic line.
(Thomason and Kaufman 1988:3)
What causes discontinuity is a major break from normal transmission (Thomason and Kaufman 1988:10). As we have
seen, SCE emerged from a situation where few native speakers of English were teaching English to large numbers of
learners, so there has been a break in normal transmission. Ignoring the terminological issue, which seems not of great
interest, I would say that SCE can usefully be compared with creoles around the world, both structurally and
functionally.
What does make Singapore somewhat unusual among creoles (and almost-creoles) is that those who use SCE
domestically, as we have seen in Chapter One, tend to be of high prestige. Thus Alley's comments are not applicable to
Singapore:
In creole-speaking areas-let me say the Caribbean so as not to wander on uncertain ground-creoles are oral
languages spoken by people both of a special class, i.e. uneducated, poor, and especially severely restricted and
oppressed in terms of self-fulfillment, and of a special culture, both of which circumstances assign language to a
special set of functions.
(Alleyne 1980:16)
Similarly, the educational disadvantage and opprobrium which accrues to many creole speakers does not to the native
SCE speakers, who, quite the opposite, have in general a social and educational advantage. As Moag and Moag (1979)
said of Fiji, native speakers of a nonstandard variety of English have a headstart, when learning Standard English, over
those who speak no English whatsoever. The high societal status of SCE as a native language is not sufficient to
discount its creole-like status. On the contrary, it is of some

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interest to contemplate what may be seen as the acquisition and emergence of a contact variety associated with a
prestige group.
Bickerton (1981:210), is fairly sure that creoles are easier to learn. Romaine (1983) has, in reviewing Bickerton's Roots
of Language, criticized the details of his study while acknowledging his raising of exciting questions that need to be
answered. If we to any degree accept that some linguistic forms are easier to learn than others (Bickerton 1981:145) we
cannot entirely reject the bioprogram. Foley found that:
in a number of language communities in which Tok Pisin is gradually supplanting the local language, the
language being usurped is of a quite complex morphological type . . . , and I have commonly observed that
bilingual children are often able to express an idea in perfectly grammatical Tok Pisin long before they can
manage it in the vernacular.
(Foley 1988:182)
If it is the case that creole and creole-like languages are easier for children to acquire, there might be cognitive
implications (Dennis Craig, personal communication), either that children may be disadvantaged by receiving less
challenge, or advantaged by being enabled to develop in other areas more quickly. As will be seen, my study suggests
that complex interrogatives, and conditional sentences appear in SCE speaking children sooner than might be expected
in children acquiring Standard English. This may suggest a cognitive advantage. In Chapter Five we will discuss some
of the disadvantages of being exposed only to a grammatically simple language.
As is usual in creoles (Bickerton 1977), and in all nonstandard varieties, there is a weak sense of acceptability in SCE:
its features are generally seen by speakers as errors, and this makes access to speaker intuition difficult. It is important
at this stage in our knowledge for studies to be based on actual usage.
The Children in My Study
I approached two families, each with two pre-school children, and made 9 one-hour recordings in each family, over a
period from April 1984 to June 1987. Both families were known to have English as the main domestic language. It was
also reported that some Mandarin was used in the home, that the grandparents spoke to the children in Cantonese and
that the children spoke Hokkien or Teochew with their baby-sitters. It was originally intended to make regular, perhaps
monthly, visits during the period July 1985 to June 1987, but this proved impracticable due to family problems in both
families (bereavement, house-moving, and other commitments) and to my own commitments.

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Recordings were made while the children were playing with each other, with me, and (especially in the earlier sessions)
with their mothers. Complete transcriptions in normal orthography were made of all audible sections of the tapes
(virtually all the tape after the first session). The sense of 'language being spoken' was strong in all the children from
the beginning and my presence tended to ensure that only English was spoken. What little non-English material was
used was to non-Anglophone participants. In later sessions pedagogic routines using Mandarin were engaged in.
The data proved to be rich and varied, and in no way resembled interview data. Milroy (1987) and Wolfram (1986)
both discuss the problems and satisfactions of using naturalistic data. My central interest was in the development of
interrogatives, and one of the problems of interview data is the rarity of interrogative structures in the speech of those
being interviewed (Milroy 1987:54), while naturalistic data is rich in interrogatives. The importance of naturalistic data
at this stage of knowledge of SCE makes the need to collect and analyse natural speech of paramount importance. Of
course the presence of the outsider modifies the behaviour of adults (Wells 1986:113) and perhaps of the children, but
the researcher's presence is essential for the full understanding of the contexts of utterances. In the present study part of
the impact of the researcher's presence is predictable and exploitable in that the presence of a foreign researcher
promotes the use of StdE. This allowed me to identify the development of diglossia in the children (Gupta 1990,
1991a).
Some functions do not appear in formally collected data: Saville-Troike (1986:136) comments on the rarity of
argumentative data. The most prolonged disputes she recorded were between two Chinese brothers aged 3 and 4 years.
The children in her study used strategies of argument involving temporization, compromise and moral argument which
were also used extensively by Japanese and Korean children, but rarely or never by 'English speakers.' In my
naturalistic data, arguments were frequent: the English-speaking Chinese children in my study seem to have a
sophisticated argumentative style, and like Saville-Troike's subjects they invoked moral argument. This may be caused
not only by cultural differences, as Saville-Troike suggests, but also, as we will see by the explicit marking, mainly by
pragmatic particles, of interpersonal discourse features. Toda, Fogel and Kawai (1990) refer to the need for children
acquiring Japanese to think of the listener's situation, due to linguistic features of this sort. It may be that the explicit
marking of interpersonal features which relate to such areas as whether or not you expect the interlocutor to agree with
you, facilitate the use of reasoned argument.
The 18 hours of recording are packed with dense speech from these healthy, lively, and very verbal children. Adult
Singaporeans prize dialogue (apparently in all languages) which manifests verbal agility and verbal humour, and these
four children very early began to engage in word play and verbal contests.

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Recordings were made in the home with audio equipment: video equipment would be both difficult to manage, and
obtrusive. Background noise in Singapore housing estates is high: on my recordings there was traffic noise, road
building, construction site noise, aeroplanes, music, television sets, and the ever present sound of crickets. Noise is
higher in the evenings than in the daytime, which is one of several reasons for preferring daytime recording. The use of
directional microphones overcame some of the problems of background noise. There are too many advantages to
recording in a naturalistic setting to contemplate recording in a soundproofed room. The equipment was openly
displayed and from time to time the children addressed it, or expressed concern about when it would start to play back.
In every session except the first with the girls' family, the participants did not seem unduly aware of the fact that they
were being recorded. On occasion, when adult conversation strayed into personal or sensitive areas that would be better
not recorded, I had to remind them of its existence. These short sections have not been transcribed. This failure of
participants to maintain monitoring of the tape recorder was more dramatically found by Milroy (1987:60), who "felt
obliged to rub a lengthy account of illegal activities off the tape" when one group of participants succumbed to
"obligations to the group [which] were stronger than the influence of both the recording equipment and an outside
participant".
In an in-depth longitudinal study undertaken by one human being, selection of respondents can hardly be very rigorous.
Rigour of selection is not appropriate in a small study. My arguments in this book do not depend on this data, the
representativeness of which is confirmed by both casual observation and the findings of other small-scale studies.
When I began this study, I hoped that tape-recording caretaker-child interaction would allow for analysis of the adult
input to the child as well as of the child's speech. However, the earliest stages of the fieldwork suggested that the
presence of both a foreign researcher and of a tape recorder generated a situation in which the use of SCE by the adults
would be inappropriate. Both the mothers of the children were asked about this and agreed that they were constrained
by the presence of the interviewer. As the study progressed, and the children began to enjoy my visits, it became clear
that both mothers used my presence as an opportunity to do other domestic tasks. The boys' mother took the
opportunity to teach piano classes, adding both to the background activity and to the social complexity and naturalness
of the household. The girls' mother, whose house I usually visited on Saturday mornings, usually cooked lunch (and I
sometimes got a share). Thus the amount of data from the mothers decreased to almost nothing by the end of the study.
The interaction between younger and older child is important, as an older child can be seen as both a direct model for
the younger sibling, and as an

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exemplar of the mature variety of SCE. This is especially important in a situation where StdE cannot be assumed as the
child's goal. In non-English speaking families, elder siblings regularly introduce English into the home. Kwan-Terry's
(see for example Kwan-Terry 1986a) elder child, Poupee, introduced SCE into a predominantly Cantonese-speaking
household, which then went on to switch into more and more use of English. In Tan's family the younger siblings of
the middle generation (who, unlike their elder brother and sisters, were English-educated) use English among
themselves (Tan 1988:98). The terms motherese, mother-child interaction and so on often disguise the reality of the
child's interactive experiences, and an elder sibling is a very important part of that experience. Siblings may be a major
agent in language death: Dorian (1983:163) reports how older, bilingual, children who go to English-medium schools
"begin to use English to the younger children, even though they may still use the home language [Scots Gaelic] among
themselves, and the younger children become perfect passive bilinguals but not fluent speakers. Nor, it must be added,
are the speech modifications of 'motherese' restricted to mothers, or even to adults. Gelman and Shatz (1977:28) point
out that four year olds adapt their speech, as adults do, to younger children. Given the increasing absence of the
mothers in my study, the siblings provide a locus where SCE could be expected, to contrast with the speech to me.
The two families in my study were surprisingly similar and by coincidence (or reflecting changing patterns in the
society) underwent similar lifestyle changes in the course of the period of study. At the beginning of study both
families had two pre-school children (primary school in Singapore begins in the January after the sixth birthday), with
elder children who by the end of the study had reached an age (over 5 years) at which, on the basis of other studies of
language acquisition, they could be expected to make few errors in their native language (SCE).
The Boys' Family
When the fieldwork began, in 1984, the elder boy (EB) was aged 4;6 and his younger brother (YB) was 1;3. At the time
of the first three recordings, EB was attending nursery school every morning, and spending the afternoon with a
relative, who he called 'Aunty', and who had been responsible for most of his care since babyhood. He usually went
home with his parents in the evening. YB spent most of the week with the relative, seeing his mother daily, and going
to his parents' house most weekends: as we have seen in Chapter One this is a common pattern of childcare in
Singapore.
The first two recordings were made at 'Aunty's' flat. The third was recorded at the parental home. All recordings took
place in the afternoon. Aunty, who spoke neither English nor Mandarin, spoke to the children in Hokkien. Their parents
spoke to them in both English and (very little) Man-

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darin. EB's kindergarten used English and Mandarin alternately. The pattern of language use with the parents and with
'Aunty' was both reported and observed by me. The boys' paternal grandmother lives with the family, and is a
Cantonese speaker. At the second session, the boys' mother said [interruptions deleted] of EB ''He is actually
Cantonese, you know, by race, by dialect group, but he doesn't speak any Cantonese, because the father doesn't speak
Cantonese with him. And then what he picks up of Cantonese is with his grandmother and she spends so little time with
him." In the third session EB's grandmother woke him from sleep, but he did not address her in the whole recording.
His first words on waking up were to his mother ("Mummy, why?").
YB was just beginning to emerge from the one word stage at age 1;5, the last session before a one year break in the
study (caused by my absence in the UK). He produced no intelligible speech aged 1;3, several recognisable lexical
items (e.g. ball) aged 1;4, and at 1;6 produced an utterance with the pragmatic particle ah (off tape!).
In January 1985 EB started primary school, at a school (attended by Chinese children only) where English and
Mandarin are formally taught to equal levels. He read fluently to me, off tape, aged 6;1. At the time of the recordings
made in 1985 EB was being cared for when not at school by his grandmother, and was heard speaking to her in
Cantonese. YB was still following the same baby-sitter arrangement as both boys had previously.
In early 1986, the family bought a new house, and a third son was born. YB moved back permanently to the family.
The third son came home only at weekends; during the week he was fostered out to a Mandarin-speaking woman (not
the relative who had looked after the two elder boys). A Filipina maid arrived to live in the household, after which all
three children lived permanently at home. Thus by the end of the study (June 1987) the children were experiencing a
very different linguistic environment from the one they knew in 1984.
This was the position when formal study ended. By April 1991 this family's situation had not significantly changed.
Both children were using more Cantonese with their grandmother, while YB was now talking to his former baby-sitter
in Mandarin. EB's Hokkien was better than YB's and he still used it to his old baby-sitter, and even with his
grandmother. However, he often stumbled and had to put in Mandarin words. The two boys were said to use Mandarin
well communicatively and to supplement Cantonese (and, in EB's case, Hokkien) with their grandmothers. However
Chinese is their weakest school subject. On one informal visit I made to this family, the two boys were doing
homework and kept visiting their mother with questions about the maths problems, in which they were interested. Their
mother had to keep on telling them to go back to their Mandarin, which did not interest them. The third child

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uses only English and now a little pedagogic Mandarin (since starting preschool).
MB feels that the loss of the dialects is a pity, and especially regrets the monolinguality of the third boy compared to
the precocious multilinguality of the other two.
The Girls' Family
At the beginning of the study in 1984, the elder girl (EG), aged 2;11 at the time of the first session, and her younger
sister (YG), aged 10 months, were being cared for in the daytime by a childminder whose flat was on the same landing
as their flat. The doors of the flats were normally open when both were occupied, and visiting between the two families
took place freely. The childminder spoke to EG, and EG to her, in Teochew. However, the childminder's two
granddaughters (then aged 8 and 10 years) came to her home every afternoon after school. They enjoyed playing with
EG, and spoke to her in SCE. They participated in one of the sessions with me, and used SCE even with me, suggesting
that they had as yet little skill in StdE. In the evening and at weekends, EG was with her parents, spending more time
with her mother than with her father. They spoke to her in English and in Cantonese. She spoke to others of her older
relatives in Cantonese. This linguistic behaviour of childminder and parents was both reported and observed. EG was
heard speaking in Teochew to the childminder, and in Cantonese to her mother, as well as in English. She was already
well aware of differences between languages, as here at 3;0:
[looking at a photograph of R and Ch on a bed]
1 EG No wear pin-pin ['diaper'] ge [particle], Wei-wei ['younger
sister'].
2 MGM:. Not yet.
3 EG Why?
4 MGBecause you're not sleeping yet.
5 [to AG] She's asking why isn't she wearing her diaper.
6 AG Ah.
7 MGPin-pin is diaper.
8 EG Ha loh. [Cantonese, 'BE [particle]']
9 MGHa loh.
10 Aunty doesn't know because Aunty doesn't speak Cantonese
y'know
11EG Hm.
12 Aunty speak Teochew
EG(12) is confused because (as is normal practice to a friend of family) she is calling me 'Aunty' and also sometimes
hears her childminder, who she calls Ah-mah (Teochew 'Aunty'), referred to as 'Aunty'. Her comment shows that

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not only can she identify her own 'Ha loh' as Cantonese, but she can also spontaneously identify her childminder's
language as 'Teochew'. She does not, however, indicate, unless it is by her switch to Cantonese (9), that she agrees with
MG's labelling of pin-pin as Cantonese (10). It is the normal familial word for 'diaper.'
The first session with this family produced little usable data. This was the only evening visit I made. EG was tired,
wanted to watch a video, and the situation was socially difficult. I was introduced to the family by a friend of a relative
of the family (YWM), who was known slightly by them. She came with me on this first visit. It soon became apparent
that the presence of myself and the mutual friend, as well as her parents, was overwhelming for EG. At EG's father's
suggestion YWM and I left the flat, with the tape recorder turned on, and returned when the recording had 20 minutes
left to run. Due to my absence, the little usable data which this recording did produce was also difficult for me to
interpret contextually. Towards the end of the recording some context was provided for me by the video, The Sound of
Music, which seemed to be associated with several routines for EG. EG's parents, and YWM, also seemed to feel that
she should 'perform' for the tape recorder.
EG was said to be a very shy child who would speak to no-one; in the third session her mother told me how she had
refused to perform in her third birthday health check with the result that the doctor had wanted to screen her for
retardation. EG's mother suggested at the first session that I bring my own daughter (then aged 5;1) with me to our next
appointment, which was to be on a Saturday morning. I had not planned to do this, but due to the illness of my
childminder, was forced to. My daughter's presence caused a transformation in EG. The second session was a most
chaotic recording, producing even less usable material that the first, due to there being five children present most of the
timethe childminder's grandchildren also turned up. What it did ensure however, was an excellent session with EG a
month later.
In early 1986, this family moved to a new flat. The new flat being closer to their maternal grandmother (Po-po)'s house,
the children were subsequently looked after during office hours by their grandmother. Their mother reported that EG's
Cantonese was as a result much better, although she still spoke 'with a Teochew accent'. EG, who regularly telephoned
her former baby-sitter, and even spent the night with her sometimes, was reported to be maintaining her Teochew,
unlike YG, who was said to be acquiring Cantonese and losing Teochew with equal rapidity. Meanwhile, their mother
was observed to be using much more Mandarin with both children, largely in pedagogical mode.
In late 1986, MG's father died unexpectedly, and at an early age. As a result, in the 1987 sessions with the girls' family
they had been spending a lot of time with MG's mother. MG told AG in the eighth session that 'since my father's death
we've been eating there every meal.' A Filipina maid had also

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arrived in this family, and the children were spending more time at home. However the family were already aware that
this arrangement was not likely to last, due to the needs of MG's mother.
Indeed at a visit in April 1991, after the period of study, the family's arrangements had changed again. They had given
up their own flat, and moved to live with MG's mother. The children were both said to have completely lost their
Teochew, which their mother regretted. Their Cantonese was said to be much improved, however, although not because
of MG's mother, who is said to be a quiet person. A major impetus in the development of Cantonese was the arrival of
a Hong Kong family in the neighbourhood with a 5-year-old non-English-speaking daughter. Although English was
still said to be the main language of the two sisters, and almost their only home language, they increasingly used
Mandarin with their school friends, and MG predicted that this use of peer-group Mandarin was likely to increase as
they get older.
Linguistic Repertoire
The casual acceptance of changing linguistic repertoire shown by both these families is characteristic of the Singapore
Chinese community. Both mothers regretted the loss of a language despite the fact that in both cases the language lost
was not an ancestral language, but one which their children had learnt from baby-sitters. Both mothers saw ability in a
range of languages as desirable, and their loss as a pity, even when the language lost was one of low prestige in
Singapore, not sanctioned by government. Neither family, however, expected changing linguistic repertoires to have
any effect of dislocation on the children. This is in contrast to a great deal of received wisdom on bilingualism,
including the Singapore government's policy of "one parent one language," a prescription associated with Jules Ronjat.
The Singapore Monitor of 7 July 1984 reported:
. . . the launch of a 'one parent, one language' campaign in hospitals and among pregnant women to promote
bilingualism in children.
Pamphlets are being distributed urging each parent to speak a different language to his [sic] infant children, to
help them acquire two languages before they start school.
It must be remembered that 'languages' here means official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil), as it
usually does in Singapore, and the campaign was particularly directed at the Chinese community, to encourage them to
reduce the use of 'dialects' (varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin). It is thus linked with the 'Speak Mandarin
Campaign' (Gupta 1985b), which will be discussed in Chapter Four. As is usual in Singapore campaigns, reasoned
argument (based on a paper by Mary W J Tay) was used

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to persuade families of the advisability of this mode of bilingualism; for instance, it was claimed that as interference in
bilinguals is greatest when the two languages are most similar, English and Mandarin will be less confusing for the
child than Mandarin and a dialect.
The Gramont/Ronjat maxim has been discussed by several linguists (including McLaughlin 1978), and has sometimes
been uncritically accepted as the only route to successful bilingualism. I have not been able to get hold of the original
sources of this regulation, which, according to McLaughlin (1978:200) "appears to be the most important rule for
successful, second language training of young children." The success of this plan is only possible in a situation where
an individual's bilinguality is associated with biculturalism, giving rise to a child speaking both languages "as a native-
speaking child would" (McLaughlin 1978:75). A child growing up speaking English, Mandarin, Hokkien and
Cantonese in Singapore is not going to sound, or want to sound, like someone from England, Beijing, Fujian and
Guangdong, but like a Singaporean speaking four languages. There is no adoption of an outside culture, as there is in
multicultural individuals. Rather these languages are all seen as part of a single identity. Furthermore, the maintenance
of one person, one language is incompatible with complicated multilingual family life, where people who do not share
the same language repertoire may participate in the same conversation. The pattern of bilingualism in Singapore,
characterised by rapid language shifts, code-mixing, and socially meaningful patterns of language use does not lend
itself to this recommendation.
Hoffmann (1986) is a study of the acquisition of the one-parent-one-language kind of bilingualism, which seems to be
assumed to be the norm in most of the bilingualism literature. In this kind of bilingualism there are two functionally (or
personally) separated languages, uninfluenced by each other in the models, which are used to the child. However
Hoffmann points out (1986:493) that in societies where bilingualism or trilingualism is the norm attitudes may be
different. The unconsciously expressed attitude of the families in my study is an example of how attitudes do differ in
such a community. In both households, individuals switch languages frequently, depending on interlocutor, or on the
nature of the group. For example, EB and his mother might speak English or Mandarin to each other if alone, but by the
end of the study were more likely to speak Cantonese if EB's grandmother was involved, as she would otherwise be
excluded from the conversation. It is hard to imagine how families like this would be able to implement the official
policy. In choosing a baby-sitter for your child her personal qualities, coinciding in the case of EG and YG's baby-sitter
with her proximity, are more important than her linguistic compatibility. Both families introduced Mandarin principally
pedagogically, while in later childhood it was more important as a peer group language than as a home language.

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SCE is learnt in an atmosphere of extreme linguistic tolerance, where many languages are used, where languages are
(quite casually) acquired and lost, and where there is little emotional attachment to any language. As we shall see in
Chapter Five, this cultural attitude has considerable implications for the practice of speech therapy in Singapore. The
languages acquired by these children were not associated with cultural groups other than their own, but rather were all
part of a single complex culture. The terminology of majority and minority languages, and the linking of
multilingualism with multiculturalism, which is the prevalent mode of analysis of bilingualism in Europe and North
America, does not describe these children's experience, in a society where multilingualism is the norm.
Learning SCE
Obviously, if the variety of English you are acquiring does not, for example, use an inflected third person singular
present tense verb, you may not learn it at all, and certainly not at the same age as a child exposed to a variety in which
it was the norm. There is some interest in various quarters, principally in speech therapy and remedial work in general,
in establishing developmental norms for non-standard varieties or for languages other than English (for instance, Cole
1980, Duncan, Gibbs, Noor and Whittacker 1984, Duncan and Gibbs 1985). It is important to establish realistic
developmental norms for the acquisition of languages in Singapore, which is my own current project (introduced in
Chapter Five).
The order of acquisition of a given form may be related to the frequency of a usage in the linguistic environment of the
child, or to patterns of interaction with the child (Erbaugh 1982, Eisenberg 1982, Schieffelin 1979, 1985), or to the
cognitive difficulty of a construction in a particular language or variety.
Differences in patterns of child-rearing and of expectations of interaction with children have also been found to affect
language development (e.g. Eisenberg 1982; Schieffelin and Eisenberg 1984; Lieven 1984). There are both cultural and
individual differences in the ways in which children are treated as conversational partners, and although the effects of
these differences are not perfectly predictable, early development can be traced to such cultural traits as the amount of
speech directed at a child, the degree of semantic contingency in adult speech developing out of children's utterances,
and the extent to which adults are prepared to attribute meaning to children's early utterances (Snow 1984; Brinker
1982).
Questions addressed to children in particular vary dramatically from one culture to another. Cultural patterns include the
varying use of (1) quizzing or tutorials, in which the children demonstrate to a third party knowledge the

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adults know them to have; (2) routines, in which the adult rehearses the child in relating a shared experience
(Schieffelin and Eisenberg 1984:407) (3) disciplinary styles, and (4) informative techniques (Erbaugh 1982:453;
Schieffelin and Eisenberg 1984:414).
The patterning of functions of questions in adult-to-child speech controls the kind of response expected from the child,
and can be expected to affect the child's questioning pattern. There may also be restrictions on the kinds of questions a
child may ask. It is taboo in many cultures for a child to discipline an adult, and there are some constraints on children
asking adults tutorial questions. Neither of these constraints apparently operates in Singapore, however, and my data
contains both. Children's speech is generally valued and they are regarded as valid and interesting conversational
partners. Indeed, the parents in my study were perfectly willing to be ordered about by their children, which was
commented on once by the mother of the girls, following a fierce instruction (using the particle lah ) from her elder
daughter. We had got out a slide viewer and were going to look at some holiday photographs of Hong Kong:
EG [picking up a slide] Put this first lah.

MG[inserting the slide, as requested, to AG] Nowadays
we are not governed by ourselves but by our children.
AG Yeah.
MGI told my mother-in-law, even though I don't stay
with you, I've got two at home.
(EG, 4;2)
Although undoubtedly Singapore Chinese adults have different expectations of child behaviour from the British and
American adults that have formed the larger population in studies of language acquisition, these differences are not
dramatic. The common routines of infant interaction are not noticeably different. A major difference however is the
acceptance of multilingual families, and the easy acceptance of change in language repertoire.
Measures of language attainment tend to be language and dialect specific, and it needs to be constantly borne in mind
that the language the children in Singapore are acquiring is not Standard English. For example, if we apply Brown's
analysis to SCE we get inappropriate results. The MLU of EB at 4;7 was 4.26, and EG's at 3;0 was 3.86, quite in line
with Brown's subjects at similar ages (R Brown 1973:56). However, these children's use of the grammatical morphemes
appears to be far behind what can be expected of children learning English (Table 2.1).
This looks, chronologically, like a deficit. It certainly arises from having as model a nonstandard variety. The study by
the Bernard van Leer foundation appears to have in fact used this system as one of the means of assessment of

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Singaporean pre-school children's English attainment (F Lee 1992a:62). These two children's poor performance on
Brown's 'morphemes' merely reflects that they are learning a morphologically simple language. A further problem is
that whereas features such as tense and number become categorial for children learning StdE they will never become
categorial for a speaker of Singapore English, so that absence of tense or number marker is not an indicator of delayed
development, as it would be in a child learning StdE (see for example Crystal 1982:30).
There is a nice example of EB's failure to master the past tense (in an irregular verb) at 4;7, when he 'corrects' my
contingent remark:
EB I show you something.
I show you something.
My baby bite me.
AG He bit you!
EB No, bite.
MB Bite! [laughs]
(EB, 4;7)
Table 2.1 Brown's 14 morphemes: EG's and EB's (Brown's

14'morphemes' in mean order of acquisition (Brown 1973:274))
EB EG
1 present progressive + -
2/3 in/on + +
4 plural ? +
5 past irregular - -
6 possessive + +
7 uncontractible + +
8 articles + ? (not a/an)
9 past regular - -
10 3rd person regular + -
11 3rd person irregular + -
12 uncontractible aux BE ? -
13 contractible copula ? -
14 contractible aux BE - -

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Both Menyuk (1971:222) and R Brown (1973:379f) touch on the parallels between (specifically) adult Black English
and child language. In order not to present these differences as deficits, it seems to me that it is necessary for me to
look at what areas of functional and pragmatic complexity the SCE-speaking child is in fact developing.
Brown's measures would suggest that these two children were virtually at the same level of language skill, despite the
age difference. However, as we will see in Chapter Three, EB's use of interrogative structures, and his question
functions, were, as might be expected from the age difference, more developed than EG's. It may be that in a
syntactically simple language syntactic development is early and rapid. Differences in age on syntactic measures are
therefore not apparent.
Beginning to be Diglossic
In Chapter One, I introduced my method of quantifying the degree of focus on StdE or SCE. I use this system to create
a ratio of SCE:StdE features, which can be converted into a percentage figure to show the percentage of counted
features which are SCE. The higher the figure, the more closely focussed on SCE the set of utterances are. This
procedure is described at some length in another paper (Gupta 1991a). The findings in this section however, extend the
findings in that paper by incorporating results from fieldwork done after it was written (in 1986).
In general SCE features co-occur with SCE features, and StdE features with StdE features. In the families in my study,
addressee is the main cause of choice of code, which could be described as 'audience design' (Bell 1984). The adults,
the mothers of these two families, consistently use StdE with me. MG gets particularly low SCE scores when speaking
to me. Figures 2.1 and 2.2 show the overall behaviour for the mothers (using only the data from dyads with more than
20 tokens).
As can be seen from Figures 2.1 and 2.2, MB shows a greater difference than MG between her StdE and her SCE-
focussed speech. This may be because she is better acquainted with me than MG is, and is less self-conscious. Both
mothers show a clear difference in their focus of speech, using the most SCE-focussed speech to their younger children,
and the least to AG. The difference in degree of focussing, on closer examination of the discourse, seems to result from
switching of codes rather than from use of a hypothetical middle variety. Both mothers use StdE focus when reading to
their children, and in other pedagogic modes. For example when MB is looking at a picture book with YB, she uses
StdE focus:
MB Show Aunty the train.
You find the train inside.

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Figure 2.1
Diglossic behaviour of boys' mother
Figure 2.2
Diglossic behaviour of girls' mother

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[YB flicks pages]
YB Where meh?
MB Find orange juice, find orange juice.
Who likes to drink orange juice?
[YB, 2;9]
Compare this with less pedagogical conversation on the same day:
[YB is trying to fix a robot]

YB Put there. Put this this.
MB Spoil already. Put where?
Read, read the story book.
YB I got the blood. [?]
Pain pain lor.
MB Pain ah. Where pain?
[YB, 2;9]
MG also makes clear switches from StdE to SCE at moments of emotion, such as irritation, losing an argument, or in
the example below, her assertion of fact (line 31), which closes a prolonged controversy. EG is aged 4;3. The Care
Bear film is showing at a cinema ('Cathay') in the centre of Singapore. The advertising campaign has focussed on the
free ticket being given with the sale of the soft toys.
1 EG Mummy, you must buy Care Bear first leh.

2 Then you got ticket go and see.
3 MGYes.
4 EG Also you don't- Mummy you didn't buy the- the- you
didn't buy
Care Bear hor, then ah, you cannot. Mummy, you didn't-
you
didn't buy Care Bear, then ah, then you don't have ticket.
5 MGYes, without the ticket you can't go and see the picture.
6 EG Yeah lor.
7 AG But you can buy a ticket without buying a Care Bear.
We did.
8
9 We went to see already.
10MGHave you?
11 Was it good?
12EG Mummy.
13AG Yes quite good.
14EG Can to the church there.
15MGAh.
16AG Can go to church at- at Care Bear?
17EG Church- church there got Care Bear cartoon.
18MG/is/- opposite there's a church, opposite to Cathay.
19AG Uh-huh.

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20MGThere was a church.
21AG Oh yes.
22EG Mummy, we sleep Po-po [ = maternal grandmother]
house then we
turn to -to church hor.
23MGM.
24 No I'll bring you to see Care Bear later, okay.
25EG Afterward.
26MGNot now, not today.
27 We're going for dinner tonight so we can't go.
28EG Tomorrow then go lah.
29MGWe're going to church tomorrow.
30EG Tomorrow go church lah.
31 Sunday then go lah.
32MGTomorrow Sunday lor.
(EG, 4;3)
EG counters all her mother's reasons for not taking her to the film that day or the following day. She suggests that
church can be combined with the cinema by going to the church opposite the cinema (not their usual church). However,
she makes a mistake in lines 30-31, by confusing days of the week. MG concludes the argument by countering this
error. After her highly StdE focussed speech, MG's switch in line 31 is striking. The argument ends, and the group
returns to looking at photographs.
The children need to learn two things: firstly, they must learn the morphological and word order features associated
with StdE, and secondly they must learn what the appropriate environments are in which to use the two varieties. There
is considerable evidence that learning functional differentiation is easy for children, and that it is learnt early.
In bilingual children, the two codes may be differentiated from the start and used ''in contextually sensitive ways"
(Genese 1989:161). For children who need to acquire two functionally different varieties of the same language, there
may also be an early discrimination. Youssef (1991), working in Trinidad, found that children acquired varilingual
competence from an age as early as 2;10. Even in children outside diglossic or creole-continua situations, style shifting
may be observed in very young children. Ainsworth-Vaughn (1990) found style switching, relating to politeness
markers, even in infants of 1;0. In my study all the children showed that they had begun to differentiate StdE from SCE,
and to know the circumstances of use of both varieties, by the age of four years.
Although by the end of the study the two younger children were using the full range of pragmatic particles, and the
SCE conditionals, they had very few StdE features, even in their speech to AG (Figures 2.3 and 2.4). The third

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Figure 2.3
Diglossic behaviour of Younger Boy
Figure 2.4
Diglossic behaviour of Younger Girl

Page 74
person singular present tense ending appears much more than the past tense marking. In the whole data, YB uses only
one past tense form spontaneously (went ) and one more (found ) when repeating an utterance by his elder brother. YG
uses her first past tense inflection at age 3;6 (told ) and has more by 3;10. Despite the low number of StdE tokens, both
of them were giving evidence that they had begun to distinguish StdE from SCE.
By the last two sessions, when she was aged 3;10, YG's speech to AG has begun to be distinguished from her speech to
her elder sister: a shift is present. YB does not yet show this distinction according to speaker to any degree. However,
when 'reading' aloud (aged 4;0) he showed a marked change of code. He has made the link between the written
language and StdE.
When 'reading' aloud (i.e. relating stories using the books as prompts) YB uses 22 markers of StdE. However 10 of
these are the verb says. YB uses says where the original text (Joy Cowley. 1981. Splosh. Shortland Publications Ltd.)
had said:
Help, says the pig. Help, says the monkey. Help, says the donkey. Help, says the bear.
(YB, 4;0)
Similarly, when he reads a counting book (June Melser. 1983. One, one, is the sun. Shortland Publications Ltd.), he
inserts plenty of plural endings:
One, one is sun.
Two, two is the shoes.
Three, three is the trees.
Four, four is the doors.
Five, five is the hive.
Six, six is the chick.
One, one is the sun,
Two, two is the shoes.
Three, three is the trees.
Four, four is the door.
YB Five, five, is the hive.
AG Six six?
YB Six, six is the - chick.
AG Very good.
You're a good reader,[YB's name].
(YB, 4;0)
Turning to the older children (Figures 2.5 and 2.6) we see clear evidence of diglossic behaviour. The differentiation in
EB has begun by age 4;6 (Sessions 1-3) and for EG begins in Session 5, aged 4;3. By 5;11 EB can swing from saying
to AG (while playing with Lego) "Your boat should be

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Figure 2.5
Diglossic behaviour of Elder Boy
Figure 2.6
Diglossic behaviour of Elder Girl

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here" to saying, to YB, "Go swimming then put boat boat, but now cannot" a few seconds later.
Although the children learn where to use the codes, and learn some of the linguistic features of StdE, this does not
mean that what is produced from the beginning is StdE as in the adult model. Even at a late stage, tense and concord
are not well established. For example, here is EG at 5;8. We have been discussing cars: her aunt has a big one, which
means (according to EG) that when she gets married she will not need to hire a Mercedes. Furthermore, as EG was
flower girl for another aunt, she will not need to have a new outfit. On the other hand, if YG wants to be a flower girl
too, what will she do? She can borrow EG's dress, although it will be much too big for her. . . .
1 EG Sheshe have a big car, SBB [i.e. new registration number]

no need to buy Mercedes.
2 AGMercedes? [AG did not know SBB]
3 EG No, S
B B.
4 AGOh.
5 AGWhat sort is your
car?
6 EG Then then sheshe no need to buy Mercedes when
she
marry.
7 AGOh.
8 EG Then when she marry I be a flower girl.
9 AGOh really?
10YGI also.
11AGReally?
12 Have you got photographs? [AG has not been
listeningline
[1 sec]
13EG Not. yet marry
14AG. >yet married >
15AGOh.
16EG I have a flower girl
dress.
17AGHave you got your dress already?
18EG She don't have, because last time my aunty marry I be
also
her flower girl.
19AGBut I think this time you need another dress.
20 Not the same dress, you know.
21 You get a new dress.
[2 secs]

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22 EG I- I take the same
dress.
23 AG No. New dress lah.
24 YG This time
25 EG M- My
mummy don't want to buy for
her.
26 YG This time-
I go- I grow bigger I wear your dress.
27 AG Is it? [laughs]
28 You must grow very big.
29 EG Afterward you wore then you'll fall down.
(EG, 5;8; YG, 3;6)
There are many things in EG's speech to suggest that she is attempting StdE structures. She uses have three times in this
short extract, where we might expect the usual SCE got. She also uses BE, twice, with an inappropriate inflection, 'I be
a flower girl' (lines 8 and 18), once with future time reference and once with past. The inappropriate inflection is
unusualwhere BE is used in SCE it has the same concord for person as it does in StdE, and the children in my data
made virtually no errors of concord in it. The use of be here appears to be a result of EG's efforts in the direction of
StdE. Finally, EG produces a conditional sentence (29) which has a past tense in the dependent clause and a StdE 'llfall
verb group in the main clause. These utterances are well-formed in neither SCE not StdEthey are developmental StdE.
By 7;8 EB could sustain StdE for long periods. He continues to use the pragmatic particles, however. This is usual. The
pragmatic particles may be used by Singaporeans in speech which is otherwise very much focussed on StdE:
[We are attempting to assemble a plastic skeleton. It is

YB's. Atline (1) EB indicates that it may be too difficult
for YB]
1EB I don't know whether he knows how to do it.
[3 secs]
2EB A- all /this/ are bones ah?
3YB Yah.
4EB All /this/ are human bones lah.
5AG Yes.
6 Not real human bones of course.
[EB, 7;8]
EB is using noun and verb morphology (knows, bones ) and is not deleting the copula. Later on in the same session, he
uses StdE verb groups such as Let me try/think, must find, and past tense (found ) His StdE sentences include

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such complexities of tense and dependency as "But I didn't know these two parts were here". For whole stretches he
aims for and largely achieves StdE.
In this session we spent most of the time assembling the skeleton and experimenting with a chemistry set, both of which
activities were somewhat educational. This produced a great deal of StdE in EB's speech to me. Whenever he moved
away from that focus, however, even when speaking to me, EB returned to SCE. In one digression, YB bumped himself
and EB called him to check he was all right. AG, seeing blood, thought that the bump had taken off the top of an old
scab:
1AGWhat did it?
2EB Cupboard hit.
3AGM?
4EB The cupboard hit.
5AGOh dear.
6EB Then scratch thedry part off, then got blood come out of
it.
Here, EB returns to SCE with no use of past tense or third person singular present tense marking, and subject deletion.
He also used got in an SCE manner. This pattern occurs throughout this session at every digression from the tasks in
hand.
The learning of the principle of code differentiation comes around the time of the fourth birthday for the children in my
study. This is also the time at which Singaporean children normally start formal pre-school education. In the two
families under study, Mandarin started to be used more at the time the elder children started kindergarten. The
awareness of approaching formal education also leads parents to read to their children, and this results in an increase in
the use of StdE in the home. The sources of StdE are various: pedagogically oriented speech to the child, overheard
StdE speech, television, and, increasingly, written materials that the child reads independently. At school, formal parts
of lessons are likely to be conducted in StdE. Middle-class parents expect their children to be able to read before they
enter primary school, and the development of literacy itself promotes proficiency in StdE and an awareness of contexts
of use. EB read aloud fluently to AG at age 6;1 (off tape), and made no changes from StdE to SCE grammar. EG was
also able to read, write and spell aloud by age 5;11.
By the time primary schooling begins (between Sessions 7 and 8 for EB) the use of formal features of SCE and StdE is
approaching the adult model. The initial model is parental. The literacy skills are in part provided by formal
kindergarten education, but the major development of literacy and most of the development of StdE takes place in the
home.

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Not all children in Singapore come from homes which can support StdE in this way. The speech of the grandchildren of
YG's baby-sitter (aged 9 and 10) to me shows no variation from their speech to the other children. These are children
from a non-English speaking home, who have learnt SCE at school. They have not yet succeeded in significant mastery
of StdE. In terms of learning how and when to use StdE, the English-speaking children in my study are ahead of them
by age 4;6.
The development of StdE, subsequent to the development of SCE, results in mature children making some errors in
StdE which children who acquired StdE from the start would make at an earlier stage (such as, at 3;10, YG's
hypercorrect I looks and I wants, or even at 7;8, EB's This a feet or a hand?, You can make the two feets, and I spoils )
However the acquisition of SCE seems to be relatively error free, partly due to the lack of opportunity for making
morphological errors. The simple grammatical structure of SCE also allows children to produce at an early age some
types of dependent structures which in StdE are acquired later. StdE is attacked only when SCE is well established, by
which time the child is a sophisticated conversational partner.
It is sometimes assumed that children acquiring a creole, or indeed any non-standard variety of a language, are
educationally disadvantaged, as when they enter school they must learn the standard variety, an added burden. The
experience of SCE-speaking children in Singapore is a corrective to this analysis, which makes it clear that in most
communities speakers of non-standard varieties are disadvantaged because they come from economically or socially
disadvantaged backgrounds, or because of societal prejudice against their group and/or their language, and not because
of any linguistic burden. Children like those in my study, coming from middle-class, privileged homes, learn StdE
rapidly, and without any sense of having to betray their community of origin, because, Singapore English being
diglossic, StdE is indeed also a part of that community, although it may not be used in a full range of functions.
Furthermore, StdE is introduced into the home in domestic pedagogic situations, rather than being restricted to an
outside environment.
Acquiring Pragmatic Particles in SCE
The uses to which speakers, even the youngest, put the pragmatic particles, can be seen in many extracts from my data.
The use of pragmatic particles presents many analytical problems, which I will not discuss here (Gupta 1992b).
Speakers use them in a sophisticated manner to convey their attitudes to what they are saying and their assumptions
about the reactions of the other parties.
The pragmatic particles appear, apparently in their full complexity, as soon as the holophrastic stage is left behind. This
was the stage of YB, aged 1;5,

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who had few intelligible words (such as /f::/ for fish ) but had the possibility of using them with the particle ah, in
drawing attention to objects.
Table 2.2 shows the use of particles by the children in my study. Aged 1;5, YB used the particle ah, but off-tape, so this
has not been included in the table. There seems to be no clear trend of development. Differences in distribution seem to
be largely accidental. The absence of the common SCE contradictory particle what from adult speech is certainly
accidental (there are many examples in Kwan-Terry 1978, and Smith 1985). Nor is there any noticeable difference
between the two families. Na happens not to be used by either of the boys, but this is likely to be chance; it is used by
their mother. The particles used by every individual at all stages are lah, hor, ah and one. There is no evidence of errors
in the use of particles.
It would appear from my data that even the 2 year olds have a sophisticated mastery of the pragmatics of those particles
used in Singapore English. There seems to be no discernible difference in usage between the adults and the children in
their use of the pragmatic particles. Here for example is YG, aged only 2;1, using the nominalizer one, and, as an
acknowledgement of her
Table 2.2 Use of Pragmatic Particles

YG YB EG YG YB EG EB EG EB EB MB MG
2;1- 2.08 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;06 5;08 5;11 7;03
;8 -11 -3 -10 -6 -10 -7 -11 -6;2 7;08
mah + + + - - + - - - - + +
what + - + + - + + + - - - -
meh(A) - + + + - + - + + - - +
ge - + + + - - - - + - - -
leh(Ass) + + - + - + - + + - -* +
na - - - + - + - + - + + -
lah + + + + + + + + + + + +
lor + + + + + + - + - + + +
hor + + + + - + + + + - + +
hah + + + + + + - + + + + +
ah + + + + + + + + + + + +
leh(Q) - - + + + + - - - - - +
one + + + + - + + + + + + +
* Attested from father

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mother's check, the tentative particle ah. There is nothing in her speech at this young age that could not be said by an
adult.
YG There. Ride bicycle one.
MG Can ride bicycle hor.
YG Ah.
MG Mm.
YG Get off the bicycle.
MG Yes.
(YG, 2;1)
The non-Chinese Amanda (a pseudonym), a Punjabi friend of EB's, aged four years, who made a brief appearance in an
early session, shows the same mastery of SCE and of the pragmatic particles, using, in that time, ah, lah, what, and na.
Pragmatic particles are normally present in checking sequences. Checking sequences seem to be particularly common
in SCE (Francis and Hunston 1987:128f; Platt 1987:397), and perhaps especially so in dialogues involving children. For
example, here is EG, aged 2;11, in discussion with her father. I have left the flat, but before I left she noticed what I
wore on my feet:
1 EG Aunty wear red red one the
Aunty wear red shoes. [Statement]
2 GF Who wear red shoes? [Clarif. requ.]
3 EG Aunty. [Response to 2]
4 GF Aunty wore red shoes meh? [Check]
5 EG Red red. [Confirmation]
6 GF Red red shoes ah? [Check]
7 EG Yes. [Confirmation]
[EG, 2;11]
We will see many sequences like this in the extracts in this book. They are often (as in line 4 above) associated with the
expansions and remodellings that are so common in speech to children and which help children develop their grammar.
Most studies of the acquisition of pragmatic particles in other languages show a similar early, error-free acquisition (for
example, for Shanghainese, Qiu 1985; and for Japanese Clancy 1985:381), with pragmatic particles appearing in the
first stage of grammatical development before the second birthday. For reasons that are not apparent, however, Erbaugh
(1982:453) found that the Taiwanese, Mandarin-speaking children of her sample did not acquire the pragmatic particles
until the age of 2:10 to 3:6. Unlike other researchers, she found an early stage (Erbaugh 1982:681) of undifferentiated
use of particles "to express general emotional warmth and relevance". Erbaugh

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accounts for this by claiming that discourse sensitive items are not easily analyzable by adult or child.
It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that normal children find discourse sensitive features hard to learn, as discourse
structure is learnt early, as long as the language learning circumstances are normal (Curtiss 1988:112). One of the
discrepancies in the speech of the grossly deprived Californian child, Genie (Curtiss 1977:233, 1988:97f; Curtiss,
Fromkin, Krashen, Rigler and Rigler 1974) was her general conversational incompetence combined with sophisticated
grammatical and cognitive ability, the reverse of communicatively normal intellectually disabled persons, such as
Down's syndrome adults (Curtiss 1977:190 etc). Significantly, Genie asked no questions of any sort (p163). Asking
questions presupposes a fair degree of discourse sensitivity. By comparison, children allowed to develop normally
demonstrate considerable communicative sophistication (Sachs 1984; Gordon and Ervin-Tripp 1984; Bridges 1982).
''One ability which children are very precocious in is the ability to understand social acts" (Snow 1986:74), and they
"start with a basic ability to presuppose" (DeHart and Maratsos 1984:281), both of which skills are vital in
understanding and producing interactively meaningful interrogatives. These skills also help children to learn the system
of pragmatic particles.
These children engage in persuasive activities and arguments with aplomb, exploiting the particle system to do this
from the earliest age. The use of particles enables SCE speaking children to participate forcefully and successfully in
argument from the earliest age. In the following extract, we (EG, YG, MG, AG and AG's daughter) are sitting at a table
doing origami. AG has made a shirt, which EG has in her possession. YG wants it:
1 YG Mummy I want the shirt ah one.

2 Share-share one, share-share jie-jie ['elder-sister']
leh.
3 MGYes.
4 Share-share with jie-jie.
5 YG Share share with jie-jie.
6 MGM.
7 Can draw here. Can draw on the envelope.
8 YG Mummy, I want share share with jie-jie.
9 MGNo you can use your pen.
10YG See, I want share with jie-jie what.
11MGOK go and take, go and take.
12 [EG gives YG the shirt]
13 Ah. Say thank you to jie-jie. [1 sec]
14 Say thank you to jie-jie. [1 sec]
[No thank-you is ever forthcoming]
(YG, 2;1)

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YG begins her request with an utterance using the tentative ah particle alongside the nominalizer one (which is
probably being used assertively here). She follows this up in line (2) with the assertive leh, often used in directives,
which she uses to support a moral argument, as children are often exhorted to 'share-share' if they are disputing
possession. Her mother appears to agree with this argument in line (4), fatally weakening EG's hope of keeping the
shirt. MG tries to distract YG (lines 7 and 9) by suggesting she draw. YG gets back with the same moral argument (line
10), strengthened by the maximally assertive contradictory particle, what. Having accepted the 'share-share' premiss
earlier, MG has to choose between illogical negation of this strong assertion, or giving in to YG. She gives in.
The often explicit marking of conversational function is to be borne in mind in understanding the texts in this book.

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3
Acquisition of Interrogatives
Introduction
This chapter will focus on the development of interrogatives. The acquisition of interrogatives in StdE has been the
subject of extensive study, as acquisition patterns are interesting because of the complexity of interrogative formation in
StdE, which involves fronting, inversion, and DO-insertion. Interrogatives are interesting also because they are used in
a wide range of complex functions, including directives, and of course in questioning. Przetacznik-Gierowska and
Ligeza (1990) show how questioning in children meets many varied needsfactual, emotional and social. This chapter
will focus on the formal development of interrogatives, but substantial extracts and discussion will keep function in the
mind.
In SCE, as we shall see, interrogatives are, like some types of Chinese interrogatives, syntactically less complex than in
Standard English. Some of the techniques of forming polar interrogatives in Chinese would appear to be linguistically
complex, and Kwan-Terry's bilingual subject had some problems with these (Kwan-Terry 1986a). The SCE
interrogatives hardly use these complex patterns of Chinese origin. Thus interrogatives in SCE, then, are less complex
than in both StdE and in Chinese.
Interrogative Structures in SCE
Interrogative is a formal, not a functional category. An interrogative clause is one which is formally marked as
interrogative, whether or not it functions as a question (whatever that means). The interrogative structures of StdE and
of SCE are not entirely the same, so before looking at the acquisition of interrogatives in children acquiring SCE as a
native language, we need to establish these formal features. I use the expression x-interrogative for what is usually
called wh-interrogative. The term wh-interrogative defines an interrogative as one in which there is a wh-word
functioning as a pro-form, and in which, if the interrogative is a question, a contingent answer supplies an element
corresponding to that wh-word.

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I use the term x-interrogative (Lyons 1977:757) in preference to 'wh-interrogative' for two reasons:
(1) the term 'x-interrogative' allows symmetry between a question and a contingent answer, such that the x-word solicits
a corresponding x-answer.
(2) the term is cross-linguistic, and also includes certain interrogatives soliciting x which do not have a wh-word. There
is, as we shall see, such a structure in SCE, which has a missing constituent, and may have the pragmatic particle leh (Q
) X is the missing constituent.
I use the term wh-word in its traditional sense to refer to the English interrogative proforms, all but one of which (how )
happen to begin with wh-.
The category of x-interrogative is not language-specific, much less specific to a single variety of a language. An x-
interrogative clause, which may be a main or dependant clause, can be recognized by:
-i- the presence of a wh-word, being used as an interrogative element.
-ii- the omission of a constituent which is, or would be, supplied in a contingent answer to a question. These are x-
interrogatives with missing constituent (Snow and Goldfield 1983).
The definition of x-interrogative works across languages, once the whwords have been identified. However, although
most languages have polar interrogatives, the formal means of identifying them are very much language (and variety)
specific. The term polar interrogative defines an interrogative in which the contingent response is one of two poles.
These poles may be a positive and a negative pole, or may be one of two alternative responses, as supplied by the
interrogative. The term polar is preferred to yes-no (Huddleston 1984:367) to encompass contingent responses other
than yes and no, and to included the alternative type of polar question.
There are ways of marking polar interrogatives in SCE which are not available in StdE. In an earlier paper (Gupta
1992a) I discussed the complicated relationship between these structures and their English and Chinese sources.
(a) Subject-Verb (or Subject-Auxiliary ) inversion
This is (as in StdE) a marker of interrogatives in both main-clause and (unlike in StdE) in embedded structures,
although its use in SCE polar interrogatives is not as common as in StdE, and inversion is particularly associated
with the verb BE. As children begin to acquire StdE, inversion develops, and eventually DO support appears,
associated with StdE.
(b) Is it
Is it is a fossilized inversion interrogative. It is used in both SingStdE and in SCE as an invariable marker of tag
questions (occasionally negative), and

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as a response to another person's utterance. Tay (1979:103) refers to the is it tag as 'basilectal', but it is in fact used at
all levels of formality and by speakers of all levels of education, for which reason I regard it as part of SingStdE.
In SCE it also can be used before a declarative to create a polar interrogative:
Is it X? [where X is a proposition]
(c) Disjunctive OR Interrogatives
These are a group of related disjunctive polar interrogatives similar to some Chinese interrogatives (Li and
Thompson 1981:531) which use OR. There are two main types in SCE:
X or Y?
X or not (X)?
In the first type (in SCE, but not in Chinese) Y may be what, creating an overlap between polar and x-interrogatives.
Either type can be preceded by Is it:
Is it X or Y?
Is it X or not (X)?
X and Y may be propositions, nouns, or adjectives.
(d) Disjunctive non-OR Interrogative
These interrogatives present a positive and negative pole of a verbal element, without a conjunction. Interrogatives
of this type are frequent in Chinese but rare in SCE. There are, as we will see, severe constraints in SCE on the
choice of verb, and the style of negation:
V neg-V?
(e) Where an experiential verb (e.g. know, see, like ) has a second person subject it can be taken as indicating an
interrogative. As we shall see, many structures like this precede embedded interrogatives, and the contingent answer is
the answer to the embedded interrogative, not the answer to the polar interrogative of the experiential verb that
surrounds it.
(f) Certain lexical items, in SCE as in StdE are restricted in their occurrence e.g. anything, anyone. Although the
presence alone of one of these items is not a marker of an interrogative, where they are unstressed they may occur only
in negatives or interrogatives. In the absence of negation they can then become markers of an interrogative.
The criteria for interrogativity in an embedded clause are the same as for main clause interrogatives, except that the
subordinator whether is regarded as one of the markers of an embedded polar interrogative. If if appeared in this

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role ('She asked me if I knew her brother') it would also be so regarded, but no such structure appeared in my data. It
appears to be part of StdE only.
The contingent answer to a polar question in SCE is either negation or assent, or one of the disjunctive alternatives.
There are formulae for negation and assent in SCE, as in StdE, such as No, Yes, Yah, Yeah, M, Ah, etc.. In Chinese and
Malay, on the other hand, there are no equivalents to these formulae: the answer is one of the alternatives. In SCE, as in
StdE, there are some disjunctive polar alternative questions ("Tea or coffee?") to which neither yes nor no is a possible
answer. These are rather more prominent in SCE than in StdE. Many polar interrogatives in SCE which are not overtly
disjunctive are, like the disjunctive polar interrogatives, answered by the polarised element. Any polar interrogative, as
in Chinese and Malay, may be answered by the polarized item, or a contracted form of it. For example, here is the boys'
mother calling to her husband and his friend (F). The friend answers her question (marked as interrogative by
'anything') with a polarized answer:
Anything wrong with [abbreviated version of YB's name]'s

1MB car?
2 [ . . . ]ah?
3F Nothing wrong.
4MBNothing wrong ah. Okay.
Here the friend's answer (3) is the negative pole. Again, here is EB answering AG, who asks his permission to separate
two pieces of Lego:
AG Can I take off?
EB Can.
[EB 5;11]
It has been suggested (Killingley 1972:542, Platt, Weber and Ho 1983:28) that particles like ah (what I have called the
tentative group) are associated with questions and therefore signal interrogatives in SCE. I do not propose to discuss in
detail here my reasons for rejecting ah as an interrogative marker (discussed in Gupta 1992b). In part it is due to
uncertainty about the concept question. Bolinger (1978:104) says that "a question advances a hypothesis for
confirmation, in any degree, not just in terms of polar opposites." In this sense any statement is a question and a
tentatively marked statement is more of a question. Giv6n (1984a) sees the difference between a 'declarative' and a 'yes-
no question' as a continuum based on 4 parameters:
the strength of the speaker's power/authority over the

(a) hearer.
(b) the speaker's subjective certainty.
(c) the speaker's assessment of the hearer's degree of
knowledge.
(d) the strength of the speaker's wish to elicit information.
(Giv6n 1984a:250)

Page 88
He believes that we must "give up semantic-functional analyses based on discrete linguistic categories" (Givón
1984a:252). Givón (1984b:815f) identifies continua from imperative to interrogative, from imperative to declarative,
and from declarative to interrogative. An approach of this sort is essential in the study of SCE where certainty,
assessment of shared knowledge, and demand for response may be formally marked by pragmatic particles. A definition
of interrogativity which depended on the function of a form would rapidly founder. My definition is purely formal.
X-interrogatives
Order of Acquisition of Wh-words
Studies of the acquisition of wh-words across cultures and languages show a considerable degree of consistency in the
order of acquisition, which may be related to a cognitive developmental trend (Berman 1985:331; Clancy 1989;
Eisenberg 1982:187; Harrison and Lim 1988:156f; T Lee 1989; Mills 1985:229f; Savic 1975:257; Tyack and Ingram
1977:215; Wells 1985:261). With minor variation, across a wide range of languages, what and where (and their
equivalents) appear first, with when consistently last. In many languages who is the third wh-word to be learnt.
The use of wh-words by the four children in my study suggests an order of acquisition similar to the expected order.
What and where appear first. Why and who appear before the age of 3 years, and when and which are last (Table 3.1).
Although in Table 3.1 I have separated simple and complex x-items, in the discussion related items will be discussed
together. What for and for what are often used in SCE in the sense why. Formally, they function as preposition + x-
word rather than as a single unit. In SCE how appears to be more common in how to and how many (the latter the basis
of many routines for children) than as an interrogative of manner. In all my subjects except YG how to structures were
acquired before how.
As in the other studies when is the last wh-word to emerge. In my data, it is attested only in EB, although EG has used
it to me off-tape. Who and whose are distinguished from each other as StdE develops. Only EG has ever produced
whose, no other subject has marked a genitive who; the unmarked form is used in possessive meanings.
In most varieties of modern English the wh-words are also used as relative pronouns, e.g:

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Table 3.1 Use of wh-words in SCE and first age attested.
YG YB EG EB
2;1+ 2;8+ 2;11+ 4;6+
what what what what
where where where where
why who who who
whose
2;2+ 2;10
who what about
2;11+
why why why
what for*
2;8+ 4;0 4;2+
how to how to how to how to
how which
4;06+
how many
3;6+ how come
how
which
3;10+ 4;6+ 5;8
(how)about how about which
what for*
5;11+
when
what kind of
how
6;2+
how many
what for*
* sense, "why". For discussion of order of elements see below.

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This is the boy who did it.
It was my sister what did it. [not used in SingE]
This is the place where I saw it.
The use of what and where as relative pronouns in Wells's data reaches 50% at 39 months and 52 months respectively,
but is not attested in any of the children in my study subjects, even at much later ages.
Relative clauses in SCE generally do not use a relative pronoun, as in the examples below, where the relative clauses
are italicized, in which the relative clause is simply paratactic, with no marker of subordination:
(a) My that one put there don't have. [YB 4;0].
[that one refers to a battery. StdE expanded equivalent would be Mine doesn't have one of those things that you put
there.]
(b) Today when I go downstairs to go to my s- go to my school ah, I wait for my bus driver today come so late. I must
stay and wait and wait. [YG, 3;10]
[StdE expanded equivalent would be Today when I went downstairs to go to my school, I waited for my bus driver,
who came so late today. I had to stay and wait and wait.]
Relative clauses may also use the nominalizer one as a marker (discussed in Gupta 1992a):
My this can change one ah. [EB, 5;11]
[StdE expanded equivalent would be something like Mine of this sort is the sort that can change]
In the acquisition of wh-words Singaporean children acquiring SCE follow the usual ordering. They are unlike children
acquiring StdE in not using wh-words in their relative clauses. Relative clauses with wh-words are acquired later, in the
process of the development of StdE.
X-interrogatives with Missing Constituent
These x-interrogatives have a missing constituent, but no wh-word. The answer supplies x. They may or may not have
the particle leh (Q ) X may be either the object of the x-interrogative clause, where the clause has a verb, or an entire
predicate. Leh is used only in main clauses. Only 29 missing constituent interrogatives were used in my data, with
attestations only from YG before the third birthday.
Where x is the predicate, the particle leh may be used to additionally mark the interrogative. The leh particle can
usually be glossed 'how about?' (with which it shares similar grammatical constraints) and is similar to the Mandarin
particle ne, described by Li and Thompson (1981:306) as having reference to some previous speech. Harrison and Lim
(1988:154) give examples of "the

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tag 'leh"' as a "Wh marker equivalent" from their data. Leh is grouped with the pragmatic particles by Platt (1987:396),
who says that it "often has the added element of what about". It is not clear what Platt means by 'added'. The
homophonous pragmatic particle leh (Ass ) is entirely distinct in syntax and in function. All missing constituent x-
interrogatives are structurally incomplete, and do not express propositions even in context. Missing constituent
questions always depend on context of conversation.
In solicitations for words, and especially in picturebook routines, missing constituent x-interrogatives are common. In
these structures we cannot expect leh (Q )
They call this ah? [EB, 4;6-'microphone']
Mummy this? [EG, 3;0, 'insect']
The usual use of leh in a missing constituent interrogative is where x is the predicate, as in this example from YB:
[AG and YB are looking at the equipment supplied with a
chemistry set. At (1) they are looking at a syringe and at (2)
YB selects a small spoon.]
This one is to- is to lift some of the chemicals from this
1AG bottle
and also to do some other things.
2YB This one leh?
3AG This is for a spoon to take [END OF TAPE]
[YB, 4;6]
The antecedent or assumed context for these interrogatives is established in the conversation, as it was here, in the first
session with EG.
[the Sound of Music video is playing. We have
noticed that two of the characters have 'yellow hair']
1 EG Em Mummy this one got hair.
2 MG Grey hair.
3 EG My hair what?
4 MG Black. Hair.
5 EG Huh?
6 MG You got black hair.
7 EG Mummy leh?
8 MG Mummy also black hair.
9 EG Daddy?
10MG Also black.
11AG Also black. [touches own hair]
12MG Aunty [i.e. AG] also got black hair.

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[laughter]
13 AG Also black.
[EG, 2;11]
The x-interrogative at line 7 relies on the context of naming colour of hair, or else the interlocutor could not know what
it was that was being queried. This happens to be my earliest attestation of leh (Q ) However this late attestation may
simply be the result of their rarity (only 10 tokens in my data). Qiu (1985:156)'s first occurrence of the comparable
Shanghainese particle was at 21 months.
In certain contexts missing-constituent questions may appear to function as polar questions, where the antecedent is a
statement, as in the example below (3):
[AG and YB are looking at a fluorescent skeleton]
1AG At night time it shines.
2YB M.
3 In morning time leh?
4AG No, not in morning time. You can't see it.
5 You must wait till it's dark.
[YB, 4;6]
Notice that this can still be glossed as ''What about in the morning time?". However I responded to it as a polar
question equivalent to 'Does it shine in the morning time?' This is possible because the antecedent of the missing
constituent interrogative is it shines.
In StdE there are wh-interrogatives which correspond to these missing-constituent interrogatives, using How about, or
What about. In my data only YG (at age 3;6) and YB (aged 4;6) are attested using (How ) about, and only YB (at the
early age of 2;10) is attested using What about.
Like the pragmatic particles, the missing constituent interrogatives show the reliance on contingency which seems to
characterise SCE. The reliance on shared context and speakers' assumptions of a shared assessment of situation is
characteristic of all informal conversation (Giv6n 1984b:948f). SCE is used entirely as a spoken variety, and has no
contrasting variety to show its forms in less contextually dependent settings. That even small children can manipulate
them shows how quickly they develop sophistication in communicative competence.
Development of X-interrogatives
In studies of the acquisition of Standard English, an investigator can be confident (within limits) of the target variety
that the children are exposed to.

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In Standard English, 'motherese' is of course used to infants but syntactic differences from mature StdE are few. In
StdE interrogatives which are main clauses are marked by (a) fronting of the wh-word and (b) inversion of verb and
subject along with DO-insertion (where the verb is not one of a small subclass of verbs which can be called auxiliary).
Embedded x-interrogative clauses in StdE show fronting but not usually inversion and DO-insertion.
In SCE, not all wh-words show fronting, except in embedded clauses, where fronting is required, as it is in StdE. The
verb BE is likely to show inversion, in both main and embedded interrogatives, while other verbs maintain SV order.
In the case of Singaporean children, the exposure to SCE is generally higher than the exposure to StdE, so that the
target norm is not one which shows regular fronting of the wh-word and inversion of the auxiliary verb (or of DO,
HAVE, and BE as lexical verb) and subject. The absence of inversion is a developmental stage in children acquiring
StdE but is not developmental in a child acquiring SCE, as even for mature users fronting is not invariable.
We need to examine interrogatives for fronting of wh-word, and for inversion. A fronted wh-word occurs as first
element in a clause, although it would not occur as first element in the corresponding declarative. For any x-
interrogative with a wh-word there are 4 possibilities (all examples are from YB, aged 4;0):
(1) There is no evidence for either wh-fronting or presence or absence of inversion, because the clause is too simple,
consisting, for example, of only the wh-word (e.g. 'Who?' 'Why?' 'Don't know where'). These clauses will not be
discussed.
(2) The wh-word functions as subject and therefore has not been moved from its declarative position to be fronted, but
would be the first element in a declarative (e.g. 'Who make this?'). In StdE these interrogatives do not show inversion
of subject and verb. These clauses will also not be discussed, and have been excluded from tabulations.
(3) There is evidence of fronting, but no evidence of inversion, because there is no verb (e.g. 'Where your house?'), or
no subject (e.g. 'Why got it?').
(4) There is evidence of the presence or absence of fronting and inversion (e.g. 'I go where?' 'What is that?').
Whereas in StdE all wh-words appear to be treated the same, in SCE the fronting is linked to particular wh-words,
while inversion is found only with the verb BE:
(1) The wh-words what, where, and who show variable fronting.
(2) The wh-words which and how many are normally in their declarative position, and are not fronted.

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(3) The interrogatives why and how are always fronted, but do not have inversion.
(4) Inversion never occurs without fronting of the wh-word. Fronting and inversion together is normally found only
with the verb BE, and especially in the formulae What's and Where's.
What, Where and Who
As we trace children's acquisition of interrogatives, there is little sense of development in the form of x-interrogatives.
Errors (by comparison with mature SCE) seldom occur. Wh-words are acquired by the younger children with the form
of the more mature SCE that we see in the older children. In SCE x-interrogatives with what, where and who may have
the wh-word either in the declarative position or fronted. The wh-word is likely to be fronted in copular clauses, and is
likely to be in declarative position when it is the object of a verb or the complement of a preposition. Harrison and
Lim's data appears to have shown a similar distribution (1988:161f). They relate the positioning of where to Chinese
syntax but conclude that adult modelling is likely to be a major influence. These patterns become evident if we look at
the distribution of main-clause what and where interrogatives (Tables 3.2 and 3.3).
The where's X routine is a common part of the picture book onomastic routine. The answer may be a "There's X"
formula, with there initially. However, the unmarked declarative position of a locative in SCE is not initial, any more
than in any other variety of English. These two examples both occurred in the context of picturebook routines:
(1) EB Where's Ko-ko?
There's ko-ko, Ko-ko fix.
[EB; 6;0]
(2) MB Where's the newspaper::?
YB Here.
MB There.
[YB; 2;8]
Answers are not always parallel in form to the question, as in the following:
EG Where's doh?
FG This one doh. [pointing to guitar string]
[EG, 2;11]
There were only 34 uses of who in my data, of which the majority had who as subject, and many others were too simple
to show evidence of fronting. In only eight who interrogatives could either fronting or inversion be potentially
observed. This limited data suggests a pattern for who similar to that for what and where.

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Table 3.2 Formal features of what
Speaker YG YB EG YG YB EG EB EG EB EB TOT
2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
Form
1. declarative 17 - 3 19 - - 2 3 - 1 45
position of
what and SV
2. declarative 2 - 11 5 2 8 2 9 1 - 40
position of
what, no
evidence for
inversion
3. what - - - 1 - - - 2 - - 3
fronted, and SV
4. what 1 6 - 1 - 1 1 - 3 2 14
fronted, no
evidence for
inversion
5. what 1 6 - 13 8 5 7 12 4 11 67
fronted, and
inversion
TOTAL 21 12 14 39 10 14 12 25 8 14 169
(A further 11 what interrogatives are one word x-interrogatives or have
what in initial position in declarative order, e.g. 'What colour'.)
Figures like those in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 can be misleading. For example, in one session (in the period aged 2;1-2;8) YG
produced 16 consecutive identical utterances, 'This is what?' (accounting for all but one of the structures with
declarative position of what and SV), while later (aged 3;6-3;10) she produced 11 consecutive mock clarification
requests 'You say what?', in response to her mother's urging her to eat her meal so that she could have a mango. This
accounted for over half of the structures with declarative position of what and SV. However the distribution of
inversion and fronting is not as random as may appear from this table.
64 of the 67 what interrogatives with fronting and inversion involve BE, and all but 12 of these are 'What(i)s . . . ?' The
other 12 being 'What are . . . ?' Forty-eight of the where-interrogatives with fronting and inversion are where

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Table 3.3 Formal features of where
2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
Form
1. declarative - - 1 - 19 - - 1 - 1 22
position of
where, and SV
2. declarative 1 3 1 1 1 - 1 2 1 2 13
position of
where, no evi-
dence for inver-
sion
3. where 1 - - - - - - - - 1 2
fronted, and SV
4. where 1 8 1 4 4 - - 2 2 2 24
fronted, no evi-
dence for inver-
sion
5. where 1 2 2 9 4 2 7 14 4 5 50
fronted, and in-
version
(A further 23 where interrogatives offer no evidence for absence or
presence of either fronting or inversion)
(i )s. One is where are. Not all copular structures show inversion and fronting. Some show fronting but have no verb;
for example, a total of 15 Where interrogatives have the structure 'Where NP' (e.g. Where your house?, YB 4;0). In
other cases, where maintains its declarative position: three where interrogatives with the structure NP+where were
produced (Syringe where?, EB 7;8; Blue number where?, EG 5;8). The third was by YB, aged 2;9, and was 'Paper
where?'.
We seldom see inversion and fronting outside copular clauses. The solitary use of inversion with a verb other than BE
is from EG, aged 5;11 (line 8 below). It seems to be modelled on a sentence from AG (line 2 below):
[EG is doing painting by numbers. AG's task is to open the
pots of
paint on request]
1AGOkay, so I'll put the lid on thirty-six.

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2 And then which one should I open?
3 EG I want to see.
4 That says thirty-si-
5 I want twenty-five.
6 Twenty-five.
7 AGTwenty five.
8 EG Where should I put this yellow in?
9 AGOh, we'd better- we ought to have got some water to rinse it.
This interrogative also has in, which we expect to lead to declarative order of where. It is an example of EG's
development of StdE.
One of these interrogatives with fronting and inversion is one of very few examples in the data of utterances which can
be said to be incorrect by comparison with a mature model. It is, as it happens, the first interrogative in the data from
YG apart from what (i )s:
[11 secs silence. EG is in the kitchen doing origami, YG also
in
kitchen. AG and AG's daughter in living room]
1MG What are you making
[EG's name] [addressed to EG]
2YG I do like-
make jie-jie ['elder sister'] this.
[11.5 secs silence]
3YG [to toy] This.
4 See.
5 What is this make?
6 Make box.
[2 secs silence]
[YG, aged 2;1]
Although some time has elapsed, YG's interrogative at (5) is so similar to MG's question to EG at (1) that it seems
likely to be a restructured echo of it. On the other hand, the association of BE with inversion could cause a child in this
environment to use BE in any inversion interrogative, rather than DO, which is very rare indeed in the environment. It
is also possible that we have here a basic constructional development:
This make what? > What this make?
in which the what is formula has been inserted instead of what. This suggests a formulaic explanation.
Kwan-Terry (1986a:23) found inversion and fronting in x-interrogatives in her subject up to 3;9 only with what's and
where's. Harrison and Lim (1988:159) also found 'preposed' wh-item and 'correctly transposed copula'

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in some of their youngest children with what and where. I would come to the same conclusion as Kwan-Terry, that
What's and where's are speech formulae, and that the use of this form does not mean that the child has a rule about
movement and inversion in x-interrogatives. To this I would add that what is appears to be part of this formula too. In
these children at least What is appears in parallel with What's. We see here children building on the scaffold of what
begin as formulae (Peters 1983, Scollon 1979). Others studying acquisition of interrogatives by StdE speaking children
(such as Wells 1985:270) have found that What+cop+S precedes other aux inversion structures. However, although all
the children in this study are producing why interrogatives well before Well's 50% (54 months), only EG produced any
examples of S-aux inversion in an x-interrogative with DO. The difference results not from delayed development, but
from features of the target model.
Where the wh-word is the object of the verb, or the complement of a preposition, it is likely to maintain its declarative
position.
The majority of the interrogatives with where in declarative position have as verb GO. An exception is the verbless In
where? (YG, 2;8). All but three of the rest have a verb group go, and few have a subject:
[EG has been worried about AG's bag, left behind]
1EG Then Aunty wants to take this ah?
2MGYeah, afterwards Aunty will bring it take it
back.
3EG Aunty want to go where?
4MGAunty go down to the shops.
{EG, 2:11
Most of the non-fronted, declarative position where interrogatives, from YB, EG, and EB, are identical in surface form,
being 'Go where?' (with retrievable subjects of all persons). They are widely separated from each other, and none are
involved in routines. This looks very much like another formula. In fact, there are only three examples of declarative
order with verbs other than GO. These are Press where (YG 3;6), Powder put where? (EB, 7;8), and a rather marked
word order from EG, aged 5;11, in So Iput where this?.
The figures for declarative position and S-V order for YB aged 4;0 to 4;6 are distorted by the many re-readings of The
Haunted House in the eighth session with the boys' family. The Haunted House (by Joy Cowley, Shortland
Publications) was 'read' by YB no less than 10 times, and by AG once. YB's renditions of this book are interesting
because they gave rise to a use of go where which represents a misunderstanding. The text describes a series of spooky
creatures (ghostie, spook owl, monster ) and gives each an appropriate noise, using the repeated structure:

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I am a [X]. A big scary [X]. I live in the haunted house and I go [appropriate sound].
YB replaces this frame with:
I am (the) [X]. And/then I go where? [appropriate sound]
For example, here is his second version:
1 YB Haunted House.
[4 secs]
2 Haunted House.
3 I am the ghost
4 [laughs]
[2 secs]
5 And I go where?
[turns page]
6 /u:::::/.
7 AG [gasps]
8 YB I am the spook owl.
9 [laughs]
10 And I go where?
11 /u:::::/
12 [laughs]
13 I am big monster.
14 [laughs]
15 AG And I go where?
[2 secs]
16 YB And I go where?
[3 secs]
17 Boooo.
18 AG [gasps]
[YB, 4;6]
This book has been accurately read aloud to YB by his mother and his elder brother. He is presumably not familiar with
the use of GO to introduce speech, common in many varieties of English, but not in Singapore English (either StdE or
SCE), so he has converted it into a familiar question.
It is striking that in what and where interrogatives (and, as far as can be seen, who interrogatives) fronting of the wh-
word with S-V order is rare. There are only three examples for what, and only two for where. There are examples of
apparent S-V order, which use -ing (without the BE auxiliary) but these do not give evidence of inversion. Even more
striking, two of the examples of fronted what with S-V order have what for ( = why ) with the verb use. In one
example, YB and EB (6;2) are mixing an orange drink from powder and water,

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and EB rebukes YB with "What for you use the straight type?" EG, carrying a plastic bottle, returns to a painting
session and YG (3;10) asks her, "What you use that Yakult cup for?"
In these examples, what for is synonymous with why, and, as we shall see, fronting and S-V order is the normal pattern
for why.
Elsewhere in the data, the uses of what with for have the declarative order, for what in the younger children, with
neither fronting nor inversion whether or not they are synonymous with why. In the children around their fourth
birthdays however, we begin to see fronting and inversion with the formula What (i )s this/that for?
The third example of fronting of what and SV order is from EG, aged 5;11, 'What time she wake up?' Here what is used
in a phrase synonymous with when, which, like why, usually shows fronting and S-V order.
There are only two interrogatives with fronted where and SV order. The earliest is from YG, age 2;1 and is
unfortunately neither very audible nor functionally clear. It seems to be 'Where jie-jie put new brush hah?' but I cannot
be certain that the first word is indeed where. The answer, rather bafflingly, from MG, is 'Yes.' In the second example
EB (aged 7;3) is addressing his younger brother. He has been having problems getting his attention, and one of several
wordings attempted on the same question is Where you lost your mirror? (the first attempt is " . . . now your Condo,
you lost your mirror, is it?").
These are the only examples in the whole data of a structure which has been found to be very prominent in the
acquisition of interrogatives in children learning StdE. It is interesting that they occur in very mature children, and may
represent an effort at coping with StdE interrogatives. Fronting without inversion does not seem to be a developmental
stage in the acquisition of SCE interrogatives.
There are only four examples of DO support in x-interrogatives in my data. Two (lines 9 and 13 below) come from EG,
aged 4;3 (in this extract, an unrelated simultaneous conversation between YG and AG has been silently omitted). The
second is an expanded repetition of the first:
[EG looks at a picture showing a group of children]
1EG David and Mary-Ann.
['reading']
2MG Yes.
3 Where are they going?
4EG Jogging.
5MG No, they're going to a picnic.
6EG No.
7MG Going jogging?

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8 [to AG] That's the story I told her last
night.
9 EG Mummy what do you all want to take?
10MG [...]
11EG Mummy.
12MG Hand.
13EG What do you all want to take school
bag?
14MG Hm?
15 No, inside the school bag they have
got food.
16EG To bring?
17MG Yes.
18EG Didn't bring, then hungry.
19MG Yes.
20EG Buy other things lor.
21MG The children have got no money with
them.
22EG The mummy leh? [very high rising]
23MG The mummy comes later.
[goes on to discuss which character is the
mother]
The pairing of the question and its final response is quite baffling:
Q What do you all want to take school bag?
R No, inside the schoolbag they have got food.
EG's interrogative is interpreted by MG as having pointed to the anomaly of taking a school bag on a picnic. She
answers with the reason for their having a schoolbag. A further oddity of this interrogative is the choice of pronoun,
you, not referred to by MG. In general, EG's use of pronouns is like the adult model, as indeed one might expect at her
age. This pronoun is used in both versions. In all, it would appear that this interrogative represents a developmental
stage in EG's acquisition of the StdE pattern of interrogatives. As we shall see 2nd person want is also particularly
associated with DO support in my child data. Again, it may have formulaic beginnings. The extremely limited data on
the development of DO support prevents any analysis-it is acquired very late by Singaporean English-speaking children
and is associated with the development of StdE.
Which and How Many
There is no evidence of movement of the wh-word in these two wh-words which are little used.

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There are only 7 uses of which in main clause interrogatives, although the children at other times demonstrate their
understanding by their response to choice offers using which. The youngest child to be attested using it is YG, aged 3;6.
Most of these uses have which in initial position without fronting, three (two from YG aged 3;10 and one from EB aged
4;6) have which in a non-fronted, non-initial declarative position. Many of them are very simple:
Which one? [YG, 3;6]
Which teacher? [EG, 5;8]
/is/ which side? [YG 3;10]
Which one is banana? [[EB 4;6]
There are insufficient examples of which here to draw conclusions about the formal features. There is no use of which
with a deleted nominal: all have either the noun or the pronoun one expressed. All seem to have the noun phrase which
includes which in its declarative position.
How many is used 10 times in main clauses in my data, and is not attested from either of the younger children by the
end of the study. It shows a different pattern of usage from how. As we will see, how is regularly fronted in my data.
This is not true, however, of how many, which appears (like which ) to normally keep its declarative position in main
clauses.
In simple, verbless, how many questions the wh-word is found at the front, immediately before the nominal it modifies,
which is also its declarative position. Even in clauses with a verb this wh-word is always in declarative position:
You want how many? [EG, 5;11]
You must go how many seconds? [EB, 6;2]
How many butterflies? [EG, 4;10]
Got how many butterfly? [EG, 4;10]
Although there is little data on these two wh-words it would appear that they must be treated distinctly from what,
where and who.
Fronting of Wh-words: Why and How
Why, and how (other than how many ) are always in initial position. This finding was also apparent in data from
children studied by Harrison and Lim (1988) and by Kwan-Terry (1986a).
Some uncontextualized examples of why and how interrogatives will show the formal features. Some adult examples
are included to show that mature SCE maintains this form. The adults in my study, and, as we shall see, on occasion the
children, also use the StdE form with inversion and DO support, but such examples have not been included. Kwan-
Terry (1986a:28) has a similar list of why interrogatives of this form.

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Fronting and S-V:
Why Mummy go shopping? [EG, 3;0]
Why they all say 'Oh Oh Oh'? [EG, 4;3]
Why you take so many? [EG, 4:06]
Why you don't know how to tell? [EG, 4:06]
Why I never see your daughter already? [EG, 5;8]
Why the thing got red? (EB, 6:00)
Why sugar has protein hah? [EB, 7;8]
Why your houses go up the road? (MB)
How you on the door? [EG, 5;8] [The verb is on]
For this, how you tie? [EB, 7;8] [topicalized element, followed by fronted how]
How you take out the colours? [EG, 5;11]
Afterward you are painting your grass, so how you are going to paint? [EG, 5;11]
Fronting, no evidence for S-V:
Why call me down? (EB, 6:01)
Why so tired? [MB]
Why so lazy? [MG]
Why so fast? [YB, 4;6]
Mummy, why so fast ah? [EG, 3:00]
Why I talk also no sound one ah? [YG, 3;6] [I talk is an embedded clause without subordinating conjunction,
''Why is there no sound when I talk?"]
Why she no mouth one? [EG, 3;0] ["Why has she got no mouth?"]
Why Ella every day not coming? [EG, 4:06]
Why this book must circle it? [EG, 4:06] [this book is an adverbial element, not the subject. "Why must one circle
the symbol in this book?]
Why you put like this don't talk? [EG, 5;8] [you put like this is an embedded clause without subordinating
conjunction, "Why doesn't it make sound when you put it like this?"]
Why don't like? [EG, 5;8]
How that sound? [EB, 7;3] [not clear if that sound is complement or S-V]
Then how? [YG, 3;6, EB 5;11, et al]
How to/ how come/ how about:
How to talk to the microphone? [YG, 3;6]
How to play this? [YG, 3;10, YB, 4;6, et al]
How to open this? [YB, 4;6]
How to eat (EB, 6;1) No ears, how to listen? [EG, 5;8] [No ears is an embedded clause without subordinating
conjunction, "If I have got no ears, how can I hear?"]
How come I got so little only? (EG, 4;10)

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Table 3.4 Order of because clauses
Order No main Main clause Because + TOT
clause + because main clause
Speaker
YB 2;1-;8 1 - - 1
EG2;11-3;0 6 1 1 8
YG 3;6-;10 9 4 - 13
YB 4;0-;6 1 - 1 2
EG 4;2-;10 12 6 2 20
EB 4;6-;7 - - - -
EG 5;8-;11 14 9 4 27
EB 5;11-6;2 5 7 - 12
EB 7;3-;8 3 2 - 5
S'porean 20 10 - 30
Adults
TOTAL 71 39 8 118
How about this? [YG, 3;10]

How about the ostrich? [YB, 4;6]
Could it be the case that the declarative position of adverbials of reason and manner is initial, and that why and how are
not fronted, but are maintaining their declarative position? Both Harrison and Lim (1988) and Kwan-Terry (1986a:19f)
relate the initial position of why to its clause initial position in Chinese. However, the unmarked position of the why
equivalent in Chinese is after the subject, not initial, as in SCE. There is not a perfect parallel in the structures. In any
case, to find a similarity between Chinese and English is not evidence of interference in the children. It is unlikely that
the weaker languages of these native-speakers of English could affect their stronger language, English. Any transfer
took place historically, and is reflected in the target offered to the children. Furthermore, it is clauses of reason in SCE
we need to look at, not in Chinese. In SCE clauses of reason do not seem to be more likely to be placed before the main
clause than in other varieties of English.
To establish this, all utterances using because were examined for their distribution in my data, the results of which are
shown in Table 3.4. Most

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because utterances have an ellipted main clause, especially when they function as an answer to a why interrogative, as
in this example from EG aged 5;11:
YGPeople say I look like Nursery::.
AGWhy do they say you look like Nursery?
EG Because she's so sma::ll.
[EG, 5;11]
Of the 47 because utterances which do have a main clause, only 8 have the because clause first, and all but one of these
happens to be from EG. Her first (line (5)) is at 3;0:
[Looking at a picture that EG is colouring, boy wearing
quaint
old-fashioned clothes]
1 EG Take out.
2 MG Hm?
3 EG She take out hor.
4 MG No, he didn't button.
5 EG Because she don't button shame shame lor.
6 MG No lah, he got shirt inside.
7 EG Why like that huh Mummy?
8 MG Because he's poor.
9 EG Why she take out hah?
10MG He, he, boy is he.
[MG pays attention to EG's colouring]
11 No, the other way, the other way.
[EG, 3;0]
In (1) and (3) EG comments that the boy has opened his shirt. In (5) the main clause is 'shame shame', the assertive
particle lor applying to the whole proposition. 'Shame shame' is SCE baby-talk normally said to a naked child. EG is so
shocked by the boy's immodesty that she seems not to accept her mother's explanation (6) of a shirt inside, as is shown
by her second question at (9). MG's concentration on correction, first of EG's use of the pronoun she for a male
referent, and then of her colouring technique, results in the interrogative at (9) failing.
The example from YB comes as he goes upstairs to get a battery for his tape recorder:
AG What are you bringing?
[YB gestures to tape recorder]
Another tape recorder?
YB Cos no battery must get some more battery.
[YB, 4;0]

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However, the overwhelming majority of because clauses with main clauses, both from adults and children, have the
main clause first, as some uncontextualized examples will show:
I have extra because my friend give me. [EB, 5;11]
This one cried because he wasn't allowed to swim. [MB]
You see the little girl not there 'cos her mummy go shopping. [EG, 3;0]
Her win just now, because she never win it. [EG, 4;10]
Green flower is too ugly because afterward you are painting your grass.
Afterward you are painting your grass so how you are going to paint? [EG, 5;11]
It seems therefore safe to say that the canonical position of adverbials of reason in declaratives is after the main clause.
However, the canonical position of why in interrogatives is clearly initial. Clauses of manner (corresponding to how )
are equally unlikely to precede the main clause.
Indeed, the only occasions when why is not in clause-initial position is where some other element of the clause is
topicalized (as in 4 of the 107 why interrogatives in my data).
He why o-oi like that one? [o-oi, from Cantonese, 'sleep'. This would be the normal position for why's
equivalent in Chinese] [EG, 3;0]
Take why so long one your tape? [EG, 4;6]
Mei-mei not shirt, why? [YG, 2;1]
Only in the third of these examples, which has a simple structure of proposition+why, does why come in the canonical
declarative position. In other words, why is never in its declarative position. Although not discussed by Kwan-Terry,
the topicalization seems to have been true also of her data, as one of her Cantonese examples (p18) shows the same
movement of the reason interrogative item from its front position, by a topicalized pronoun.
The early appearance of why interrogatives, to be noted in Table 3.5, may support Erbaugh's (1982) assertion of early
acquisition of interrogative forms in Chinese-speaking children. 'Full' why interrogatives reached 50% in Wells's
subjects at 54 months; with first occurrence being only at 36 months (Wells 1985:270). In my subjects they were first
attested in YG at 25 months.
Formally, there is little more to say about the why interrogatives. They are distinguished by their almost total absence
of inversion. For all children at all ages, the majority of why interrogatives show neither presence nor absence of
inversion. This may be because they are single word interrogatives, or because they have no subject or no verb, or both.
The canonical form for a why interrogative, with the exceptions discussed above, is:
why (proposition) (ah/hah)

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Table 3.5 Formal features of why interrogatives
2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
Form
1. declarative - - - - - - - - - - -
position of
why and SV
2. declarative - - - - - - - - - -
position of
why, no
evidence for
inversion
3. why fronted, - - 2 - 6 - 1 7 1 1 18
and SV
4. why fronted, - - 6 10 11 2 1 5 2 1 37
no evidence
for inversion
5. why fronted, - - - - 1 - - 1 - 2 5
and inversion
6. Other 1 - 2 - 1 - 1 - - - 4
element
topicalised
TOTAL 1 - 10 10 19 2 3 13 3 4 65
(A further 42 why interrogatives are minimal, i.e. (Vocative) Why
(Particle))
The four examples of inversion are worth inspection. On one occasion, EG uses inversion in a why interrogative that,
significantly, involves cannot:
[EG, MG and AG are looking of photographs, showing AG's daughter
at an adventure park. Here they have looked at a photograph showing
AG's daughter and AG each in a paddle boat in a roped off section of
a lake]
1EG Why cannot she ah, so big place?
2MG M.
3AG Because she's- she's riding her boat. She's on a lake and she
has her own boat and I have my own boat. You must turn- you

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must turn like that and then the boat moves.
[they look at another photograph]
[EG, 4;3]
As we shall see, CAN (along with BE) is used in inversion polar interrogatives. It is not surprising then that the earliest
example of inversion in Why interrogatives should be CAN. Rather than showing the emergence of aux-S inversion in
why interrogatives it might be better to see this as resulting from the use of CAN in polar questions, such that the
structure is:
Why (polar interrogative with CAN-S) (ah)
The use of why with inversion from the two older children in the final stage of the fieldwork reflects their growing
mastery of StdE. All are addressed to AG. EG's is the only wh-interrogative with DO support other than those with how
in the whole data:
1 EG Why do you need to play the tape when people talk?
2 AG Because afterwards I go and write down e::verything that
you
have said to me.
3 MGDo you really do that?
4 AG I do.
[EG, 5;11]
Another why interrogative with auxiliary inversion, from EB (aged 7;8), with MUST, is also well-formed, Why must we
test all?. The third suggests that he is having some difficulty with DO support, especially here where a negative is
involved:
EB Do- Why do we n- don't need this hah?
AG Now you'll- afterwards you'll have to wash
that.
[EB, 7;8]
It is hard to reconstruct the full forms of all these corrections, or to understand what the final form of the interrogative
is.
There are in all 14 examples in my data of why questions using negation, but only one example of the negative wh-
word why not, forming a directive, "Why not go, mama, and I will stay down here" (EB, 6;0). Why interrogatives with
negation include:
Why no light? [YB, 4;0]
Why don't like? [EG, 5;8]
Why your husband don't like, you like? [EG, 5;8]
Why I never see your daughter already? [EG, 5;8]

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Where these have a subject and verb they have the canonical order for why interrogatives, of fronted why and S-V
order.
Many of the why interrogatives, including some of the negatives are extremely complex, especially those with
conditional clauses (in italics):
Why you put like this don't talk? [EG, 5;8, = "Why is it that when you put it in this position it doesn't talk?"]
Why I talk no sound one? [YG, 3;6, = "Why is there no sound when I talk?"]
The earliest why interrogatives are single-word utterances. Another early structure is a proposition followed by (after a
pause) why. From this it is an easy matter to place the why before the proposition.
The structure wh-word + proposition is a well-established transitional stage in children learning varieties of English in
which the adult form requires wh+ aux + S + V (Klima and Bellugi 1966:207, Labov and Labov 1976). Normal
children of three or four who are acquiring StdE could be expected to have passed this stage. It will be apparent
however, that the development of interrogatives in SCE-speaking children is radically different from that of StdE-
speaking children. The S-V order is an end point (within SCE) rather than developmental. A recurring problem in SCE,
if problem it is, is that it is hard to identify developmental errors. We have seen evidence of self-correction in some of
the complex why interrogatives, but the S-V ordering, alongside fronted why could be produced by the most mature
child (or an adult).
The how interrogatives are a group of interrogative expressions, all of which except for how many show a strong
preference for front position. They are much rarer than the why interrogatives, and are not to be found in the younger
children. In all, 45 (excluding how many ) were used. Of these only 22 had how alone: the rest used the phrases how to
(18), how come (1), and how about (4 ).
All how to interrogatives have the same form:
How to V (NP)
They always have fronted how and no evidence of inversion, as they do not have a subject or a finite verb, e.g.
How to talk to the microphone? [YG, 3;6]
How to fix? [YB, 4;6]
But how to fix them? [EB, 7;8]
Only one how to interrogative deviates from this pattern. EG, aged 4;3, is trying to assemble a flimsy bucket and spade,
a gift from a fast food restaurant, and finding it difficult. She says to herself, 'Aiyah, how you to make lah?'. The
separation of the how and the to is quite unique in my data, and the use

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of the general you is also rare. This may be a bridge to how interrogatives with S-V order, such as 'How you take out
the colours?' [EG, 5;11].
As far as can be seen from the limited examples, those interrogatives with how seem to be behaving like why in that
there is a preference for front position followed by S-V word order. Only 11 of the how interrogatives have both subject
and verb. However, seven of these have inversion, and an astonishing six of these have inversion with DO support. It is
strange to note that they account for all but one of the well-formed (by comparison with StdE) instances of inversion
with DO support in the data:
How do you play this? [twice, YG, 3;10]
How do you open that thing? [EG, 5;11]
How do I squeeze it? [EB, 7;8]
How do you know? [EB, 7;8]
How do you write? [EB, 7;8]
Fletcher (1985:106) found that in his subject at age 3;0, if 'wh-words with contracted auxiliaries' are excluded, there
was no inversion in x-interrogatives outside how (by 3;5 there was no longer this restriction). It is strange that there
should be such a concentration of DO support for one wh-word, both in Fletcher's StdE-exposed child, and (in older
children, apart from the ever-advanced YG) in my data, and how is not the most common wh-word by any means. In
both cases (Fletcher p106) the DO support after how began with a heavily reduced formula-like how do you + VP. The
development in SCE-exposed children may be facilitated by the frequent use in SCE of how to. How to appears in
dependent clauses at the same time as it appears in main clauses, and in greater numbers. How appears only after how
to, and is less frequent. It may be that DO support is facilitated in how interrogatives by the fortuitous similarity in
sound of to and do.
Trends in Main Clause X-interrogatives
There is little sense of development in the form of x-interrogatives. As wh-words are acquired by the younger children
they take on the form of the more mature SCE that we see in the older children.
Inversion is used mainly in the formulae What's and Where's. Other than that a copula interrogative is likely to have
fronting of the wh-word, and if BE is expressed, it may be inverted. The wh-words what, where and who may be
fronted (with inversion) or may be in their declarative position (without inversion). Which and How many are normally
in their declarative position. How and why are always fronted, unless some element has been topicalized. They are
usually in SCE followed by S-V order. However, as the children develop skill in StdE, how interrogatives are first to
show inversion with DO support. Developmental stages of fronting of wh-word with absence of inver-

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sion are absent in children learning SCE: fronting and S-V order does not appear in what, where, who, which, and how
many.
Polar Interrogatives
As far as polar interrogatives are concerned, Wells (1985:217) has Aux + S + V + O/A polar interrogatives appearing
in 50% of his subjects at age 33 months (1985:270), and 100% at 52 months. In my data, inversion interrogatives
appear early enoughfrom 2;3 in the case of YG, but are initially associated with just one verb, CAN. Wells does not
indicate whether in his subjects the early structure was associated with any limited set of verbs, although the example
given is CAN, nor (p359) does he distinguish DO from DON'T, when discussing the early use of the DO auxiliary. On
the basis of other studies, however, the late and sporadic appearance of DO support in children acquiring SCE is one of
many pieces of evidence that the developmental scales of Wells, Brown, Menyuk, Crystal and so on, developed for
other varieties of English, cannot appropriately be applied to SCE data.
Polar questions with or not appear alongside can you as the earliest polar interrogatives in my data, from 2;10 in both
YB and YG, which is the age at which they might be expected to be producing Aux+S+V+O/A interrogatives if they
were learning English in Bristol. Other interrogatives, including DO support on a small scale, in a formulaic context,
may appear around the age of three (YG and EG) but little else is established until StdE structures begin to develop
after the age of four or so.
The structures produced by the children in my study are shown in Table 3.6.
Auxiliary Inversion
Once again, it is necessary to look at the verbs and subjects used in inversion interrogatives (Table 3.7). At last there is
a clear developmental trend. The two younger children's inversion interrogatives all begin with Can you. It also so
happens that these early inversion interrogatives are all directives. Permission requests follow later.
The absence of a subject or a verb, means that utterances may be unmarked for inversion, such as this permission
request from EG:
EG Mummy, can colour hor?
MGAll right. Slowly. Don't colour out of the
line. [ . . . ]
EG This?
MGYes.
[EG, 3;0]

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Table 3.6 Formal features of polar interrogatives
2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3,
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
Form
inversion 9 2 1 5 - 8 3 10 48 14 100
Is it X - - - 1 - 1 - 2 - - 4
Is it X or Y - - - - - - 2 - - - 2
X, is it - - - - - - - 2 - 3 5
X or Y 1 - - - - - - 1 1 2 5
X or not 2 1 - 3 - 5 3 6 1 2 23
V neg-V 2 - - - - - 1 - - - 3
TOTAL 14 3 1 9 - 14 9 21 50 21 142
Table 3.7 Verb groups in inversion polar interrogatives

2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3,
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
Form
CAN YOU 9 2 - 2 4 - 1 - 45 1 64
CAN'T YOU - - - - - - - 1 - - 1
CAN I/WE - - - - - - 1 5 1 1 8
ARE YOU - - - - - - 1 - 1 1 3
IS THAT - - 1 - - - - - - - 1
IS IT- - - - - - - - - - 2 2
IS THIS - - - - - - - 1 - - 1
IS HE - - - - - - - - - 3 3
WILL YOU - - - - - -- - 1 - 1
D' YOU - - - 2 3 - - 3 - 6 14
DID YOU - - - - 1 - - - - - 1
DO I - - - 1 - - - - - - 1
TOTAL 9 2 1 5 8 0 3 10 48 14 100

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Those structures like can you which favour inversion, may inhibit subject pro-drop. In the entire corpus there are only
three directives with CAN which have deleted subject: all but two of the rest have inversion. In the case of BE, SingE
phonology does not allow us to know whether a subject has been dropped: the form /is/ may or may not have an
expressed subject. Although this is usually (for example, Platt and Weber 1980:72) seen as subject deletion, it could
equally well be an example of the normal consonant cluster simplification of Singapore English. Platt and Weber reject
this argument, claiming that the use of /z/ in final position indicates that the word is 'is' rather than 'it's'. However, given
that Singapore English generally does not contrast final voiced and voiceless sounds this would neutralize the
distinction between it's and is. Apart from the third person /is/, there is only one use of BE in a questioning function
which does not have a subject ('Are ready', from EB, 4;0.).
CAN and BE are therefore unusual in their high incidence of having a subject. They are also the two verbs associated
with inversion interrogatives.
CAN is nearly always inverted in permission requests and in directives. There are only two examples of CAN directives
with subjects but without inversion.
You can tell us one story? [EG, 4;10, to AG]
You can find for me my swimming bag?[EB, 4;10 to AG]
Some of the CAN YOU directives participate in storybook routines. For example, here is YG looking at a book with
me. She invites me to point to the objects she picks out. Here the child is taking the usual role of the adult in the picture
book routine, which is something that the children in my data seem to do rather more often than children in other
cultures have been reported to:
[YG brings a book to AG]
1 AG Oh!
2 YG See the bird? [high rise on final syllable]
3 AG Yeah, the bird.
4 YG Can you see the - uh -
em -
5 EG Frog.
6 YG Frog.
7 It two frogs.
8 AG Two frogs.
9 Two frogs? [there are actually three]
10 YG See in the-
11 Can you see the cockroach?
12 AG The what?
13 The cockroach, ah yes. [it is actually a ladybird]

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14 YG Can you see the pig-pig?
15 AG Right pig pig?
16 EG $ $ broken.
17 AG Oh dear.
18 Oh, what's broken?
19 YG Can you see the butterfly?
20 AG Oh beautiful butterfly.
21 Very good.
22 Get another book read to me.
[EG, 4;10, YG, 2;8]
Although there is a slight variation in YG's pronunciation, in general these interrogatives could be transcribed [ ] (I
would like to thank Brian Ridge for his help here). The you is thus represented by the glottal stop, and the palatalization
of the fricative. This suggests a speech formula once more. YG is simultaneously showing me where the items are and
directing me to look at them. Line (10) looks like the beginning of another directive like the one in line (20), using a
second person experiential verb, repaired to an CAN interrogative.
Can you directives are seen as a polite technique. At age 6;1, EB, asking AG to find Lego pieces for him, said 'Aunty,
you know, you must find for me the other one.' His mother rebuked him for speaking rudely to me, and he immediately
repeated, 'Aunty, can you please find for me all these ones?'. It seems that children are being more or less explicitly
taught CAN YOU as a polite way of making a directive. For the smaller children it seems to have the same meaning as,
and no more grammatical structure than, 'please'. This is why 2 of YG's early inversion interrogatives, and both of YB's
early ones, are only 'Can you?' with no linguistic antecedent, where the context makes clear what it is the child is asking
the other party to do. YB, aged 2;9, approaches his mother with the robot he and EB are trying to assemble. He says
'Mummy, can you?' MB is involved in a conversation about EB's teeth with AG and does not respond. YB then says
'Mummy' twice, then louder still 'Hey Mummy,' then says 'Hey' five times, crescendo. He finally achieves her attention
and verbalises his request as follows, without using can you (lines 2 and 4 below):
1 MB What's that?
2 YB This inside- inside.
3 MB What is inside?
4 YB This one ah, close, close.
5 MB Close ah.
6 YB Yah.
[YB, 2;9]

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It would seem that 'Can you?' is a polite version of the imperative at (4), of which the full version would be 'Can you
close this one?'. YB has not yet combined the imperative ('This one close') with can you. One of YG's CAN YOU
interrogatives (1 below) supports this formulaic analysis (the StdE distinction between see and look at is not always
made in SCE):
[AG, AG's Daughter, MG, EG and YG are looking at photographs of
Hong Kong. EG is controlling the show, putting slides in the viewer.
YG has expressed anger at this, and has in several ways attempted to
get more control herself. Both children have been exhorted by MG to
'share share' and EG has been rebuked. The photos are disordered, so
we do not know which we have seen. It has been established that we
do not see the same one twice. YG picks up a slide]
1YG Can you see this one?
2MG No, this one too we haven't-
3EG This one
haven't ah?
4MG No not yet?
5AG No we haven't seen that one.
6AG We haven't seen that one not yet.
7MG No no? yet.
8 So show it.
[EG 4:2; YG, 2:1]
At first sight, MG and AG appear to interpret YG's interrogative (1) as being the same as EG's previous interrogative,
'We see this already or not?'. However, a negative answer here presumes the possibility of seeing that photograph. If we
assume that CAN YOU is an unanalysed formula meaning please we can see that YG's (1) could be a directive and/or
permission request, getting MG's approval for this slide being put in, and resulting in EG putting the slide in, which is
what in fact happens at (8). This explains why YG uses the you inappropriately here, when her normal usage suggests
she uses pronouns as the mature model does.
There are two examples of negative CAN YOU interrogatives:
Can't you do that? [EG, 5;11, surprise at AG's inability to bend her head back for a prolonged period]
Can you not do that. [EB, 6;2, negative directive: AG has just offered to set the time on his watch]
The CAN I and CAN WE interrogatives are permission requests, e.g. 'Can I be excuse?' (EG, 5;11). One ('Can I get
luncheon meat?', EB, 7;8) occurs in the section where EB is getting items for the chemistry set. They are not used by
the younger children, appearing earliest in EB, aged 4;6 ('Mummy can I play there our house?')

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CAN in the sense 'be able' is either used or understood, or both, by these children in non-interrogatives, and there are
five examples of this in interrogatives. Two (consecutive) examples of this in the data (6 and 8 below) are unfortunately
during a telephone conversation, of which I hear only EG's contribution, but they do seem to be a genuine information
request:
[EG is talking on the telephone to her former baby-sitter's granddaughter (Ah
Ngoh). YG is playing on a piano which has frogs on it whose mouths open when
keys are depressed]
1EG[to YG, while holding phone] [abbreviated version of YG's name], can play
the frog.
2 Play Ah Ngoh jie-jie listen. ['Play for Big-sister Ah Ngoh to listen']
3 She can't hear.
4 [into phone] [YG's name] want to play already.
[ 2 sees]
5 Right, play [abbreviated form of YG's name].
[YG plays piano]
6 [into phone] Can you hear that?
[EG, 4;10; YG 2;8]
Can you is also used to draw attention to some feat:

Can you do very fast? [YG, 3;10, of tongue grooving to AG, who, it has been established, can't do it at all]
Can you bend your head very h- [demonstrates] and wait for a long time? [YG, 3;10, to AG]
CAN YOU begins as a formulaic, polite, marker of a directive. It is then placed before an imperative, after which a
wide range of lexical verbs can be found with CAN YOU interrogatives. A first person form emerges in permission
requests. The functions also extend to ability interrogatives.
As with where/ who/ what interrogatives, BE appears in inversion interrogatives, though sparsely, and generally late.
The other inversion interrogatives are also late and associated with the development of StdE. Again, some of the early
examples have every appearance of formulaic or automatized status (Peters 1983:86).
EB directs AG back to a game with a series of what look like formulae. The first question (line 1) has an unusual
deleted subject:
1EB Are ready?
[MB and AG are talking about MB's thesis]
2 Hoy, mama.
3 Are you ready?
4 Are you ready?

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5 AG Yep. Ready. Hang on.
6 No. I'm not ready.
7 Ready.
8 EB Ready. Go!
[EB, 4;0]
Nearly all the other inversion interrogatives with BE are from EB, the oldest subject, at the oldest age in the study, and
occur in a StdE context. Three of them occur as he is enacting a written text for YB (June Melser. 1982. Look for me.
Shortland Publications Ltd.). This is a book in which a mother is looking for her son. The text repeats the same
structure with different locations:
Mum looked for David in the toy box. 'No, he's not here,' she said.
When AG and EB enact the story they take the part of the mother, making changes in name and location to be
appropriate to searching for YB in his own house. In the first enactment, AG replaces the narrative of the original text
with interrogatives (''Where is that boy? Is he in the fishtank? Is he behind the television"). EB produces an almost
perfect imitation of AG's version in both form and location:
[YB hides]
1 EB Look for me.
2 Where is that boy?
3 [YB laughs]
4 Now look for the-
5 Not looking for the-
6 Is he in the - fishtank?
7 No.
8 Is he-
9 Oh no.
10 I think he's upstairs.
11 AG Is he upstairs?
[finds YB]
YB [laughs] [giggles-4 secs]
[EB, 7;3; YB, 4;0]
YB, incidentally, stays much closer to the printed text in his enactment, as he searches for EB. He uses no
interrogatives, and maintains the locations of the original text:
Up in the chimney. [There are no chimneys in
1 YB Singapore
houses]
2 No no no.
3 AGNo, no no.

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4 YB M.
5 Look in the clock.
6 No no no.
7 AG No.
8 YB Okay, look in teapot.
9 AG No no no.
10YB No no no.
11YB M. [laughs]
12 Look in-/u u u u/
13AG [laughs]
14YB Now go look for the mat.
15AG She looked under the mat.
16YB Mat.
17AG Here here here.
18AG She looked upstairs.
19 Ups-
20YB Up there, up there.
[YB goes upstairs]
The other two inversion interrogatives with BE from EB, however, are not modelled in this way. The first occurs as he
is picking out the various chemicals in the chemistry set:
AG Then we need lard-finding agent.
[3 secs]
EB Is it this?
[presenting bottle to AG]
AG That's albumin-finding agent.
[3 secs]
EB Large ah?
AG Lard finding agent.
[EB finds it]
Okay.
[EB, 7;8]
The second has BE as an auxiliary, although in a position where StdE would expect HAVE:
[EB is squeezing drops of chemical on chocolate. As both are dark,
it is hard to see whether this liquid is coming out or not. The
amount EB has
squeezed is excessive]
AGNo, no, don't waste it.
You can put it back in.
EB Is it come?
AGOh hey, just try it- try it on the- on the- em- Yakult first.

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Squeeze on the Yakult.
No you must squeeze from the top here.
That's it. [6 secs]
[EB, 7;8]
This may be an interrogative of the is it + statement type, although I incline to analysing the it as referential to the
liquid. It may represent overuse of BE in interrogatives as a stage in learning StdE interrogative patterns which allow
the use of interrogatives with HAVE and other auxiliaries.
This leaves us with the use of the DO auxiliary. The youngest child to use DO support in an inversion interrogative is
YG, aged 3;10. As we have seen earlier in this chapter, DO support seems to appear in x-interrogatives with how and in
polar interrogatives at about the same stage. The range of verbs is very limited (Table 3.8), and all but one of the polar
interrogatives with DO support has you as Subject.
The concentration of experiential verbs in early DO-support polar interrogatives seems not to be restricted to SCE.
Children acquiring StdE may use a 'question introducer' D'you want, which appears at an early stage-when who is just
beginning to be understood (Bellugi 1965:118; Reich 1986:120;). In my data, too, the DO element was often reduced to
a glottal stop, especially in D'you want. DO insertion, as a process, emerges from the formulaic uses.
Do you know why no furniture? [EG, 5;8]
Do you know what cause? [EB, 7;8]
Do you see the Indian shop down there? [EG, 5;11]
Do you want me to paint some more thirty-six? [EG, 5;11]
Do you want full cream milk? [EB, 7;8]
Do you want medicine? [EB, 7;8]
Do you want this to be a medicine spoon? [EB, 7;8]
Table 3.8 Verb groups in polar inversion interrogatives with DO
support
Speaker YG EG2 EG3 EB3
3;6-;10 4;2-4;10 5;8-5;11 7;3-7;8
Verb
WANT 1 2 1 4
SEE - - 1 -
KNOW - 1 1 4
WASH 1 - -

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D'you want a tissue? [EG, 4;10]
D'you want to speak? [EG, 4;10]
In the early example from EG, 'What do you all want to take' as in YG's 'Can you' in the photograph viewing session
mentioned above, the use of the inappropriate pronoun is an indication of a lack of confidence in the structure, and may
be a sign of a formulaic development. There are two early examples of do you in polar interrogatives, both of which
suggest formulaic use.
One of the two very early examples from YG (line 5 below), appears to have do you being used in a directive, almost as
an alternative to can you:
[The girls and AG are painting. AG washes the brushes before
another
colour is used.]
1YGYou help me to wash all
these
2AG[sneeze]
3YGchocolate first lah.
4AG[sneeze]
5YGDo you wash this chocolate?
6AGYes.
[YG, 3;10]
The early isolated did you interrogative from EG, aged 4;3, has an inappropriate pronoun, which context makes clear
should be they:
[AG, EG, and MG are looking at photographs taken while AG was
in England]
1 AG These my friend's children.
2 This Ella, these my friend's children.
3 EG You don't know her name name name?
4 AG Christine, Christopher.
5 EG Same, Christine and Christopher. Same.
6 AG Same, that's right, brother and sister.
7 So same name.
8 Christine, Christopher.
9 EG Ellen, Ella, only not same.
10AG Right.
11EG You didn't come leh?
12AG I took the photograph.
13EG Why Ella and these two don't see you, only one?
14AG Because I'm- got the camera.
[AG misunderstands line 13. EG repeats the problem at 15 and 16.
Only one of the children in the photo is looking at the camera]
15EG Did you all don't see you meh, only this one ah?

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16 This the boy ah.
[We move on to discuss the sex of the children.]
[EG, 4;3]
The only example without you as subject is from YG, aged 3;10. She chooses a colour of paint, and says quietly to
herself, 'Right, do I using this first?'. The use of this auxiliary, as in EB's 'Is it come' is not appropriate in StdE, and
again suggests a structure in the process of learning.
Once again we may be looking at the formulaic beginnings of a structure, where 'Do you/Did you' is a remembered
chunk, unanalysed into its components, although both DO (the lexical verb) and YOU are used in other contexts.
This observation is supported by Kwan-Terry's data. The child she studied used did you from 3;7, but 'the did-support
was used only when the subject topic was the pronoun "you"' (Kwan-Terry 1986a:31), and do you from 4:09. At 4;10,
there was no evidence for DO support in x-interrogatives. Kwan-Terry concludes that her subject "had memorized the
pre-fabricated do (did ) plus pronoun form on account of its high frequency of occurrence but he had not acquired the
DO support rule in general as he could not apply it to sentences where the subject was a noun" (Kwan-Terry 1986a:32).
I would go beyond this to say that the prefabricated form is do (did ) you.
We have seen the concentration of DO support in 2nd person experiential verbs (Wells 1985:151), and especially with
want. Indeed, main clause structures with an experiential verb and a second person subject in SCE can be defined as
interrogative even without inversion.
There is something pragmatically odd about telling people what they know, see, think or want etc.. And when the
children in my data used You want, and You know in main clauses, they were generally seeking assent, or even asking a
polar question with less loading of the poles. Geluykens (1987:484) refers to these subject-verb combinations as
'question prone.' You know and You see are also common tags, functioning like assertive pragmatic particles, but this is
not examined here.
There were 41 main clause second person experientials (unmarked for interrogativity in any other way) in my data.
They emerged in the two year olds, while the four year olds began to produce 2nd person experientials followed by
embedded x-interrogative clauses (discussed later in this chapter). These utterances were generally questions, where the
x of the embedded clause was supplied in the response. At the same time, non-questioning x-interrogative embeddings
begin to appear in the same verbs with a first or third person subject. An association of experiential verbs with early
embeddings was also found by Wells (1985:190) who found the first two-clause utterances to use WANT: "the first to
emerge were sentences containing experiential verbs, such as 'want,' 'like', 'know' and 'think', which can take an
embedded clause

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as complement". They were coded as S+V+. This is where the children in my data begin, with want to V constructions.
Erreich (1984) found a complex distribution of inversion in wh- and yes-no questions. Using both spontaneous and
elicited data, she found that inversion was more likely in wh- than in yes-no questions (p584), that inversion was not
associated with any set of verbs or kind of verb (p588), and that all negative questions were non-inverted. Her data was
drawn from 18 children between 2;5 and 3;0. Bellugi (1971:98) found that the children in her study (aged over three
years) "almost invariably produce[d] questions with the auxiliary verb and the noun-phrase subject inverted in yes/no
questions, once they begin using auxiliary verbs with any regularity".
This kind of data presents a very different picture from that found in children acquiring SCE, where the linguistic
evidence of inversion available to the child (in both x-interrogatives and polar interrogatives) is minimal outside a few
formulae, so that inversion is associated principally with BE and CAN, and where DO support begins in experiential
verbs. Fletcher (1985:105) also found that in his subject, acquiring StdE, most inverted 'yes-no questions' at age 3;0 had
an initial CAN. The rest had have/has (p107), a parallel not found in the SCE data. The SCE data also cannot be
understood without examination of specific verbs.
Because of the different formal structures involved, it is difficult to map the Singapore data onto Wells's findings. He
has the first polar interrogative (aux + S + V + O/A) reaching 50% criterion at 33 months, the first 'full' (i.e. not
What/Where + cop + S) wh-interrogative at 36 months, and 'full 'why' interrogatives and two-clause polar
interrogatives' at 54 and 57 months (Wells 1985:271). He does not discuss whether a 'full' why interrogative implies
inversion. If it does, it may be that the formally simpler structure of SCE interrogatives results in a quite different order
of acquisition.
Other Non-disjunctive Polar Interrogatives
In Table 3.6 I identified 3 related uses of is it which create polar interrogatives, none of them very common in my data.
The tag question is (n't )it is common in Singapore English. It was used in speech addressed to these children, but there
are only five examples of is it from the children in my study in all, from EG and EB in the oldest age group. This tag
question has the inversion structure of one type of polar question. The use of a tag question does not really create an
interrogative, however, but, added onto declaratives:
With a rise on the tag, the construction indicates that I am inclined to believe or assume the proposition expressed
in the declarative but ask you to say whether it is in fact so. With a fall on the tag, it indicates my commitment

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to the truth of the proposition expressed in the declarative and seeks your confirmation. Thus the rising tag
indicates doubt . . . ; with the falling tag, on the other hand, I am prepared only for a confirmatory answer.
(Huddleston 1984:375).
Whatever the pattern in other varieties, in Singapore English there seems to be no such intonational difference, is it
being generally rising and apparently always seeking confirmation. The inversion tags in Singapore English (primarily
associated with SingStdE) are to be related functionally to the tentative group of pragmatic particles. They begin to be
used as the child acquires StdE, and may be a StdE equivalent of the tentative group of pragmatic particles.
We have seen that BE is often linked with inversion. The only inversion tag question in SCE is is (n't ) it, (is it being
far the more common of the two). The virtual absence of tag questions in the children's language is astonishing.
However there are many examples of these from adult interlocutors. 'Is it?' is used by MB and MG both as an
acknowledgment of interest, and as a tag question.
MB uses it, for example, to solicit agreement from AG. EB and his friend Amanda (on EB's instructions) have been
calling after Amanda's father 'Big neck'. AG has asked MB to explain the insult.
MB [to EB] What is the meaning of big neck?
EB Big neck means big big man who go inside the
cupboard, the whole thing big neck.
[MB and AG laugh]
MB [to AG] Sounds terrible, isn't it?
As an acknowledgment of the other's speech it is not a tag, as in this example from the boys' mother:
AG [to MB] In- in Roald Dahl's version of Goldilocks and the
Three Bears, Goldilocks comes out as a terrorist, and in -in- in
his version of the three little pigs, em- in his version of the three
little pigs the last little pig calls on Goldilocks to help him, and
Goldilocks ends up killing not only the wolf but also the little pig.
[MB/AG laugh]
MB Is it?
We must go and get the books.
AG That's Revolting Rhymes: Ella thinks it's wonderful.
None of the children in my data is attested in this use. Their (few) uses are all of the tag. For example (line 6 below),
EG uses one among a variety of interrogatives as EG and YG interrogate AG on her car:

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1 EG Mine- yours got automatic or not?
2 AG No.
3 Yours got automatic? [high rise]
[EG nods]
4 AG Very nice.
5 I like automatic.
6 EG But you cannot buy is it?
7 AG My husband doesn't like.
8 EG Why don't like?
9 AG I don't know.
10 He likes to change gears.
11YG Why?
12AG I don't know, silly.
[EG, 5;8]
Both EG's uses are linked intonationally with the statement that precedes them. However, where is it is on a separate
contour, it can function as a reinitiation to an utterance to which a response is expected. On one occasion EB (7;3) is
trying to fix YB's toy motorbike (a 'Condo'), which appears incomplete. He says to YB, with a single intonation
contour " . . . now your Condo, you lost your mirror is it?" YB ignores him, because he is shooting AG. EG repeats
himself several times, including one more is it:
You lost your mirror, your Condo mirror. [1 sec pause] Is it?
A similar separation, although not preceded by a clear pause, comes as EB is writing a secret message in milk:
[7 secs, EB writes]
EB Must let it dry first?
Is it?
AG Yeah, it mustit must dry.
[EB, 7;8]
There is a structure in StdE in which is it that can be glossed as "is it the case that". In a rather similar way, is it may be
used (very rarelyonly 6 times in my data), to signal a non-disjunctive polar interrogative in SCE.
As usual, the youngest child to use this structure is YG, aged 3;10 (line 6 below). She is surprised that AG has drunk
her refreshment so quickly:
You just drink your water so fast.
1 YG [rise]
2 AG Did I drink it very
fast?
3 EG Yes.
4 AG I must have been thirsty.

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5 EG Because youyou come . . . from there to this, to there
to this.
6 YGIs it?
Is it you dri::nk then all finish?
7 The first time you drink all finish?
8 AGOh yeah, I drank itno, not all finish. I think ? drank . . .
half
and then
9 EG Three-sixths.
10AGthe next
half.
11EG Drink two-sixths.
[EG, 5;11; YG, 3;10]
EB (4;7) uses this is in combination with an X or Y disjunctive interrogative ("Is it we all go now or Aunty go now"; "Is
it we all go home now or Aunty go home now?"the second rendition is a reinitiation 12 turns after the first).
The use of initial is it to mark a non-disjunctive polar interrogative is of great interest, because this kind of structure is
a blend of Chinese patterns and English patterns of interrogation, which results in a form unlike either source (Gupta
1992a). However, it is rare, and late, in children.
Kwan-Terry (1986a:29) has is it, sounding like "a single word" from 3;6 in utterances like 'Is it a giant?'. Her subject at
3;9 "had formed the rule that an interrogative sentence in English could be formed by
topic/subjectinterrogative word 'is it'complement"
This produced interrogatives like 'The second one, is it the small one?' After 4;3, he had "'is it' functioning as an
interrogative signal, a separate topic/grammatical subject and a separate verb" as in 'Is it the blood will come out and
then the place will dirty?' and 'Is it Freddie is No. 8? ['Number Eight']' Kwan-Terry's long-term access to her subject
means that she had more chance than I do of capturing all the stages in such a rare type of interrogative as this. I would
analyse the structure in my data, however, simply as:
is it + statement.
Disjunctive Polar Interrogatives
Finally, three forms of disjunctive interrogatives with or can be distinguished, and one with negation. The
chronologically earliest of the disjunctive interrogatives appears to emerge from an or not tag normally placed in
sentence-final position, immediately after the verb. This or not tag in the mature variety can be used sentence-finally
even where the verb is not the last element (as in some of the examples from Sin 1985: "You know why or not?",

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"You know what they did to the dog or not?"). However, in the earliest examples from children the or not tends to be
associated with a verbal element, as it usually is in mature variety too (examples, again from Sin, include "You notice
or not, they all learn their songs er only at this time er. We all learn twenty four hours, remember or not?", "Let's go
and see, want or not?", "We leave at eight, can or not?")
YB and YG each produced a disjunctive polar interrogative at an early age. YB's example (at 2;10), "Pain or not" is a
formula, which was used several times in the data by older people speaking to the children.
YG's first example (at 2;8), uses WANT, a verb which we have already seen in a lot of interrogatives, "Ella, you want
to eat biscuit or not?" The second (also at 2;8) uses CAN, in 'I fix can or not?' However in this case YG is merely
imitating her sister, whose previous turn was the same utterance. This is not the only occasion when a more mature
structure is perfectly imitated by a younger child, a strategy used by YG to annoy EG on several occasions, as, for
example, when EG is trying to persuade YG to allow her to use YG's painting set:
1 EG You always like this one, you.
2 YG You never let me help you what.
3 EG Next time can or not?
4 YG Then next time can or not?
5 EG Aiyah, you always like this one.
6 YG Aiyah you always like this one.
[EG, 5;11; YG, 3;10]
EG, aged 4;10, produced complex or not interrogatives, with or not already functioning as a tag to the entire
proposition, as at line 6 below:
[AG and EG are at EG's new maisonette. They are
deciding whether to play upstairs or downstairs]
1 AG Shall we go downstairs or shall we go upstairs?
2 M?
3 What do you prefer, m?
4 M?
5 Now we have a choice.
6 EG Got spider or not?
7 MGNot lor.
8 AG Got what?
9 YG . Big spider
10MG Spider.
11YG Big spider so scare leh.
[EG, 4;10; YG, 2;8]

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Note that MG's answer (7) is the polarized response not rather than no. To call disjunctive polar interrogatives Yes-no
questions would be quite misleading, as the answer is normally one of the polarized elements, in this case 'Got' or 'Not
(got).'
Once again we see that 2nd person experientials, and especially WANT are prominent in an interrogative structure. Of
the 23 or not interrogatives, 8 had WANT. However, interrogatives of this type are at no stage restricted to
experientials, as the or not formula can be added to many structures.
Some structures are doubly marked for interrogativity, by having a 2nd person experiential plus or not, or is it.
Usually EB gets AG's attention with a second person experiential, You want to V, but on one occasion uses a
disjunctive:
1 EB [to AG] I tell you something want or not?
2 Aunty?
3 AG Pardon?
4 EB I show you something.
[EB gets gun]
5 AG Ugh horrible gun.
[EB, 5;11]
Or interrogatives continue to develop in the older children. WANT and CAN are still prominent. For example:
Want to play or not?' (EG,5;8)
Want or not? (EG 5;11)
Can I help you or not? (EG 5;11)
Next time can or not? (EG 5;11)
Want to come out or not? (EB, 7;8)
But they do not dominate as they had at an earlier stage. From these older children we also find:
I talking to you or not? (EB, 7;3)
You got automatic or not? (EG, 5;8)
I don't do can or not, I help [YG's name] can? (EG 5;11gloss something like 'May I have permission not to do it:
may I help YG?')
There are also some X or Y interrogatives.
This a feet or a hand? (EB, 7;8)
You give me or don't want? (i.e. 'or don't want to give me')(EB, 7;8)
We have seen how the earliest attested X or Y structure is from YG, and has the form X or don 'tX. X or Y structures are
too rare in my data to establish the links or forms with any certainty.

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Disjunctive interrogatives with or are not very frequent in SCE, although more frequent than in StdE. They increase in
frequency and complexity in the older children. In the younger children or not is likely to be attached to a 2nd person
experiential verb. Other uses of or not, and the use of X or Y develop as the child matures.
Even more rare is the disjunctive interrogative with the structure V Neg-V, which has a clear source in Chinese (Gupta
1992a). Kwan-Terry relates ''the high frequency" of or not questions in Elvoo's English speech (and in the speech of
Singapore speakers of English in general) to indirect transfer from "the Cantonese verb-not-verb interrogative pattern"
(Kwan-Terry 1986a:36). I see the V-not-V pattern as being quite distinct in form from the X-or-Y/X-or-not-X pattern.
There is no word-for-word X-or-not pattern in Chinese. The transfer from Chinese involved or disjunctives rather than
the formally more different V-not-V. Kwan-Terry attempts to find evidence of transfer in her subject, but I see any
transfer as historical. The variety of English the child hears is a dialect of English which was the result of the transfer
of some other learner. The similarity of Kwan-Terry's data and mine supports this dialectal approach, as one would not
expect so many points of contact in children adopting individual strategies of learning languages.
Negation in SCE is essentially the same as negation in StdE. It seems that X not-X (or V not-V ) should be described as
V V not, as all three examples in my data, and Kwan-Terry's have that form. The SCE structure is far from a perfect
calque of the Chinese structure, where the negator precedes the verb.
In SCE there may be severe constraints on the use of V V not in the mature form that the paucity of examples cannot
reveal. Casual observation suggests that the structure is most common in the phrase can cannot, and may be possible in
BE BE not (two verbs that participate anomalously in several interrogative structures). It was the two equivalent
Cantonese verbs to these for which Kwan-Terry's subject Elvoo first used this construction in Cantonese. Even at the
end of her recorded observations, the structure was restricted to a small number of verbs. If those verbs which have the
negator don't can be used in V not V interrogatives, one would expect the structure V don't V, but I do not believe that
this occurs in the mature variety (e.g. *Want don't want? ).
The first example of the X X not type in my data is a permission request which has an element of surprise (line 7
below). EB wants to play on the communal verandah with Amanda (Am), but MB wants him to remain indoors where
AG is ostensibly taping YB. Amanda calls EB 'Cheong Cheong' which is something like a reduplicated version of the
second part of his real name:
1 Am Cheong Cheong. Cheong Cheong.
2 EB What?

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3 Am Why you don't come out Cheong Cheong?
4 EB What?
5 Am Why you don't play?
6 MB Cannot come out hor.
EB [to MB]
7 I can come out of there, cannot come out?
8 MB Cannot.
9 EB Can.
10 MB Cannot go.
11 EB Can.
12 MB Because if you go he will go.
13 EB Never mind I close the door.
[EB leaves the flat to play with Am on verandah]
[EB, 4;6]
The answers (8 - 11) oscillate between the two poles. This example illustrates why I prefer to describe this structure as
X X not, rather than V V not, as here the negated element is presumably an elided version of the full clause, resulting in
the interruption of the V V not structure by the adverbial.
YG (at 2;8) says "Can cannot come out?" as she tries to fix a music card in a toy piano. In the same session just after
her perfect repetition of EG's "I fix can or not?", YG says "I fix fix not" which, contrary to expectations (and probably
contrary to mature norm) does have a verb that would normally negate with don't, and which may be a developmental
error.
Trends in Main Clause Polar Interrogatives
In SCE the most common polar interrogatives are inversion interrogatives with CAN, especially can you in polite
directives? DO support appears late, around the fourth birthday, and is used only with experiential verbs. Various
structures using is it appear, but are rarely used. Clauses containing an experiential verb with a second person subject
can be regarded as interrogative.
There are two ways of forming disjunctive polar interrogatives. Negation with or emerges from the formula or not. The
less common type of disjunctive polar interrogative uses negation without or. This structure is severely constrained in
terms of which verbs it can occur with, and may be restricted to CAN.
It is difficult in SCE to create a polar interrogative, given the rarity, and relatively late acquisition of disjunctive polar
interrogatoves. This is mitigated by the marking of utterances as tentative in SCE, by a range of pragmatic particles.

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Embedded Interrogatives
An embedded interrogative may be dependent on a main clause which is itself interrogative. A large number of
embedded interrogatives are embedded in a main clause with a 2nd person experiential verb, and these usually have a
questioning function, with the question in the dependent clause. Few embedded interrogatives are associated with
indirect speech. Four classes of embedded interrogative emerge, which have been given shorthand terms which will be
used subsequently in tables. Categories 1 and 2 are embedded x-interrogatives, while Category 3 is an embedded polar
interrogative.
1. embedded x-interrogative with main clause which has a 2nd person experiential verb. (2exp+xQ)
e.g. You know where is the toilet? [EB, 5;11]
You know how to draw? [EB, 4;6]
2. embedded x-interrogative with main clause which does not have a 2nd person experiential (non-2exp+xQ).
e.g. I know how to swim. [EB, 5;11]
I know how to fix this. [EB, 6;0]
You don't know how to play, you don't play lor.
[EG, 5;8 = "If you don't know how to play, don't play."]
3. embedded polar interrogative main clause which does not have a 2nd person experiential (non-2exp+polQ).
e.g. I check whether I have these. [EB, 5;11]
He ask me pain or not. [EB, 6;1]
There is a theoretical possibility of an embedded polar interrogative with main clause which has a 2nd person
experiential verb (2exp+polQ).
e.g. *You know whether she has these?
This does not in fact occur in the data.
The appearance of the three classes in the data is as shown in Table 3.9. There is also one example of an x-interrogative
embedded in another x-interrogative, from EG (at 4;6), "Why you don't know how to tell?"
The number of verbs involved in the clause on which the embedded interrogative depends (in all but three cases it is
the main clause) is limited. At all ages, embedded interrogatives in classes 2 and 3 are also likely to be dependent on a
clause with an experiential verb. A non-experiential in an embedding clause appears earliest in YG, aged 3;6, but
experiential verbs continue to dominate embedding clauses in all the children.

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The repertoire of embedded wh-words extends with increasing age, as might be expected. The development of verb in
embedding clause and of wh-word in embedded interrogative clause are both shown in Table 3.10.
Wh-words do not appear in embedded interrogatives as soon as they have appeared in main clause interrogatives. A
comparison of Table 3.10 with Table 3.1 shows only what being used in embedded clauses until the age of around four.
Although what is the first wh-word to appear in embedded clauses, how, whether followed by to+ V or not, is the
predominant wh-word, and know is the predominant verb. The combination of know and how accounts for 43% of the
embedded interrogatives and 33% of non-2nd person experientials + x-interrogative.
Functionally there is something of a dividing line between the set with a second person experiential main clause and the
set with some other type of main clause, although there is considerable overlap. The 2nd person experientials followed
by an embedded x-interrogative have similar functions to those without embedding. The majority function as directives
of one sort or another, including attention-getting. Some function as information questions. Those without a 2nd person
experiential main clause are more likely to function as statements.
One of the embedding clauses with a 2nd person experientials is an inversion interrogative with DO support (line 6
below):
[EG shows AG a photograph of their maisonette, before renovation
(built okay ) and furnishing]
1 EG This is my new house.
2 AG See?
3 EG Down here. Down here. Down here not yet open.
4 AG Oh! With no furniture.
May I see. How funny.
5
Table 3.9 Forms of embedded interrogatives
2;1 2;8 2;11 3;6 4;0 4;2 4;6 5;8 5;11 7;3
-;8 -;11 3;0 -;10 -;6 -;10 -;7 -;11 -6;2 -7;8
embedding
1. 2exp+xQ 1 - - 2 6 1 11 2 5 2 30
2. non-2exp+xQ 4 - 1 7 7 5 10 15 23 11 83
3. non-2exp+polQ - - - 2 - - - - 3 3 8
TOTAL 5 - 1 11 13 6 21 17 31 16 121

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Table 3.10 Verb of embedding clause and wh-word in embedded interrogative
clause
Form 1 2 3 Form 1 2 3
2exp non-2exp. non- 2exp non-2exp. non-
2exp. 2exp.
Speaker+xQ +xQ + polQ Speaker+ xQ +xQ + polQ
YG2 see don't know EG3 know (don't)know
2;1+ what how to 5;8 see
how learn
EGI don't know say
2;11+ for what listen
YG3 know (don't)knowsee BE('s)
3;6+ see ask why how to
show what how
BE('s) which
what how to what
how who
which EB2 know (don't)knowcheck
why 5;11+ see (will)show ask
what (must)guess
YB3 know (don't)know how how to whether
4;0+ ask what what
how to how to where where
where which who
EG2 (don't)know(don't)know which
4;2+ see when
how to how to EB3 see (don't)knowdon't
know
how 7;3+ teach try
what tell
who how how to whether
many
EB1 know (don't)know how
4;6+ see where
how to how to why
what what what
which where
6 EG Because- this- now, do you know why no furniture?
6 Because ah, not yet built okay.
8 AG Oh.
[EG, 5;8]
Yet again, we see experiential verbs at the cutting edge of interrogative development.

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Embedded X-interrogatives
In embedded x-interrogatives (of both classes) the x-word is in every case but one fronted, introducing the embedded
clause. The exception is EG's earliest embedded interrogative (at 3;0), "Mummy, don't know sick for what" (said as she
shows her mother an injury on her handgloss would be 'I don't know why it's sick'). It is interesting that this exception
to the general rule that x-words are fronted in embedded interrogatives concerns the unique instance of for what in an
embedded interrogative. We have already seen that for what is not fronted in main clause interrogatives.
In embedded x-interrogatives, of both types, fronting is possible without inversion, as in StdE, whatever the wh-word.
As in non-embedded interrogatives in SCE, inversion is possible, although except with BE is not preferred, as can be
seen in Table 3.11.
The two examples of S-V order with BE are both from EB:
I don't know what it's made from. [EB, 6;1]
I don't know where it is. [EB, 6;1]
S-Aux inversion in embedded interrogatives has often been commented on, with reference to many 'new' varieties of
English, including Singapore. It was characterized by Tay (1979) as part of the mesolect. Among others who have
discussed it are Trudgill and Hannah for Indian English (1982:110), and Southern Irish English (93). As I have said
elsewhere (Gupta 1986:93), Trudgill and Hannah, who are dependant on other writers for their information on new
varieties, miss the opportunity to see links between new varieties. Inversion in embedded interrogatives is certainly a
widespread feature of 'new' varieties, and not unheard of in 'old' ones either. It is well known as a feature of free
indirect style (e.g. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik 1972:789) and is more widespread in colloquial old varieties
than many of the writers on new varieties (often influenced by the normative tradition) seem to realize. What is striking
about my data is the converse, that is the rarity of inversion in embedded interrogatives, even with BE, compared to
non-embedded interrogatives of the same type. The most common type of embedding however is a how to
interrogative, where the question of inversion does not
Table 3.11 Inversions in embedded x-interrogatives

S-V/aux orde V/aux-S
Verb
BE 2 9
Other verb 16 0

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arise. The majority of interrogatives (69%) show neither presence nor absence of inversion.
In most cases, the embedding clause is the main clause. In two cases a know clause is embedded in I think:
I think I know how to play. [YB, 4;6]
I think I know why. [EB, 7;8]
In both YG's and EG's speech at the end of my fieldwork, a new structure emerged, using as main clause That's. There
are three of these embedded interrogatives, all in the same session, the last with the girls' family. The first two, from
EG, are adjacent (lines 2 and 3 below):
[EG has boasted about her appearance of maturity, and how she has
grown a lot recently]
1EG I was so small that time I eat some more porridge I eat one big
bowl I finish it up.
2 That's how I grow fatter you know.
3 But now I wake up very early and not enough rest that's why so
skinny.
4AG[laughs]
5 Certainly not fat.
6YGVery skinny one. Only got bone.
[EG, 5;8; YG, 3;10]
The final example is from YG, in a very long and complex narrative (line 6 below):
[YG has nearly finished her picture]
1YG I want to paint for my mummy and my daddy.
2AG I'm sure they'll be very pleased.
[4
secs]
3YG No, I don't want to paint for them.
4 I want to paint for my two schoolteachers.
5 Because today they let me make a doll like a Muppet.
6 I want- that's why I want to give them tomorrow, but if I
can't
finish it, I can't give them.
7AG Monday.
8YG Monday. I still can't finish it. [5 secs]
[YG, 3;10]
Embedded interrogatives might be expected to be developmentally late. Their acquisition seems little discussed in the
literature. Wells does not separate embedded interrogatives from other embeddings, but Main clause + subordinate
clause does not reach 50% until 42 months (1985:268). In SCE, the earliest embedded interrogatives follow experiential
verbs, especially

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know, and are how interrogative clauses. When they do appear in sufficient numbers and complexity to show structures,
they are marked for embedding by the fronting of the wh-word, which is less likely to be followed by inversion than
are main clause interrogatives, and much less likely to be followed by inversion than main clause interrogatives where
the x-word is fronted.
Uncontextualized examples:
I know how to throw in the basket. (EG, 4;6)
I know how to draw butterfly. (EG, 4;10)
I know how to make my man sleeping (EB, 5;11).
I know how to make one very lovely. (EB, 5;11)
I know how to do. (EB, 6;2)
I know how to spell cat and dog only. (YG, 3;10)
He know how to fix one. (EB, 4;7)
I know how to talk. (EG 5;8)
I know how to make it brighter. (EG, 5;11)
I know how play what. (EG, 5;8)
I learn how to talk. (EG 5;8)
Don't know how to read. (YB, 4;0)
I don't know how to draw aeroplane. (EB, 4;6)
This one I know how to make. (EG, 4;2)
Aiyoh, this type I don't know how to do. (YG, 3;10)
That one, the story he don't know how to read. (EB, 5;11)
It's too tight for me to open. I don't know how. (YG, 3;10)
I show you how to put. (EB, 6;0)
You can teach my small brother how to do it. (EB, 7;8)
I know what is this. (EB, 4;7)
I know what it's made from. (EB, 4;7)
I don't know what for meaning. (EG, 5;11)
Then I will show you what I have (EB, 5;11)
Let me see what colour now. (YG, 3;10)
I want to take the other one and see what is the number. (EG, 5;11)
I don't know when I will stop my lesson. (EB, 5;11)
I show you which one I like. (EB, 5;11)
I show you which one me, okay (YG, 3;6)
You say which one nicer. (EG 5;8)

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I don't know where it is. (EB, 6;1)
Don't know where. (YB, 4;0)
Aunty, I can tell you where is dark. (EB, 7;8)
Embedded Polar Interrogatives
Only 8 embedded polar interrogatives are found. The two embedded or not interrogatives from EB have been quoted in
context above. Neither has any subordinator.
The youngest child to embed a polar interrogative is (yet again) YG, aged 3;10. Her two examples are different types of
interrogatives, and neither uses whether (or if ) In response to a query from AG about what YG said to EG, YG says "I
ask her can she do very fast", one of a few examples of indirect speech. Later. YG's "I see got any monster or not."
initiates a search around the flat for monsters.
In SCE however, embedded or not interrogatives may have a subordinator whether, as we can see in the following adult
example from MB in the seventh session with the boys' family. Speaking to YB, she says:
You bring your book here see whether there's any fish in the book or not.
EB's embeddings with whether as he gets older are in the context of his StdE speech to AG. He uses whether (at 5;11 )
as he checks his sticker book holding: "I see whether- check whether I have these", and at 7;8, as he hunts for food
items:
Let me try whether my grandmother will let me.
I ask my mum. I don't know whether she have.
Also at 7;8, he embeds a 3rd person experiential verb, which then has as its object an x-interrogative:
I don't know (whether he knows (how to do it).
It seems that whether rather than if is the normal subordinator for embedded polar interrogatives, but there are very few
embedded polar interrogatives around which to build an analysis.
Uses of Embedded Interrogatives
Embedded x-interrogatives of both types may function as questions to elicit the embedded x, as in line 1 below:
[AG and EB are looking at flashcards, where the aim is to
match a
written word on one card with a picture on another. Some of
the pictures
are rather obscure]
1EB I don't know what this ah.

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2 AG Medicine.
3 EB Medicine.
4 Taste sweet.
5 AG Sometimes sweet, sometimes horrible.
[EB, 6;1]
(1) can be interpreted as an information request, rather than a word citation request, as EB is apparently asking AG for
an explanation of the less than transparent picture.
Some of these x-questioning embedded interrogatives occur in children's tutorial questioning. The children in my study
engage in much tutorial questioning of adults. Children's response in tutorial situations has been much discussed (for
example by Wells 1985:236f): Goody (1978:24) sees what she calls training questions as a pedagogical device used by
middle class mothers. All the children in my study enthusiastically take up the tutorial role, usually associated with the
adult.
A tutorial question is one in which the questioner knows the 'right' answer. The use of a 2nd person experiential verb in
the embedding clause can draw attention to the tutorial status by explicitly questioning the speaker's knowledge of the
answer to the embedded interrogative. The answer may be x (supplied either by the speaker or by the interlocutor), or
may be a negation (from the interlocutor). Assent is not a possibility. If a negation follows this rather special kind of
tutorial question, the questioner goes on to demonstrate knowledge of the right answer. When the speaker supplies the
answer, the embedded interrogative can be seen as a device for getting the interlocutor's attention. Clancy (1989:334)
saw the development of a similar prelude to demonstration of knowledge in Korean-speaking children. She attributes
this to the mothers' practice of repeating an easy question from a child rather than answering it, which lead the children
to "expect that asking such questions would give them the opportunity to display their knowledge."
For example, here EB shows a photograph of his school concert to AG:
EB You know which one is me?
AG [pointing] This one.
[EB, 6;0]
EB knows the answer to Which one is me? and invites AG to make an effort to identify him by embedding the tutorial
question in a 2nd person experiential.
In the following extract, EB's main aim seems to be to break up MB and AG's theological discussion, and get their
attention to his drawing by coming in in the breaks in speech. The timing of overlapping speech in this conversation is
strikingly accurate. He uses x-interrogatives embedded in

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(you ) know (lines 1 and 4) and ultimately elicits the x of the embedded interrogative (line 5):
[MB and AG are talking about MB's mother-in-law not
having taught MB how to perform the rites for ancestors at
the family altar.]
[5.25 secs silence]
1EB Know what I drawing?
2MBI suppose she feels it's not time yet.
[2.8 secs]
3AG [to YB] Oh nail clippers!
4EB You know what I
drawing?
5AG A leaf.
6EB Correct.
7AG I can tell it's a leaf because it's
such
a clear and well-drawn leaf.
[EB, 4;0]
The guessing game may begin with an interrogative clause embedded in a 2nd person experiential clause, but when
there is another main clause verb, such as guess, we can see that these are all in the nature of directives, a function
which has close links with interrogatives, as in two very similar examples from different children, the first from EB
(lines 1 and 3 below): [EB enters the house from outside, with his hands behind his back]
1 EB Aunty you guess what I have at the back of?

2 AGWhat?
3 EB Guess what I have at the back of.
4 AGWhat do you have at the back of you?
[YB laughs]
5 Em
6 but you said ''May I go out?" so maybe it's something for
going
out with.
7 An umbrella?
8 E:::m.
9 EB A toy.
10AGNot that gun.
11EB It's a toy.
12AGEm
13 A robot?
14EB No.
[3.5 secs]
15AGM. Give me a clue.
[3 secs]
16 Give me a clue.
17EB It has a heart on his [2 secs] body.

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18 AG A Care Bear.
[YB, EB, AG laugh]
[EB, 6;2]
The same game is played by EG, using the 2nd person experiential know (line 1 below):
[EG comes downstairs, and stands before AG with her hands
behind her back]
1 EG You know what is that behind me?
2 AG I don't know what's behind you.
3 EG Okay, you got to guess.
4 You guess it then I let you see.
5 AG A book.
6 EG No-o.
7 AG A doll.
8 EG No.
9 AG [to Ella] Do you know?
10Ella Em.
[4 secs]
11AG What's [EG's name] got behind
12[EG mouths word silently]
13AG [lip reading] A cat!
14[EG shakes head and withdraws hand. A set of Chinese flash
cards is
revealed]
15AG Oh card!
16 Oh.
17 Chinese cards.
[EG 4;10]
All the children at some point play this game, using You know wh- ... interspersed with imperatives, especially You
guess. Even if the matrix clause is not a second person experiential, there can be a question, as in EB's "You must guess
what kind of surprise /is/" or when EG asked me to choose between two of her pictures with "You say which one
nicer."
Very rarely these question the interlocutor's level of knowledge, as it is when EB, aged 5;11, asks AG, on the first
session after an absence of a year, 'Aunty, you know where is the toilet?' to which AG responds, 'I know.' Normally,
however, the interlocutor supplies the x of the embedded interrogative. In other words, the addressee is expected to
demonstrate knowledge of the answer by supplying it, while the structure implies that it is not the speaker's knowledge
which is incomplete.

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See without embedding is, as we have seen, often used to get interlocutor attention. With an embedded interrogative
too, it often seems to be a preamble to a continued utterance, as in this example (6 below) from YG:
[AG and MG looking at Chinese flash cards]
YG [looking at card showing eyes]
1 Yanjing.
2 Yanjing.
3AG Yanjing.
4 Right, clever girl.
5YG See my eyes.
6 See what this.
7 Eyes.
8AG That's right.
[YG, 2;8]
In adults too, we find see matrix clauses which serve both to draw the interlocutors' attention to a topic, and also to
demand from them an answer to the embedded interrogative, as when MB in the seventh session with the boys' family
asks YB:
See the lion, this one, broken or not?
Where how to appears, as it does in 4 of EG's Phase 2 examples, it is likely to be a directive. The answer to a how to
interrogative is best demonstrated by doing it. Thus when EG says to AG "You know how to tell this story?" she
expects AG to tell the story.
An example from YB (line 1 below) is followed by repetitions (line 2 and 3) which omit the You know:
YB [gets baby's nesting cups]
1 You know [very reduced] how to play this ah?
[1 sec]
2 How to play thi:s?
[1 sec]
3 Aunty, how to play this ah?
4AG If you're a baby you know how to play it.
5 You just do- you just-
6YB I think I know how to play.
[starts placing cups in order of size]
[YB, 4;6]
In many cases then, the embedding of an x-interrogative in a 2nd person experiential main clause results in an utterance
which is functionally interchangeable with the non-embedded interrogative.

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Development of Interrogatives in SCE
It is impossible to fit SCE learning children onto the developmental scales developed for children learning non-contact
varieties of English. The similarity of my data from two families so far, with Kwan-Terry's data from one child, and
with the eclectic data from Harrison and Lim, suggests that establishing developmental norms for SCE-learning
children will be possible even with the limited data available.
There do not seem to be clear developmental changes in the grammar of SCE interrogatives as there are in the process
of acquisition of StdE. Instead development is additive with few errors being made until the learning of StdE is
embarked upon.
As always, the stages of development are easier to establish than the likely age of first appearance, which I have given
in Table 3.12 as six monthly intervals as a general guideline.
Many structures begin in formulaic uses. Inversion begins with permission requests with CAN YOU, while the
experiential verbs are important sources of a variety of structures, especially embedding and DO support. A formulaic,
incremental analysis seems more appropriate for the pattern of development than an analysis based on the adding of
rules, which would find it difficult to account for the restriction of structures to certain wh-words or certain verbs.

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Table 3.12 Development of interrogatives
Wh-word Clause features
1. (by age 2;6)
What What/where's
Where V What/where
Who Prep What/where
Can you V
You EXP-V
2. (by age 3;0)
Why Why S V
zero (leh ) What/Where BE
3. (by age 3;6)
How to How to V
X or not
4. (by 4;0)
Can cannot S+EXP-V+(what-Q.)
5. (by age 4;6)
How How S V Is it + statement
Which Can S V S+EXP-V+(how(to)-Q.)
BE S V
X or Y
D'you EXP-V
6. (after age 5;0)
When How DO S V is it tag
Wh Modal-Aux S V MC+x-interrog.
Modal-Aux S V MC+(polar interrog.)

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4
Languages in Education in Singapore
It seems useless to expect that Education in the Straits will ever rise much beyond reading, writing, and cyphering,
either in English, or in the Vernacular, that is the Malay language.... Education, as such, is not in demand in the
Straits Settlements.
Report on the Administration of the Straits Settlements, 1858-59.
Formal education begins when a child is six years old and spans at least six years. Literacy and numeracy is
emphasised with language learning and Mathematics taking up 60 per cent of curriculum time. The curriculum is
broad-based and students are encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities. Moral Education is taught at
an early stage to help students have a clear sense of shared values and national identity. Students undergo a common
curriculum in the early years of primary school. They are then differentiated into courses according to their learning
abilities.
Ministry of Information and the Arts (Publicity and Promotions Division).
Singapore 1991: 179.
Introduction
The 1858-59 report stands as a caution to both writer and reader about the dangers of prediction. The 1991 extract
shows that, in Singapore, as everywhere else, "reading, writing, and cyphering" are still the basis of primary education,
even when education is very much in demand. By 1991 however, there is an explicit concern with "language learning"
which was taken much more for granted in 1859. The choice of language(s) of education is a central issueperhaps the
central issuein Singapore's education system, which in the early stages lays enormous emphasis on the teaching of two
languages. Singapore 1991 is a handbook to Singapore which is issued annually. The introduction to the section on
education emphasises the centrality of the 'bilingual policy' in the education system:
The bilingual policy ensures that each child is proficient in his mother tongue and aware of his cultural heritage.
The mother tongue could be Chinese,

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Malay or one of the Indian languages. English is the medium of instruction in all schools as it is the language of
administration, commerce and industry.
Ministry of Information and the Arts (Publicity and Promotions Division)
Singapore 1991: 179. [emphasis mine]
The sentence which I have emphasised was new in 1991, and has been deleted in Singapore 1992. Only Singapore
1991 defined 'mother tongue'. In 1990 the definition, had there been one, would have been 'Chinese, Malay or Tamil.' A
reader from another culture might be surprised at the emphasis on acquiring proficiency in the 'mother tongue' rather
than the more usual emphasis on maintenance of the mother tongue. This is because 'mother tongue' does not mean 'the
language the child speaks at home', but rather the language of the child's official race.
The relationship of the three officially identified racial groups of Singapore (the Chinese, Malays and Indians) with
their 'mother tongues' is different. In the Chinese community Mandarin has a special prestigious association with
education and literacy, but has only become a significant home-language in the last twenty years. For most ethnic
Malays, Malay is in fact a major home language, and thus really is the mother tongue of most Malay children (often
alongside English). For the ethnic Indians, however, Tamil is merely the ancestral language of the largest single group
(around 60%) of Indians. Even among Tamils, Tamil is not always used in the home, as this small minority community
has undergone considerable language loss. For the other ethnic Indians Tamil has no special statusthe main lingua
francas within the Indian community are English and Malay. In 1991 the needs of the smaller Indian groups were
recognized and the possibility of studying other Indian languages (such as Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi, Malayalam) was
raised, hence the wording in the handbook. The recent recognition of Indian languages other than Tamil represents a
widening of the official definition of 'bilingual' ('knowing two of the official languages'). However, the other Indian
languages are used even less in the home, as these communities are on the whole too small to sustain the languages.
The tiny size of these communities presents even worse practical problems than the teaching of Tamil did. As the
children who wish to learn them are scattered all over Singapore and its schools, they can never be offered to all eligible
children within their own schoolsthe provision necessitates children travelling outside school hours to special centres.
There have been a series of changes in educational policy, which have seen policies emphasized and de-emphasized.
Bloom (1986) details the developments from colonial times up to 1980, which will not be discussed here. The first
major change in recent years was in 1979, when the recommendations of the Goh Report (1979) were implemented,
and when a complex streaming system was introduced. In recent years and months changes in educational policy have
been on a larger scale and at a faster pace that hitherto. A re-working

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of the streaming system was introduced in 1991. However, some trends in Singapore's education system have been
maintained since the 1950s. This chapter focuses on the present setting, concentrating on the current policy and on the
children in school now who are still going through a system which is being phased out.
Mediums of Education
English has been the dominant language of education in Singapore since the 1950s, but until 1987 education was
available in any of four major mediums, the others being the other three official languages. Education at tertiary level
was available only in English and Chinese, with Chinese being a major medium at Nanyang University and Ngee Ann
Polytechnic from the 1950s until the 1970s. Before the 1950s, wealthy families wanting tertiary education in Chinese
sent their children to China, something which became more difficult after communist rule in China. The three language
streams other than English were:
(a) Chinese. The variety now taught at school, and which was a major medium of education in the past, is
approximately the variety which is called han-yu (Han Language) orpu-tong-hua (Common Speech) in the People's
Republic of China, and may also be called Guo-yu (National Language), especially in Taiwan, and sometimes in
Singapore and Malaysia too. In Singapore it is usually called hua-yu (Chinese language) or, in English, Mandarin,
which is how I will refer to it. In the earlier part of the twentieth century there were schools which taught in the
medium of other varieties of Chinese, such as Hokkien or Teochew, but there are now few people alive in Singapore
who were educated in a variety of Chinese other than Mandarin.
Children continued to be registered for Chinese-medium until 1987. In 1986, the last year that Chinese-medium
education was offered to Primary 1 children, 2424 (0.9%) primary school students and 3091 (1.8%) secondary
schools students were in Chinese-medium schools.
(b) Malay. Malay is the national language of Singapore (a ceremonial status). Bahasa Malaysia ('Malaysian language')
is also the national language of Malaysia, and of Brunei (where it is called Bahasa Melayu, 'Malay'). Another variety of
Malay is the national language of Indonesia, where it is called 'Bahasa Indonesia' ('Indonesian language'). In 1986 there
were no primary school students in Malay medium and only 28 secondary school students - a single class coming to the
end of their secondary education. Children stopped being registered for Malay-medium education by a natural process:
it was not withdrawn by government as Chinese-medium education was.

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(c) Tamil. The last 25 children to be educated in Tamil-medium left secondary school in 1984. Like Malay, but two
years earlier, parents simply stopped registering their children for Tamil-medium schools: it was not withdrawn by
government.
The main medium of education is referred to as the 'first language' (L1). Another official language ('second language' or
'L2') has usually been taught alongside the L1. Since the 1950s everyone has had to have English as L1 or L2. L2 was
at various times just a subject or, to varying degrees, a subsidiary medium of instruction. English as L2 tended to
encroach on other subjects as a medium of instruction.
In 1984 it was announced that from 1987 all new admissions to school would be into the 'National Stream'using English
as the main medium of education, with Chinese, Malay, or Tamil (the 'mother tongues') as L2. At present (1993), L2 is
not used as a teaching medium in most schools, but there have been calls to reintroduce it as a medium. The subjects
suggested have been moral education, art, PE, and humanities. In 1990 it was revealed that the government was
"studying the possibility of making" all Chinese children have their primary education in Chinese as a main medium,
with English as a secondary medium (Straits Times 11 October 1990). This was not subsequently recommended as
policy, however.
The 'mother tongue' is seen as the vehicle for the transmission of appropriate moral values (such as diligence, the
extended family, frugality, earnestness, benevolence, and filial piety ) as a counterbalance to the 'Western decadence'
embodied in English (associated with such values as a weak family structure, individualism, frivolity, liberalism,
promiscuity, welfarism, drug abuse, and a poor work ethic ).
For a brief period (1984-1989) religious studies was a compulsory subject in the last two years of secondary school
(there is a discussion of this in Quah 1990b:53f). Although a comparative religions course was originally proposed as
one of the options, the syllabus for this was never completed. Pupils had a choice of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Confucianism or Sikhism. There was a free choice and many children chose to study a religion other than
their own, but there was some pressure on children to choose a 'culturally appropriate' religion.
Religious education was seen as part of the transmission of cultural values of a given group. In Singapore, Christianity
is the major cross-ethnic religion (Chinese and Indian). Hinduism and Sikhism are restricted to Indians, and
Confucianism and Buddhism to Chinese. All Malays are (officially and pretty much in practice) Muslim, and so are
some Indians. The Indian Muslims are such a small minority that in popular terms Malay and Muslim are seen as
virtually synonymous.

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Synthesism is generally seen in negative terms by Singapore's leaders. A month before stepping down as Prime
Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew repeated a view he has often expressed:
Mr Lee . . . spoke of his biggest concern in recent yearsthe need for Singaporeans to have a core set of values to
guide their lives.
Warning of the dangers of losing cultural roots, he said: "We are casting off our moorings in Singapore, from
Chinese culture, from Indian culture, from Malay culture, into a synthesis of different cultures, and if we are not
careful we will end up with something which is not satisfactory. . . . " [punctuation original]
He said he had come to the conclusion that for the Chinese it was important to keep the core values and survival
qualities which helped Chinese civilisation remain one.
The Chinese were the only living civilisation without a break in history, for 5,000 years, he said.
(Straits Times 28 October 1990)
The concentration tends to be on the lack of maintenance of appropriate values by the Chinese (Lee Kuan Yew has
praised the Malays and Indians for adherence to their traditional values) and there tends to be a focus on the traditional
Confucian values.
In his last National Day rally speech before his retirement, the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew
looked back on his work since Independence (Straits Times 27 August 1990). In the Mandarin text (translated into
English in the Straits Times report) he expressed regret at the wholesale shift to English:
If I had the opportunity to start all over again in 1965, then the system of education would not be the same. I
would have preserved the Chinese primary schools.
It is much more convenient because ages of six to 12 are the most important period to emphasise the importance
of values, English as a second language.
Then after a year in secondary school, the English language will become the first language and the Chinese will
become second language. But time has passed. I cannot go back to make this new arrangement. But I believe as
long as we can make other changes, we can succeed gradually . . . [original punctuation]
I believe that cultural values are our basic strength. If we lose these, then we will not be able to solve our
problems
(Straits Times 27 August 1990)

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This thinking seems to be based on the very deep rooted sense that language is the major vehicle for the transmission of
culture, and that Chinese cultural values in particular must be preserved for Singapore's continued success. These
traditional cultural values are often referred to as 'cultural ballast'. This deterministic view of language, linking
language and cognition in a strong version of the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been found by M Lee (1992) in
a structured analysis of the Straits Times from 1959 to 1991 to be a main theme in Singapore's treatment of
bilingualism. English is seen in pragmatic terms as giving access to technology and trade, and deterministically as a
source of Singapore's prosperity:
The management of success in Singapore is directly related to the ascendancy of English in the world today and
the widespread use of the language in Singapore, allowing it to plug itself into the international grid of business
and finance. In other words, 'the central position of English in Singapore is cause and effect' (Edwin Thumboo,
personal communication). English is responsible for the new technospace in Singapore having brought
phenomenal changes in the landscape and fortunes of the people.
(Pakir 1991:137)
The aim of Singapore's education system is to ''bring out the best in all children, instilling in them sound moral values
so that they will grow up to be responsible adultsloyal to their country, concerned for their family and able to earn a
living." The 'mother tongue' enables children to "keep in touch with their heritage and cultural values" while Moral
Education allows them to "have a clear understanding of core Asian values and national identity" (Singapore 1992:163
).
Until 1981, children were free to choose which of the three languages other than English they wished to study. With the
increasing emphasis on the teaching of cultural values through language, this freedom has been eroded, first for the
Chinese (in 1981) and later for the other races. Malays have nearly always chosen Malay, but members of the very
fragmented Indian group seem to be feeling increasingly constrained by the promotion of 'mother tongues' as being a
part of the cultural heritage of a single group (PuruShotam 1990). In the past Indians, including some Tamils, have
often chosen Malay or Mandarin as a second language, but are being made to feel unwelcome in classes seen
increasingly as 'cultural ballast' for an ethnic group. They also see the learning of another group's culture as
inappropriate for them (there are case studies in PuruShotam 1990). Another problem for the minorities is that all
Primary schools offer Mandarin, while many more schools offer Malay than offer Tamil, and very few of the most
prestigious schools offer Tamil.
Since 1978 a number of schools have been designated as SAP (/sæp/Special Assistance Plan) schools. These are
prestige schools which use English

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and Mandarin to equal examinable levels, in some cases from pre-primary onwards, in others from primary or from
secondary only. The higher levels of the SAP schools are accessible only to top scoring students, who if they succeed
in the Mandarin exams are exempted from continuing Mandarin at the Upper Secondary level. When the SAP scheme
was incorporated into the streaming system in 1979 it was intended to be extended to the other languages, but the SAP
scheme is so far still restricted to Chinese. These schools, and others which offer only Mandarin as a second language,
therefore have almost no non-Chinese children. In June 1990 the press carried extensive discussion on the potential for
racial problems caused by the existence of these prestigious mono-ethnic schools.
The fostering of Chinese-learning for the ethnic Chinese in the education system coincides (apparently paradoxically)
with the end of tertiary education in Chinese. Nanyang University was established in 1957 as a non-communist
educational institution for the region, and was founded on a financing drive which touched the heartstrings as well as
the purses of the Chinese community. In 1971, education having become more centralized after independence, Nanyang
University was directed to teach at least some of its courses in English. By the late 70s all courses were being taught in
English. The university had lost its Chinese-medium raison d'être and was unable to attract students of equivalent
academic quality to those attending the English-medium University of Singapore. Nanyang University's degrees were
seen in the employment market as second-rate, and it was ultimately merged with the University of Singapore. The
phasing out of Chinese tertiary education had a negative effect on Chinese primary education and was the last nail in
the coffin of non-English-medium education.
Singapore's bilingualism debates have tended to centre on the relationship between Chinese and English (M Lee
1992:23). This is partly because the Chinese are the majority community. But it is also because of difficulties with their
'mother tongue' which do not affect the other two communities. For all the minority communities English is seen as the
language of access to government and power in Singapore. English is the language to which all races have equal
access.
The Malays transmit and support Malay without this being an issue. Malay is also the native language of a good many
people not classified as Malay, including some of the Straits Chinese, and of many people officially classified as Indian
or Arab. The strength and relative homogeneity of the Malay community in Singapore has ensured that any Muslim
who marries a Malay is likely to be absorbed into the Malay community. The link of Malay language with Malay
ethnicity and Islamic religion has become closer in recent years. The Straits Chinese in both Singapore and in Malaysia
at one stage made a wholesale shift from their variety of Malay, Baba Malay, to English, and are

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now experiencing 'resinification', a process which began in the late 1960s (Clammer 1980:133). This process has been
hastened by the demise of arranged marriages, and by the compulsory study of Chinese by Chinese children in the
schools. As a lingua franca Malay has also become reduced in importance: younger Indians, Chinese, and Eurasians are
less likely to speak Malay than their elders. For the Malay community however, Malay is a powerful possession, and in
no danger of being lost as a vernacular or a vehicle of culture.
Because of its size and diversity, the 'Indian' community is the one which shows the most extensive language loss: in
many families English is the only or major domestic language. It is not surprising that Tamil was the first of the
languages to be lost as a main medium of education. Tamil is under threat of attrition, but in no way unites the Indian
community.
A very different situation applies among the equally fragmented Chinese community. Most Chinese in Singapore used
to speak a Chinese 'dialect' at home, such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, or Hainanese. This would often (though,
due to intermarriage, not always) be the language of one's official 'dialect group'. The closely related Hokkien and
Teochew are the largest dialect groups, and Hokkien became widely spoken as a lingua franca by members of other
groups. It is also not unusual for non-Cantonese to learn Cantonese, due to concentrations of Cantonese in certain parts
of Singapore. Naturally, the smaller groups, such as the Hainanese, are more likely to speak the varieties of the larger
groups than vice versa.
There are few differences between varieties of written Chinese, but huge differences in spoken Chinese. Writers of
Chinese can communicate across dialect boundaries while speakers often cannot. Since the 1930s, however, the written
script, and education, have become increasingly associated with Mandarin Chinese. Ability to use Mandarin was a sign
of Chinese education. Those educated in Chinese were therefore able to speak, as well as to read, Mandarin Chinese,
although they did not necessarily exercise that choice. Those educated in English were likely to have picked up a few
varieties of Chinese orally but would have limited skill in Mandarin. The generation of people born between 1940 and
1960 is the most multilingual group Singapore has seen or is likely to see. An average 40-year-old Chinese can be
expected to have skill in three 'dialects' of Chinese, English, and some Mandarin and (usually pidginized) Malay. In the
late 1960s the Secondary 4 students studied by Murray (1971) showed this kind of repertoire, which is also described as
the normal repertoire by Platt and Weber (1980). Non-Chinese of this age would generally speak Malay and might also
have some basic ability in Hokkien in addition to English and (in the case of the Indians) an Indian language. Since
then, however, the repertoire has narrowed, with the younger generation of Chinese having greater skill in Mandarin
and English, but a diminished

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'dialect' range, and less knowledge of Malay. The late Ko (1992:140) approvingly makes an exagerrated claim that
"Dialects no longer exist among the youngest generation". The reduction of repertoire is often misleadingly described
(by politicians, educationalists and sociolinguists) as an increase in bilingualism in Singapore. This is the result of the
limitation of the term bilingual to skill in the official languages, and an equation of bilingualism with biliteracy. In fact
multilingualism has decreased. The reason for the reduction in repertoire lies in the spread of education to the whole
population, combined with a familial shift towards school languages.
1979, which saw the death knell of Chinese-medium education, also saw the beginning of the promotion of Mandarin
in the form of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. This has since been an annual event. The Speak Mandarin Campaign has
as its aim the promotion of Mandarin as a lingua franca within the Chinese community. Over the years the campaign
has become more forceful, until not knowing Mandarin is seen as disloyal to one's Chinese ancestry. Mandarin is often
equated with Chinese. It is seen as the vehicle of a unified, rather idealized Chinese culture. A Chinese who does not
know Mandarin is presented as culturally deprivedthere have been several anecdotes about government ministers who
visit Britain and are asked why they do not speak their own language. It is not on record whether the government
ministers ask the same question of the descendants of Highland Scots, the Irish or the Welsh (I write as the descendant
of all three, plus English).
This campaign supports and validates the school system, which requires passes in the 'second language' at all levels
before progression. Singapore has been extraordinarily successful in engineering language shift. Mandarin is heard
from the Chinese in Singapore in volumes unimaginable in the 1970s. Families where parents knew Mandarin but who
had chosen to speak their own 'dialects' have switched to a domestic use of Mandarin on a massive scale. School and
university students speak Mandarin amongst themselves where once virtually only English would have been heard.
Mandarin has become the the major native language in Singapore. The Speak Mandarin campaign has improved the
extent and the standard of Mandarin among the Chinese, reduced diversity, and reduced multilingualism. In future
generations there are likely to be fewer people with knowledge of more than the two school languages. As we saw, the
children in my study have seen their overall ability in dialect reduced.
Nevertheless, the dialects have some sentimental power. There has been resistance to attempts (1979-1989) to promote
placenames in Mandarin and to requirements that children's personal names be Mandarinized. The Mandarin names,
which are spelt in 'pinyin', the romanisation system of Mandarin, are unpopular with the non-Chinese who find the
symbol values of the graphemes less transparent than the ad hoc representations of the dialects, and

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are unpopular with the Chinese who like the dialect group and regional associations of the original names.
The Speak Mandarin Campaign has also resulted in some use of Mandarin in domains where English had been used,
especially among schoolchildren. Some schools have virtually no non-Chinese pupils, while even in ethnically mixed
schools, the ethnic groups may be (to a greater or lesser extent) separated, often for the administrative convenience of
timetabling those doing a common second language and the same religious instruction. The 1991 report of the Action
Committee on Indian Education identified this as a problem and "asked that principals stop grouping Indian and Malay
students in the same classes purely for the administrative convenience of scheduling second-language periods" (Straits
Times 14 July 1991), but it continues to be the practice in some schools. As fewer children than before now cross
ethnic boundaries for the second language, all these trends have resulted in limited opportunity for cross-ethnic mixing
in many schools. This means less opportunity for the Chinese children to speak English, as they may have little contact
with non-Chinese children and are increasingly likely to speak Mandarin among themselves. The use of Mandarin
among the Chinese children in turn deters mixed friendship networks from developing.
SCE's rapid development as a lingua franca has doubtless been accelerated by the long-standing practice in Singapore
schools of fining children for using languages other than the school languages (also noted by Platt and Weber 1980:20).
Related practices, and government encouragement, are currently resulting in an increase in the use of Mandarin among
Chinese children. The separation within a school of children doing different second languages, and the increase in use
of Mandarin in the playground, may prove detrimental to SCE, and these trends have disturbing separatist implications
(Gupta 1989 discusses the use of the L and H varieties in the schools). I also believe that a lively colloquial variety is
the basis of proficiency in the Standard Variety. Thus, a threat to SCE is also a threat to Standard English.
Education System
In Singapore primary education starts with Primary One in the January following the sixth birthday. Until the 1980s
this was in fact the normal time for the beginning of formal education. However, nowadays, in practice, formal
education begins in the January following the fourth or even the third birthday. Completion of the two year
kindergarten program, for four and five year olds has been expected of children starting primary school for some years,
and it is becoming usual for children to attend a nursery program for a couple of hours a day at age three. Pre-school
education is not subsidised or centralised to the extent that Primary and Secondary Education is, and is therefore more

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expensive and less universal than Primary Education. It is not under the control of the Ministry of Education. However,
the main provider of pre-school education is the PAP Cultural Foundation (PCF), a branch of the People's Action Party,
Singapore's ruling party. The Straits Times of 23 September 1991 reported that around 70% of children in the age group
attend one of the PCF's 210 centres. Another major provider is the NTUC (National Trades Union Council), also a
branch of government. There is therefore considerable central involvement. There are also private kindergartens
offering similar programs, which are generally attended by the wealthier part of the population. These may be fully
private, or linked with churches or employers. Some of the private and NTUC centres double-up as day care centres,
while PCF centres generally offer a program for half a day.
Over the years the kindergarten programme has reached a larger and larger proportion of the population, and the pre-
school centres set the pace for acquisition or development of skills in StdE.. Children are now expected to enter
Primary One with basic literacy and numeracy skills. An article in a popular parenting magazine (D Lee 1991) set out
what was expected of children entering Primary One. The minimum expected, according to Lee, were the following
skills;
English: ability to read 20 words ("not in a sentence") to spell one's own name and up to 15 words, to write the
alphabet in upper and lower case;
Mathematics: ability to count from 1 to 20, do addition and subtraction up to 10; and
Second Language: ability to write one's own name and recognise "about 30 common words"
Children were also expected to "speak reasonably well" (in English) using subject-verb concord and distinguishing
present from past tense (based on the children in my study this is an unrealistic expectation). Except in the SAP schools
they "won't be expected to speak Mandarin fluently." Some schools would expect even more. Clearly, children who
have not attended kindergarten are seriously disadvantaged.
Bello and Rosenfeld (1990:320) comment that the "PAP ideology is unabashedly elitist". Certainly, Singapore's
education system has for many years been highly competitive. In order to proceed to every next stage of education,
examinations must be passed. The rhetoric of its rationale is primarily 'meritocratic' (see Birch 1993:36) while in recent
years an element of social elitism has been introduced, which is connected with a belief that intellectual ability is
largely genetic. In the past the system led to children repeating years of primary school, and struggling through to the
age of fourteen or fifteen when they would leave school without the basic qualification, the Primary School

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Leaving Certificate. More recently, from 1992, a system has been instituted which will allow these low-achievers some
sense of progression without the requirement to clear every hurdle. In response to suggestions in the Sunday Times
(July 19 1992) that the new scheme discouraged excellence and would lead to a decline in educational standards, the
Permanent Secretary for Education, Er Kwong Wah, emphasised that "recent changes in education policy are not
intended to and will not alter the highly competitive nature of Singapore's education system" (Sunday Times August 2
1992).
Education is neither free (except, until 1991, for Malays) nor compulsory. However, since the 1960s it has been the
case that virtually all children do attend school, at least for primary education. The costs of education in government-
funded schools are born principally by government, with parents paying a sum of around S$15 p.m. at most schools.
Parents must also buy textbooks. Some schemes are available to help poor parents in terms of scholarships and free or
cheap book schemes. However, the newspapers regularly carry stories of families struck by illness or the imprisonment
of wage earners who have to take their children out of school.
Special educational needs (hearing impaired, visually impaired, intellectually disabled and so on) are catered to by
voluntary agencies and private charities with substantial government assistance. There is no obligation on government
to provide special needs education (because education is not compulsory) and little co-ordination between the various
organisations involved. Most of the special schools have waiting lists, and many children with special needs receive no
education at all. The special sector accounts for 0.6% of school students in 1990.
An Islamic sector (0.4% of school students in 1990), which receives government assistance, offers Arabic education of
a religious nature. There is a small private sector (0.4% in 1990) which caters mainly to students who have failed in
their courses in the mainstream. There are also private schools which cater to the large expatriate population in
Singapore (2.2% in 1990), including schools following, for example, the British, American, Australian, French,
German, Swiss, or Japanese systems. Students must get permission from the Ministry of Education to attend these
schools. Singaporean children are seldom granted permission unless they have been abroad for many years, or have a
non-Singaporean Caucasian parent. Wealthy Singaporean parents occasionally send their children abroad to school (the
UK, Canada and Australia are the most popular), mostly to avoid the demands of Singapore's rigorously competitive
system. Conversely, expatriates sometimes place their children in the Singapore school system, either to save money or
in order to give their children the benefit of its rigorously competitive system.
The overwhelming majority (96.5%) of school children, and an even greater majority of Singaporean school children,
then, attend schools under the direct

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control of the Ministry of Education. It is with these schools only that this chapter is concerned. Education is largely
under the control of central government, with a centralised curriculum. This does not imply that all schools are equal.
Admission to the first year of primary school has, since the 1970s, been based on a complex basket of preferential
treatment, having reference to parental observation of the Singapore Family Planning Policy at the time of the child's
conception, links with the school, and place of residence. Children with siblings in the school get first priority along
with children whose parents have best followed government Family Planning Policy. This used to be a policy of a
maximum of two children, followed by sterilisation of one parent. In 1984 the policy became one of encouraging
educated mothers to bear at least two or three children, a development which is described by Bello and Rosenfeld
(1990:320) as part of Singapore's elitist policy (this controversial policy is in the process of some diminution). Children
who live near the school also have some privileged access. Finally, the school can reserve places for those with links
with the school. In the 1992 admission exercise this became the most controversial prioritization, as it allows some
scope for corruption. A series of allegations in the Straits Times suggested that some schools were treating substantial
donations as evidence of a link with the school. A parent who attended the school can also constitute a link. In the 1993
exercise it was suggested that many parents were giving creative addresses to exploit the proximity preference. The
constellation of parental attendance, proximity to the school and (it has been alleged) donations, and (since 1984) a
priority to children of educated mothers, already ensures that even in Primary One some schools have concentrations of
privileged children. Even before meritocratic procedures begin, some schools are more prestigious than others.
The SAP schools have achieved a good reputation and are particularly popular with English-speaking Chinese families
who want to ensure that their children pass the Chinese exams with sufficiently high grades to give them access to the
best education.
Since 1988 there have also been a small number of schools (currently 6, few of them with primary sections) which
charge higher fees (up to $200 p.m.). These 'independent' schools were formed from schools which were already
prestigious, and the newer 'autonomous' schools are a little less prestigious, less independent of the Ministry of
Education and cheaper (up to $35 p.m.). The development of these multiple types of school is akin to parallel
developments in the US and the UK involving magnet schools and types of selection.
Within schools, classes are normally streamed, at least from Primary Two or Three. This is the decision of the school.
At national level, Singapore has long had two tiers of streaming (the Primary School Leaving Examination, at age 12,
and O-Levels at age 16). A PSLE pass was required to proceed to

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secondary education. The 1979 Goh report, expressing concern that only around 70% of primary school students were
proceeding to secondary school, introduced a third major streaming level, at an even earlier age. This earliest national
streaming exercise was originally after three years of primary education (at age 9), and is now after four years (at age
10). The topmost groupthe 'gifted' stream (less than 2% of children), are still separated from the mainstream at age
nine, gaining access to a smaller class-size, better equipment, and a more participatory style of teaching.
The hurdle of the Primary 3/4 examination gives access to several types of education. Recommendations are made to
parents on the basis of the examination performance, but parents are not obliged to place their children in a particular
stream. For the vast majority of families, the recommendation is followed, however. Between 1979 and 1991 around
90% of students followed the standard Primary syllabus in six years, around 6% of them did it in in eight years, and the
bottom 4% spent eight years on a reduced monolingual (English) syllabus, without any study of L2. The Goh Report
(1979:iv) suggested that 20% of children were incapable of studying more than one language. The figure studying two
languages during this period, however, settled down to 96%. Since 1991 all students have been required to study two
languages, with the more able (but not the 'gifted') theoretically being examined in both school languages at a high level
(currently available only for Chinese), the majority following the standard syllabus (with remedial lessons in the weaker
language if necessary), and a minority taking their 'mother tongue' at an even lower level (L3), or (in theoryit hasn't
happened) taking English at an L3 level. All students will take the PSLE at the same age, but the bottom group will not
be examined in science. This complicated relationship of language of education and examination success is expressed
graphically in Figure 4.1.
The reason for the link of streaming with language is that the prevailing view of the human intellect is of the human
brain as a hard disk, whose capacity is determined largely genetically. The brain is seen as capable of holding a finite
amount of material, and while clever people have 140 MB capacity, others are confined to a modest 10 MB. A 140MB
brain might be able to hold three or four languages, but a 10MB brain will be full up with only one. This was put
explicitly by the then Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, at a ceremony (25 October 1981) where he presented Mandarin
Proficiency Certificates:
I underline the government's determination that nobody should use dialects. Indeed, wise parents will never let
their children speak dialect at all. No child, however intelligent, has unlimited storage capacity. The memory
space is finite, be it for words, for facts, or for figures. And the more one learns dialect words, the less space
there is for Mandarin words,

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or English words, or multiplication tables, or formulas in mathematics, physics or chemistry.
(Lee Kuan Yew, quoted in Loy et al 1991:51)
This thinking is of course counter to research on learning which suggests that the more one learns the more one can
learn.
The second major examination hurdle is the PSLE. This currently examines only English, Second Language,
Mathematics and Science. In the past Social Studies has also been examined. The score at one stage was weighted so
that the Second Language had double weight, but all subjects are now equal. The pass rate over the last ten years has
been nearly 90% (of those who take it), giving access to secondary education to most children.
However, the level of pass again determines the kind of education available to the child. Entry to the gifted stream is
once more possible at this pointmost children in the gifted stream continue in it. In the previous system, the less able
students (around 38%) spent six years in secondary school (taking N-levels and O-Levels), while the majority spent
four years leading to O-Levels. Under the new system, PSLE will give access to two courses of equal length, but the
syllabuses will be different, with fewer subjects for the less able group. This new programme will be phased in from
1994 and may have been modified (or clarified) by then. The new system means that virtually all
Figure 4.1
The 1992 Primary Four Streaming System Adapted from Sunday
Times 3 November 1991.

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Table 4.1 Students by type of housing (adapted
from Straits Times 8 February 1992)
HDB Private
Total Singapore Population 85 11
Independent School students 70 30
University Students 23
children will gain some secondary qualification. Although education is neither compulsory nor free, nearly all children
are sent to primary school, and a high positive value is given to education by all sectors of the community (for both
sexes), which ensures that most parents will make considerable sacrifices to allow their children to proceed as high up
the ladder as they can get.
PSLE is not just pass-fail, but graded and ranked. A better result in PSLE (in terms of average score) also gives access
to more schools. The Goh report (1979) envisaged that the top 8% of children would be streamed into SAP secondary
schools, which it was envisaged would offer high levels of Malay and Tamil as well as of Chinese. In fact competitive
entry into the SAP schools became possible only for those doing Chinese and English, and many children who are
entitled to this top stream choose not to attend.
The majority of the most prestigious schools, which formerly cost the same as all the other schools, have recently been
designated as independent and autonomous schools. The fees of these are a deterrent (or a great hardship) to the parents
of working-class children. They tend to take only high achievers, although some are required to take students from their
feeder schools, even if they have only scraped through PSLE. Some scholarships are available at these schools for the
academically outstanding from less wealthy backgrounds. They thus have a double selection systemon the ground of
academic ability and ability to pay, rather like some of the independent schools in the UK, on which they were in part
based. This development has reduced the meritocratic emphasis of Singapore's education system, under which entry to
the 'best' schools was entirely based on examination result, and is regretted by many commentators. In a discussion with
an MP (Koo Tsai Kee) the sociologist, Chua Beng Huat, drew attention to the fact that the children of residents of
private housing are overrepresented in the independent schools (and in the university). The figures quoted by Koo and
Chua, which were not in dispute, are shown in Table 4.1. Chua agreed with Koo that social mobility in Singapore
continues to be good (better than in, for example, the UK), but suggested that:

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because of economic growth, we are beginning to be more class divided than before, when we were all equally
poor.
Increasingly, just like a lot of developed nations, family background makes a difference in terms of the
opportunities for every child. . . . [B]ecause of the overwhelming over-representation of upper-income group
children, you cannot help people feeling that independent schools will end up being the playgrounds for the rich.
. . . I think upward mobility for the working class will slow down because middle class culture, which
corresponds better with the culture of education, is becoming more important.
(Straits Times 8 February 1992)
The Senior Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, responded to this debate in a speech the same evening. Interpreting Chua as
demanding an equal representation of the social classes in the independent schools he argued that this would result in
the penalisation of ''children who are bright, but whose parents are comfortable" and warned Singaporeans against
"Western liberal arguments urging for more liberal and social and economic policies". He argued that the
recommendations of the Plowden Report in the UK had led to "a workforce that cannot compete" and that giving "the
good teachers to those who are not so bright" resulted in "nobody going very far" (Sunday Times 9 February 992).
However, three months later it was announced by Lee Yock Suan, the Education Minister, that the number of
scholarships was to be increased, so that the top 25% (based on PSLE results, but regardless of parental income) of
students in the Independent schools will be given scholarships for the four years of their secondary education, while in
both Independent and non-Independent schools other high scoring students (not in the top 25% at PSLE) will receive
full or partial scholarships on a year by year basis (Straits Times 30 May 1992). This is a move to reclaim some of the
meritocratic rationale.
Language in Pre-school Education
The two languages of Singapore which have recruited increasing numbers of habitual speakers, and increasing numbers
of native speakers, are Mandarin and English. The schools have supported this development, not only in the courses,
but in the kind of interaction between pupils that they provide. Housen and Baetens Beardsmore (1987) describe a
similar supportive environment for acquisition of multiple languages in the European schools. The environment for
English learning in pre-school education is at present supportive of English. However, if the teaching of L2 is
strengthened it may become less so.
Parents, caregivers, and elder siblings know that schools expect the use of school languages, and transmit this
knowledge to children beginning school.

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In many families the school languages are both used in the home, either as a result of natural interaction or as a
deliberate effort to prepare the child for formal education.
Once upon a time most children entering English-medium schools had to learn English there. Later, when bilingual
education became the norm, children entered bilingual schools knowing only one or (often) neither of the school
languages. The upshot of the development of nativisation of both English and Mandarin is that currently many, perhaps
most (but not all), children enter pre-school education knowing both school languages.
The linguistic structure and ethnic composition of these kindergartens is variable. Most use more than one language,
with differing degrees of emphasis on English, as opposed to the other language. All offer English and nearly all also
offer Mandarin. Some offer Malay, and a handful (three currently) have Tamil. Some kindergartens offer only Mandarin
or only Malay, while others offer both. Those who offer both may integrate the language streams for the English
sessions or may keep them separate. Those offering only one second language tend to be racially homogeneous,
although there are non-Chinese in English-Mandarin kindergartens.
The PCF Education Centre which I have been attending regularly since April 1991 is in one of the large government
housing estates. The catchment area of this centre is very representative of the general population of Singapore, except
that the wealthiest and most highly educated section of the population are absent. However, it is not clear whether the
methods used in this centre are as average as the clientele: it has a very good reputation indeed, and the principal is a
woman of considerable ability and commitment, which is why she is willing to have university researchers come and
visit her! The staff participate actively in decision making and are also enthusiastic and committed. There is a nursery
section for three to four year olds, and a larger kindergarten section for four to six year olds.
In this centre, nursery teachers have a policy of using only English. In the Kindergarten, Friday is second language day,
and on Fridays the racially integrated classes are regrouped for Mandarin and Malay. Classes for English are
intentionally mixed (both pupils and teachers) to encourage inter-racial mixing and promote the use of English. Given
the children's awareness of different languages in the community, and their sense that only certain languages are
appropriate for school, enough children come to the nursery with some English and Mandarin (one or the other or both)
to create a critical level of speakers of both languages. Teachers estimate that about half the children know English and
over three-quarters know Mandarin, so that in each nursery class only a handful of children (estimates from teachers are
1-5 per class) know neither English nor Mandarin.

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These children come from linguistically complex backgrounds. For example, Loke Kit Ken (at that time a colleague in
the department of English Language & Literature) and I gave a talk to parents at the kindergarten. I delivered my talk in
English and she delivered hers in Mandarin. Sixty parents attended the Mandarin talk and 220 parents were present at
the English talk. During the talk, I asked for a show of hands on the number of languages spoken at home
(defining'language' as including the Chinese dialects). Nearly all the 220 parents I asked the question of put up their
hands in response. Only 4 parents claimed to use only one language at home, 10 claimed three languages or more, and
the rest claimed two languages. The majority of parents indicated that both school languages were usedfor some parents
this would be English and Mandarin, and for others English and Malay. Of course this sample is skewed in favour of
those who felt able to follow a talk in English, and who are sufficiently interested in their children's education to spend
a Saturday afternoon at their school.
In the nursery class, the teachers allow the children to speak any language, but in principle they answer in English. In
the kindergarten, the children are reminded to speak English if the teacher hears them speaking any other language on
English days, and to speak second language on Fridays (this policy changed slightly in 1992).
In 1991 the Senior Minister for State for Education, Tay Eng Soon, suggested that the proportion of time spent on the
two school languages should vary according to the language background of the child, with children from English
speaking homes spending more time in 'mother tongue' classes and vice versa.
Given . . . [the diversity of language backgrounds], kindergartens needed to adjust their programmes, he said.
This meant that children from homes where Mandarin, Malay or Tamil were the main languages would need
some foundation in English in kindergarten while those from English-speaking homes would need some
grounding in their mother tongue, he said.
(Straits Times 18 November 1990)
Although the 1992 Chinese Language Review Committee recommended that equal time be spent on English and
Chinese in pre-school programmes, the Ministry suggested that operators of kindergartens "take into account parents'
wishes for their children" (Straits Times 7 June 1992). When parents at the PCF kindergartens (including the one I visit)
were asked for their choice of time to be spent on each language, 90% of parents, whatever their language background,
voted in favour of the greater time being spent on English (Sunday Times 3 April 1991). This is the expected response
in an average area,

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although elite Chinese parents, confident about being able to support English at home and with limited skill in
Mandarin, may be keener on exposing their children to more Mandarin.
The school is a major agent in the development of StdE. We have already seen that, for privileged children whose
parents speak StdE as well as SCE, the home can be a place where StdE is learnt alongside (and after) SCE. Similarly,
the school can also be a place for the learning of SCE. Clearly children learn SCE from each other, but teachers too
exploit SCE, especially in the early years of schooling. In a previous paper (Gupta 1989:35f) I emphasized the
importance of the use of StdE by teachers in the classroom. I still hold to the view that it is important for the schools to
transmit StdE, but I now feel that at the lower levels of education the spontaneous use of SCE by teachers is helpful to
many children.
In my visits I participate in the nursery classes as a teacher's aide. The children have easily accepted me in this role.
The staff of the kindergarten were not enthusiastic about the prospect of recording: so far I have observed and taken
notes only. Due to the co-operativeness of this centre, other researchers have used it to carry out studies of a more
controlled type, which used audio and video recording, but my concern was to see normal classroom interaction.
In 1991 the centre had a total of 1400 children altogether, with a nursery session of 384 children in 16 classes of about
24 children each. The nursery was in its second year of operation in 1991, the kindergarten having been longer
established. Each class has two teachers, one Chinese by ethnicity and one non-Chinese (teachers report that some
Mandarin-speaking parents have complained about there being a non-Chinese teacher). Children come to the nursery in
two-hour sessions: there are two sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon (the teachers change over at
lunchtime). At any one time there are four classes in the nursery centre. The classes move from area to area, from one
of the two classrooms (called 'PP' rooms) to the indoor play area, the music room, the refreshment area, and, from
1992, the 'Sharing Room.' The nursery is said by the principal to be unusual in that in most centres the children do not
move around so much, and spend a great deal of time completing worksheets. At this nursery worksheets are never
used, which is apparently a source of some dissatisfaction to many parents. The centre is entirely air-conditioned and
furnished with great comfort and colour. Discipline is achieved by coercion and rational discussion: there is no hitting
or shouting or intimidation by teachers. The atmosphere is relaxed, purposeful and pleasant.
On my visits I remain most of the time in the indoor play area, with the result that I see the eight classes of the two
morning sessions. I also accompany two of the classes to the refreshment area. On one occasion I deputised for a

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sick teacher and followed one class through its entire day (teaching at tertiary level is considerably less exhausting). I
have also been invited to class parties, and have given two talks at the centre, one to the teachers and one to the parents.
The centre trains teachers partly on the job, and partly at the Insititute of Education. They also have an active
programme of educating parents, the emphasis being on the importance of play and talking to one's children. Parents
tend to demand more overt education for their children and less time spent on enjoyable interaction.
In the indoor play area, groups of children are allocated according to a rota to one of a series of activities, including
blocks, bricks, form boards, and threading. The most popular activity is in the four-room, two-storey wooden
playhouse, which during my 1991 visits was fitted up as a supermarket and kitchen downstairs, and a doll's bedroom
and reading area upstairs. I usually stationed myself in the supermarket/kitchen area, but on occasions when the house
was not in use I played with groups engaged in other activities.
By the end of the school year, teachers are using principally StdE in classroom activities, with some SCE in their less
pedagogical roles, such as chatting with the children. By this time too, the children speak primarily in SCE to the
teachers, and among themselves speak SCE and Mandarin. This pattern of language use by teachers can also be seen in
the lower primary years, but the use of SCE by teachers has diminished by Upper Primary, at which stage the children
themselves should be expected to have significant use of StdE. Initially, however, the nursery teachers are more flexible
in their language use.
The development of language skills is not the sole function of education. Much early teaching is concerned with
teaching children correct classroom behaviour. Without the teaching of such disciplines as remaining in particular
zones, lining up, using the toilet in a particular manner, and so on, the orderly transmission of knowledge in an
environment where children feel safe would be impossible. When three year olds have just arrived in school, the
teachers' first concern is to make them feel comfortable and teach them the daily routines. Teachers therefore show
themselves willing to use a variety of linguistic resources to achieve cheerful compliance from the children, among
them the use of SCE.
The use of SCE by teachers is much deplored by people in educational services in Singapore, many of whom express
the view that kindergarten teachers do not know 'good' English. The teachers in the centre I visit demonstrate, in their
speech to me and in their uses to the children too, that they can use StdE but sometimes do not use it. Far from being
detrimental to the development of English, the use of SCE by teachers in certain circumstances may actually facilitate
the learning of StdE because the teachers tailor their use of English to the level of understanding of the children, rather
than

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bewildering them by the sudden introduction of a variety that few of them have been much exposed to before beginning
school.
There are many routines around classroom behaviour, including arrival and departure routines, room moving routines,
handwashing routines, and snacktime routines, all of which teach children StdE formulaic expressions. The use of SCE
by a teacher and the gradual movement towards StdE in the formal and formulaic parts of education can be simply seen
in the teaching of toilet-going routines. In the first month of nursery school I watched a teacher line up the children in
front of the toilets. She approached the children one by one and said, slowly, and with an unnatural prosodic pattern
which emphasised every lexical word:
Teacher I want to go to the toilet.
This was for the children to repeat, which none did (even by the end of the academic year, few children can achieve the
spontaneous use of this formula perfectly). Then she asked each child individually, carefully but with normal tonality:
Do you want to go to the toilet?
If a child nodded or shook the head, she acted appropriately, directing the child either to the toilet or to a waiting area.
If there was no response she then said:
You want to go to the toilet ah?
and gestured in the direction of the toilet. This got a response from all the remaining children.
Here we see the teacher modelling a StdE statement, then using a StdE interrogative, but having recourse to SCE if
communication of the message has failed.
Exactly a month later, the teacher has the children sitting in rows in front of her, and asks each row in turn, "Row {N},
who want to go to the toilet?" The children who want to go to the toilet raise their hands and one by one come forward
to the teacher. Now they are supposed to use the formula, "Please teacher, may I go to the toilet?" which about half of
them make an effort at which satisfies the teacher. These acceptable efforts are:
May I go toilet? (the most common response)
Teacher, May I?
I want go toilet.
If the child says nothing, or makes an unsatisfactory attempt, such as "Teacher, toilet", the teacher models the request
either as a whole in normal

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intonation, or word by word, for the child to repeat. All the children make an effort to repeat this and proceed to the
toilet.
By this stage the teacher has achieved her principal goal of ordered toilet-going, and can focus more concentratedly on
the teaching of the StdE formula. When children make the request spontaneously they are also expected to practice the
formula, for example:
[A girl in the refreshment line-up approaches the
teacher]
Child Want shu-shu. [shu-shu, SCE child language,
"urinate"]
TeacherWant shu-shu what do you say? [SCE
conditional = "If you want . . . "]
Child Teacher-
TeacherTeacher I want-
Child Teacher I want to go toilet.
At the early stage in the school year too, instructions will be given first in English, then in Mandarin or Malay,
according to the perceived repertoire of the child or children being addressed. Often instructions will be given routinely
in English, followed immediately by the Mandarin equivalent, such as, "At the back, hou mian." All the non-Chinese
teachers have learnt enough Mandarin to tell children to sit down, stand up, and go to the back of the line, in Mandarin.
Malay is not used to the group in this way, but is used to specific children who are seen as needing it. Languages other
than English are being used as a bridge to English, through translation, and SCE is also being used as a bridge to StdE.
Ultimately the message is the major concern. This ordered use of languages and varieties of English continues
throughout the school system.
When the teachers are chatting informally to the children (usually when the children are lining up), SCE is the norm
from the beginning. For example, a child in a line made his fingers into a gun and gestured at another child:
Childl [to Child2] I bang you. [gestures gun with fingers]
Child2 [to Teacher] I bang you. [gestures gun with fingers]
TeacherHow can you shoot me?
You shoot me, I die, then tomorrow no teacher. ( = "If you shoot me, I'll die, then
tomorrow there'll be no teacher")
My impression is that English-speaking children talk more in these situationsthey are more likely to offer conversation
to the teacher (or me) while lining up (opening remarks have included "My finger pain" "I go Pizza Hut already", ''My
mummy never buy powder for me," "My own Daddy go work", "Teacher, my mother want to bring me go Orchard
Road".). They use Mandarin rarely for this. This means that the environment is very English-oriented, partly as a result
of the silence of other children.

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Even in the first months of nursery school, teachers may draw attention to the preference for English. A boy
approached a Malay teacher in Mandarin, whereupon she said to him, "Talk English. If you talk Chinese I can't
understand you." What children say in another language may be repeated by the teacher in English, creating an instant
translation:
[The children are lining up for drinks]
Child: Teacher, bu yao. ["don't want"]
Teacher: You don't want, you don't take, okay.
["If you don't want a drink, don't take one"]
[child leaves queue and sits down]
Or, with a Chinese teacher.

[The music room door has wrongly been left open, by me. The class are in
the refreshment area at the opposite end of the nursery. A boy approaches
the (Chinese) teacher and points to the music room]
Child Mei you guan men.
[NEG got close door
= "Hasn't closed the door"]
Teacher Didn't close ah?
Go and close.
[Child goes and closes the door and returns to line.]
In the second term I continued to hear some Mandarin from teachers, but only three times (in 12 hours of observation):
on two occasions when a distressed Chinese child was being comforted. On one of these occasions a girl started to cry
(crying is rare at this nursery school). She went to the Malay teacher who heard, among the sobs, only, "so naughty".
The Malay teacher passed her over to Chinese teacher who comforted her at some length in Mandarin and asked "Shei?
" ( = ''Who?") and other questions to find out who had done what to her. To no avail, but the child stopped crying. The
third case was when a teacher asked a child eating a cookie, "Hao bu hao?" ( = "Is it nice?").
Even more remarkable than the linguistic consistency of the teachers was the behaviour of the children by the middle of
the school year. During the whole observation period I heard (in school) only two sentences from children in any
language other than English or Mandarin, although I did hear other varieties of Chinese as the children spotted their
relatives outside the door and called to them. The first sentence I heard (in Hokkien) was, unexpectedly, addressed to
me. A girl had finished the birthday cake that was on the menu that day and said to me, "Aunty bo liao." ( = "Aunty, no
more"). The girl sitting next to her then repeated it, again to me, "Aunty, bo liao." This is such a common formula that
it is possible the children thought it was English.

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The teachers report that by term 2 and 3 of nursery the majority of the children can communicate in English and most of
the Chinese children also in Mandarin even if they spoke neither on entry. My observation would confirm this. There
are some children who appear to be unwilling to speak English but give evidence of understanding it. For example, in
the course of an elaborate cooking routine in the play house, one girl came up to me with the plastic chopping board
and said "Zhi shi shenmo?" ( = "What is this?") I said "This is a chopping board for cutting food." The child did not
reply but took it away, got a knife, and chopped food on it.
The teachers report that some of the non-Chinese children pick up some Mandarin, but I did not hear evidence of this
myself. Mandarin is certainly being learnt by some of the nursery school children entirely informally, and it would
seem that in English too the principal learning method is informal.
Among themselves, and even in speech to me, the children mix Mandarin and English. For example, in one
supermarket session a very excited group of 4 children rushed into the shop and spoke Mandarin as they collected
goods. No-one was pretending to pay. As they were about to take the shopping to the kitchen area I said, "Pay $10." A
child outside the area said, "Mei you qian." ( = "Don't have money") I said, "No money? But you can pretend money."
She then told a long story in English beginning, ''My mummy go shopping must pay" ( = 'When my mummy goes
shopping she has to pay.'). This group mixed Mandarin and English, but spoke mostly Mandarin. They 'fed' me on a
massive scale, 'cooking' in the kitchen and serving me in the supermarket. Orders were given in Mandarin. For instance,
a child came to the door and called out "Yi bei cha" ( = "A cup of tea") and a boy delivered it. This was a particularly
Mandarin-focussed group, despite the fact that all of them could speak English, while others in the same situation used
mostly English. Racially mixed groups tended to use English, but not all English-focussed groups were racially mixed,
while in one group I observed (two Chinese and one Malay, all of whom had good English), a mixture of Mandarin and
English was used between the two Chinese children, with English only to the Malay boy.
There were many occasions when a message in one language was immediately repeated in the other, as once, when a
boy came to the edge of the supermarket and held up an item, showing it to another child. Without a break he said,
"How much is it? Duo shao qian?" ( = "How much money? How much? How much is it?")
By the end of the year, children will often switch languages to speak in English to the teacher, after speaking Mandarin
among themselves. For example, one group who were habitually mixing among themselves, alternating Mandarin and
English, had some trouble putting away the eggs. Two eggs fell off the counter outside the home area. A girl outside
the area retrieved them, saying as she saw them land, "Ah, liang ge ji dan." ( = "Ah, two eggs") A few

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minutes later, after the eggs were back, she told the teacher, pointing to the girl who dropped them, "Her eggs fall
down." This switch to English when addressing the teacher begins very early. In my first term observation, with
children who had been in nursery for less than a month, the teacher showed the children an empty drinks can, as they
were required to bring a can the next day. One boy approached the teacher and said in Mandarin, "Wo yao pao le." ( =
"I want to touch") The teacher did not respond, whereupon the child repeated the request in English, "I want to touch",
came up and touched the can. The teacher said nothing but was clearly surprised. The child said ''I want to see inside
got scent or not." The class topic that week was smell. This child is learning very early to use English to the teacher.
Even where the child may not be as capable as this of sustaining English, English may be attempted in the absence of
teacher response. On one occasion, in the indoor play area, the children were told they could play at whatever activity
they wished. Two children pointed at the playhouse and called out, "I want to play there." The teacher explained that if
she allowed them to play in the playhouse everyone would want to go there, so no-one is going in there. After the
original requesters had moved away to their permitted activities another child spoke up:
Child [pointing in play house direction]
Wo na ge. [ = "I that one"]
[no response from teacher]
Teacher, I want na ge.
TeacherNo, that one cannot.
The child appears to have used the model of the earlier child's "I want". Repeated formulae provide a scaffold for the
child to create English sentences. There were many occasions when children played language games among
themselves, with repeated or modified phrases ("I see crocodile fish", "I see boy fish", "I see crocodile snake" etc)
passed around groups.
Some of these repetitions are functional. One day a child brought bags of marshmallows to share. They contained
squares of jelly embedded in the marshmallow. Everyone was enthusiastic and clamoured for attention:
Girl1 Teacher I like.
Teacher I like eat.
My mummy buy for me.
Boyl Teacher I can eat.
Girl2 I also.
A chorus then erupted of "I also" (I lost count at six), and "Teacher I like". A mass of talk ensued, ending with another
formulaic series using got, which included:

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This one got jelly ah.
My house got this type of jelly.
Got jelly.
Got jelly nice ah.
This kind of language play and repetition provides scaffolds for the less anglophone children to build on. The erupting
chorus also creates a setting where a child who may not be very adept in English can contribute a formulaic phrase.
Although there are up to four non-Chinese children in each class, who usually add to the critical mass of English-
speakers, there are too few of them in a class (about 24 children) to develop the use of any other language in non-
speakers of it, and too few of them to speak their own languages among themselves. With three-quarters of the
population Chinese, in a non-segregated school system a non-Chinese group will not have a critical mass in an
individual class. However, in some classes the balance may change. In remarkable data collected by one of my students
(Radha Ravindran) two kindergarten children in play at home (aged 4 and 6 years) pretend to be at school. These girls
are speakers of Malayalam, a minority Indian language, which is being maintained in the family. Although all family
members are fluent in English, Radha (the mother of one of the children) claims that the children spoke only a little
English until they went to nursery school (age 3). They attend an English-medium kindergarten where the pupils are
more evenly divided between Malays and Chinese (each was the only Indian in her class), so that the informal learning
of Malay is supported. In their play they reflect the language patterns of their school: when they pretend to be Malay
girls in the class they speak Malay (not related to Malayalamthe similarity of name is fortuitous). When they address
the teacher, or play at teacher-child interaction, they speak English. They even make an effort at using Standard
English in their imitations of the teacher. They sing a "goodbye song" in Mandarin. These two girls now speak fluent
SCE and simple Malay, the latter acquired from and used entirely with classmates at kindergarten.
The suggestion that classes might be segregated, so that children from non-English speaking backgrounds are placed
together and given more English appears to be based on an assumption that the children learn language in the
classroom. In fact, segregation of the different language groups could have the opposite effect from the intended one,
by reducing the mass of speakers of the target language and preventing children from learning it from each other.
The Association of Muslim Professionals hopes to "establish a network of nurseries and kindergartens all over the
island to serve the pre-school needs of the Muslim community" (Straits Times, August 10 1992). As we will see, there
are also efforts being made to increase the provision of pre-school

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education in Indian languages. All of these separatist activities will reduce the need for English among the Chinese
majority and will promote the use of Mandarin among Chinese children.
Academic Success and Social Background
The Primary School programme is dominated by language learning and by the need to pass and do well in the two
examinations: the Primary Four streaming examination and the PSLE. 60% of school time is spent on language learning
(English and Second Language), while the only other subject taught to all years is Maths. 20% of curriculum time is set
aside for 'other subjects', which would normally include Moral Education and Physical Education. In the past other
subjects have been taught and examined in primary school, notably Social Studies, which used to be taught from
Primary One, and is now no longer taught in Primary School, and Science, which used to be taught from Primary Three
and now only begins in Primary Four. The Primary School syllabus is overwhelmingly a language teaching syllabus.
Speaking at a conference on kindergarten education, the then Education Minister, Tony Tan, drew attention to the
central issues:
The task that faces [Education] Ministry . . . [deletion in source] is . . . how to maintain and improve the standards
of achievement in English and mathematics while giving children a stronger foundation in their mother tongue.
(Straits Times 16 November 1990)
He saw English as necessary because it is the medium of instruction for the other subjects, and mathematics as
necessary to develop the "child's ability to think logically and to comprehend topics in physics, chemistry [and] . . .
biology". Examination success gives access to job opportunities in "a modern industrialised society like Singapore." A
strong foundation in the 'mother tongue' "can help the child retain his Asian cultural values and still be able to learn the
skills which will enable him to perform effectively in our economy when he becomes an adult." He described the
bilingual policy as one which taught children ''English as their working language and their mother tongue as their
cultural language."
Education is concerned with the teaching of content as well as with teaching language skills. We can imagine that two
children are shown a picture (Figure 4.2), and asked what it shows. Supposing that the first child says:
There are two circles.
And the second says:
Got two rectangle.

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We would regard the first child's answer as wrong whether we were in a maths class or an English class, but in the
maths class the second child's answer would be correct. There are times when a teacher must concentrate on content,
not form. Undue emphasis on form leads to sterile teaching. When teachers in pre-school centres or Primary Schools
switch to SCE it is because they are concentrating on the message. A concentration on content leads to a real need to
communicate, and thus to the development of communicative skills, while there is a danger that too close a
concentration on form leads to a situation where the imperative to communicate is missing. This is a matter of some
concern when Singapore has recently reduced the teaching of Social Studies and Sciences in the lower years of primary
school, leading to a reduction in content-focussed teaching. The texts used in both the English and Chinese syllabuses
have tended to concentrate on fictional narrative, although the new primary English programme at present being phased
in makes some effort to correct this imbalance, and in fact introduces some social studies material.
The constellation of social class and language factors in Singapore means that children from lower social classes are
less likely to come from English speaking homes. The least privileged are also least likely to have attended
kindergarten. These children will start school with maximum disadvantage. In the past, most children started school at
age six with no pre-school experience, and often (especially in the case of the Chinese) knowing neither of the school
languages. The schools' expectations were geared towards these children, who
Figure 4.2
Two rectangles

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were not disadvantaged by their lack of pre-school knowledge of school languages. The language shift towards English
and Mandarin has resulted in a corresponding shift in expectation in the schools, and with larger numbers of children
entering school (and even, as we have seen, entering pre-school) knowing both the school languages, those who know
only one, or neither, are relatively disadvantaged. The uneven distribution of language use among the social classes
exacerbates the disadvantage of those who do not speak English. However, as we shall see, the child's domestic
language background in itself seems to be less important than other types of disadvantage.
An unknown, but large, percentage of primary school students follow private tuition, either individually or in groups,
after school hours. The principal of the (non-prestige) primary school which I am visiting feels that the more able
students are the most likely to be taking tuition. Various charitable organisations offer free tuition to those unable to
afford it. Schools, and the newly established (1992) schools psychological service identify children performing badly in
examinations.
PSLE pass rates vary from subject to subject and among the races. The lowest pass rate is in Mathematics, while the
highest is in the second language. The two language subjects have a higher pass rate than the two content subjects
(Table 4.2). The subject in which attainment is lowest is mathematics.
Table 4.2 Percentage of PSLE passes, 1991 by subject and race.

Adapted from Straits Times 9 May 1992, and Straits Times 31 May
1992. (some data not available)
Race All Chinese Malay Indian Other
SUBJECT
English 94 95 88 93 97
Mathematics 78 85 47 56 72
Science 91 94 77 83 92
Second lang. 99 (85)
Chinese 99
Malay 100
Tamil (94)
Average 90 93 75 81 84
[77% of all Chinese passes were at A or better grade. 37% of passes in
English were at A or better grade. The second language pass rate for
Indians is not available to me: The figures in parentheses are the 1990
rates from Action Committee's Report on Indian Education]

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The Singapore mathematics syllabus is demanding. Susan Rickard Liow (Social Work and Psychology, National
University of Singapore) is adapting standard UK tests of development and administering them to Singapore Primary
School children. This will allow for the establishment of Singaporean norms. Results from the (average) school in
which this is being piloted, suggest that Singapore schoolchildren, as can be expected given their diverse language
backgrounds, are behind UK schoolchildren in English attainment (on UK normed tests) at the beginning of Primary
School. By the later years of primary school the results are equalising. However, the standard UK tests of mathematical
abilities show Singapore children at all levels as much ahead of UK children in mathematics (Rickard Liow, personal
communication).
With the generous cooperation of a school principal who is concerned that children are scoring badly in mathematics
because of poor English, a study was begun, which is still in progress, to try to establish if there is a relationship
between language background and attainment in mathematics (Gupta, Rickard Liow & Tng). The standard of English
required by the mathematics syllabus is particularly high. Furthermore, in the old syllabus (now being phased out) the
standard required in the examinations is higher than that shown in the (centralised) textbooks. To cope with this
discrepancy, teachers supplement textbooks with duplicated sheets of their own which more accurately reflect the
standard expected in the public examinations. The new syllabus relies even more on English skills, to such an extent
that there has been (in 1993) considerable press coverage of the worries that have arisen among parents.
We anticipated that children with poor English skills would have particular problems with verbal problems in
mathematics, compared with problems using mathematical symbols only. Initial results, however, suggest that self-
reported language proficiency and home language seem to have little to do with performance in verbal maths questions.
This should caution us against any simple-minded equation of self-reported language background with school success.
The PSLE results show a major discrepancy between the four races, with a particularly poor performance in
mathematics from the two larger minority groups, and a poor performance in L2 by the Indians and (at an estimated
75%) from the Others. The low results for L2 from the two smallest minorities reflect their difficulties in attaching
themselves to a 'mother tongue'. The racial discrepancies have led to the establishment of organisations responsible for
educational development among first Malays, then Indians to raise their results to the national average (subsequently a
self-help organisation for poor Chinese has been established too).
The report of the Action Committee on Indian Education identified four possible causes of under-achievement of the
Indians (1991:12f):

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(1) socio-economic
(2) attitudinal/cultural
(3) institutional
(4) cognitive/academic
The Committee found no evidence of "cognitive deficiencies" among the Indians but suggested that this was worth
further study. The difference between the socio-economic position of the minority groups and the Chinese was not
found sufficient to account for the difference in educational achievement. The Action Committees supplied figures
which show the percentage of children being placed in the old 'monolingual stream' after the Primary Three exam of
1990. These show a higher proportion of Indians and Malays at all income levels below $2500 pm being placed in the
monolingual stream, and a lower proportion of Chinese. At the lowest income bracket, below $600 pm, about 15% of
Chinese children are placed in the monolingual stream, compared to 30% of both Malay and Indian children. The same
discrepancy between the Chinese and the minorities is shown if the children are classified by the mother's educational
qualifications.
The Action Committee also found evidence of institutional causes of underachievement, identifying (p17) the low
number of kindergartens offering Tamil (Only 2 out of 350 neighbourhood kindergartens, and 1 private one), which
leads to "Indian children's immersion in a predominantly Chinese-speaking pre-school environment [which] may
inhibit the development of self-confidence". This lack of provision also prevents them from being able to learn Tamil at
an early age, especially important for those who do not speak it. Even excluding the SAP schools (only open to those
taking Mandarin), they found (p19) that Indians were poorly represented in the elite schools. This was the case even
before any selection examinations, due to the rules for admission to Primary One. They also criticized (p20) the limited
provision of Tamil at secondary level, which results in children travelling outside curriculum time to Tamil centres, and
deplored the practice of segregating by race for classes other than the second language. Non-Tamil Indians were
identified as having a further problem (accounting for the particularly poor performance of Indians in the second
language) as they had to learn a second language with which they had no cultural affiliation.
The educational effects of this discrepancy have only become apparent since education became (virtually) universal. In
earlier years, the Chinese were as a group the least likely to have attended school, and, later, the least likely to attend
English-medium schools. We have seen in Chapter One that in the older age groups the Chinese had the lowest general
literacy rate of all the races: they were less likely than the Indians and Malays to have education in any language in
earlier years. A comparison of the population with no educational qualifications in 1980 (Table 4.3) shows that the
Malays are

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consistently the lowest scoring group, while Indians begin well-ahead but are overtaken by the Chinese in the youngest
age groups.
Although the Malays were least likely to have a school qualification, they nevertheless had a higher chance of
experiencing enough school to gain basic literacy than did the Chinese (especially the Chinese women) in the older age
groups. This is why on the literacy rates and educational levels achieved (Chapter One), the Chinese are still the lowest
group. However, Malays tend to achieve less at all levels, until they become grossly underrepresented at the higher
levels of education.
The educational position of the Indians relative to the other races has deteriorated. Until the 1980s the Indians, of all
groups the most likely to have English-medium education, and the most likely to have school qualifications, were over-
represented at the higher levels. They are now under-represented.
In Singapore intelligence is generally seen as genetically determined, which is why educated parents are being
encouraged to have larger families. It is not surprising that racial differences in examinations are often seen as the result
of genetically endowed racial differences in intelligence and aptitude. In an interview in the USA in 1992, former Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew referred to this when he criticised US educational authorities for "a refusal to accept
differences in learning aptitude between blacks, whites and other races in America" and said that it was a myth to
"pretend that the problem doesn't exist, and that in fact [the Malays] can score as well as the Chinese in mathematics".
He said that while Malays had made progress they had been told "not to measure success by Chinese standards in
mathematics because to do so would be heartbreaking'' (International Herald Tribune 25 June 1992). Another way to
look at the results is in terms of social patterns, societal expectations, and the developing 'minority' sense among the
minorities.
Table 4.3 Percentage with no school qualification by age (adapted
from Khoo 1981).
Chinese Malay Indian All
Age (1980)
15-19 6.9 9.8 8.2 7.6
20-29 12.3 14.2 10.0 12.5
30-39 29.2 31.7 22.2 28.3
40-49 53.6 60.1 40.7 52.3
50-59 69.5 73.6 53.9 67.3
60+ 84.1 86.7 66.8 82.5

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The drop in over-representation of the Indians at the higher levels of education is in part due to the greater uptake of
English-medium education among the Chinese, correcting a historical imablance. The new imbalance may in part be
the result of emigration by disproportionate numbers of educated ethnic Indians (Australia is believed to be the most
popular destination). Dhanabalan "disclosed that available rough figures indicate that Indians, many of whom [are]
highly educated, were leaving Singapore at two to three times the average rate" (Straits Times 3 September 1990). The
Action Committee (1991:17) revealed that 16% of all Singaporeans emigrating were Indiansdouble their representation
in the population.
Efforts to remediate the situation include the setting up of self-help organizations, and the encouragement of educated
Indians to take up residence and citizenship in Singapore. However, the terms offered to the Indians have not been as
generous as those offered to Hong Kong Chinese of similar social and educational status.
The concept of social class is little used in Singapore. This is one reason why education level tends to be the basis of
most analyses of the composition of Singapore society (as in Chapter One). Although the Action Committee found
social class differences between the races to be insufficient to account for the discrepancies in educational performance,
it has to be said that there are noticeable social class differences between the three main racial groups.
Quah, Chiew, Ko and Lee (1991) used a random sample of 1593 adult Singaporeans to study both the consciousness of
social class and the distribution on various scales. Their study included the development of a local scale, the Singapore
Occupational Prestige Score (SOPS), a numerical scale ranging theoretically from 0 to 100 (Quah et al 1991). In fact it
ranges from a high of 97 (Physician) to a low of 3 (Bargirl, Prostitute, Smuggler). This scale was found to be
consistently ranked with income and years of education. The distribution of the three main ethnic groups in this
classification shows the considerable discrepancies (Table 4.4).
This portrays the Malay group as grossly underrepresented at the higher levels, and shows the concentration of Indians
and Malays at the bottommost level. However, in the mid-range group (41-60) Malays are also overrepresented. This
table also is a reminded that we are looking at a great many underprivileged Chinese too. The only study of scholastic
achievement known to me which has identified the ethnic effect as opposed to the social class effect is the report of the
Action Committee of Education (discussed above). The tendency of Singapore policy is to focus on the ethnic groups
rather than to focus on class-based groups.
Certainly in linguistic terms the underprivileged Chinese are theoretically most likely to be at maximum disadvantage,
as they are of all groups the most

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Table 4.4 Singapore Occupational Prestige Scale by ethnic group.
Adapted
from Chiew 1991:160.
Chinese Malay Indian
% % %
SOPS
Below 20 14.5 28.9 23.8
20-40 40.0 29.5 33.7
41-60 28.4 36.8 29.0
61-80 16.2 4.9 13.0
81 and higher 1.0 0.0 0.6
N= 773 350 324
likely to come to school knowing neither of the school languages. However, the Action Committee found that the
Chinese group still performed best even when socio-economic factors were taken into consideration. Just as it is
misleading to attribute poor scholastic performance to race, it would also be a mistake to attribute it to home language
background, when we are looking at a linked set of interrelated factors involving socio-economic status, level of
parental education, cultural norms, home language use, and a range of non-quantifiable factors related to domestic
interaction patterns, about which we know nothing.
Despite the excellence of results at all levels in Chinese, and the fact that the Chinese as a group perform better
academically than the other two ethnic groups, much of the government's involvement in education has centred on
Chinese. A committee was established in 1991 to review the teaching of Chinese, following extensive public discussion
about the difficulties of the Chinese syllabus and comments on the decline in standard of Chinese. The
recommendations of this committee were publicised and accepted in June 1992.
The governmental concern with the teaching of Chinese seems surprising in view of the fact that passes in Chinese are
higher than passes in English. Indeed, many teachers seem to agree with the teacher who was reported as saying that as
far as she was concerned the problem was proficiency in English, not proficiency in Mandarin. The reasons for the
current emphasis on Chinese teaching lie in the political rather than the educational dimension. A further factor is that
not only is bilingualism equated with proficiency in English and the official language of one's ethnicity, but it is also
linked to literacy (this is documented by M Lee, 1992:56). So proficiency in Mandarin is linked to literacy in Chinese,
the acquisition of which is intrinsically more

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difficult than the acquisition of basic literacy in an alphabetic writing system. In the terms of Cummins and Swain
(1986:152) the repeated Speak Mandarin campaigns and the education system have been extremely effective at teaching
"basic interpersonal communicative skills" and at promoting the use of Mandarin, but possibly less successful at
developing the higher levels of "cognitive/academic language proficiency". Many parents (mostly English-educated)
have complained about the burden of Chinese on their children. At the same time, with the demise of Chinese-medium
education, few people with extremely high levels of skill in Chinese are being produced, a source of concern to the
Chinese-educated. The rhetoric leads a reader to suppose there has been a general decline in Mandarin, which is not the
case: a higher proportion of the population have basic literacy in Chinese now, and Mandarin is more widely spoken
than ever before. Chinese newspapers sell well, and more television viewing is in Chinese. However, skill in the
highest levels of literacy is probably rarer that in was in those few who were educated in Chinese in the past, which is
presumably why T'sou (1980:279) says that "An educated guess from the knowledgeable would be that overall literacy
in Chinese [in Singapore] has declined since independence''. As we have seen in Chapter One, basic literacy in Chinese
has undoubtedly risen in Singapore since independence, even before the Speak Mandarin campaign.
The absence of a comparable level of involvement with Tamil and Malay has often been remarked on in press debate.
The Minister of Education, Lee Yock Suan (Straits Times, 7 June 1992), responding to this, said that "where feasible,
changes recommended by the committee would be applied to studying other languages, such as studying them at first
language level" and that reviews for Tamil and Malay could be undertaken if there was felt to be a need for them
(Straits Times, 7 June 1992). Why there is no such demand, and the problems caused by the increase in attention to
Chinese, will be examined in the next section.
Mother-tongue Education
... it is important that every effort should be made to provide education in the mother tongue....
On educational grounds we recommend that the use of the mother tongue be extended to as late a stage in education
as possible. In particular, pupils should begin their schooling through the medium of the mother tongue, because
they understand it best and because to begin their school life in the mother tongue will make the break between home
and school as small as possible.
(UNESCO 1951:691 )

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Although the UNESCO axiom is now understood to be problematical (Le Page 1992, Fasold 1992), it still forms the
basis for many educational recommendations. Its adoption is often part of the remediation of discrimination against
minorities or subjugated communities and their languages, and has helped movements wishing to develop languages
that have not previously been used in educational settings. Fasold (1992:281) reminds us that the UNESCO axiom links
mother tongue with groups which are "socially or politically dominated by another group speaking a different
language." This returns us to the minority model of bilingualism which is so inappropriate for Singapore. The need to
remediate underprivilege may operate differently in different situations.
Skutnabb-Kangas (1987:75) divides the bilinguals of the world into four large groups:
(1) Elite bilinguals.
(2) Children from linguistic majorities learning a foreign language, including those involved in "linguistic immersion in
situations in which a more prestigious minority language or a so-called world language . . . is taught to an (oppressed)
linguistic majority in a (formerly) colonized country" (Skutnabb-Kangas 1987:77).
(3) Children from bilingual families.
(4) Children from linguistic minorities.
She sees each of these groups as being under differential pressures to be bilingual, with different consequences of
failure. She also draws distinctions between natural (without formal teaching), school (within the walls of the school),
and cultural (learning a foreign language for cultural reasons) bilingualism on the one hand (Skutnabb-Kangas
1987:95f) and elite and folk bilingualism on the other (p97). Her analysis is based on concepts of minorities and of
oppressed majorities which when translated into Singapore have some rather unexpected impacts. All four types of
bilinguals are present in Singapore. Some individuals are simultaneously in two, three or four of her categories.
Superficially, however, most children seem to be in her second categoryan 'oppressed' Chinese majority immersed in a
'world language'.
To understand the impact of any effort at increasing mother tongue education in Singapore, we need to consider
concepts of majority/minority, of oppression, and of language conflict (e.g. Valdman 1988). The most important sense
of the majority/minority concept in Singapore is racial, not linguistic, with the Chinese community being a
linguistically diverse majority and the Malays and Indians being the two largest minorities (linguistically diverse in the
case of the Indians). The danger is that any attempt to foster a language associated with the 'oppressed' majority would
have negative effects on the status of the minority races.

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The recommendations of Cummins and Swain (1986) are also based on the majority/minority dichotomy. The
assumption is that the majority language will be readily learnt, and that the minority language needs an effort at
maintenance, which has various educational, psychological and social benefits. Children need to achieve a 'threshold'
level of proficiency in both the languages of a bilingual education, but to achieve this "for majority children large doses
of education in their second language will be required, whereas for minority language children large doses of education
in their first language will be required."
To translate the minority/majority perspective into the Singapore requires some gymnastics. What is the majority
language? English is an extremely major and prestigious language in Singapore, the most official of all official
languages, the major medium of all education and the principal language of officialdom. It is also widely used as a
native language. On the other hand Mandarin would appear to have become the major domestic language, replacing
Hokkien which used to be the major domestic language. These are the only two candidates for majority language status.
We have already seen that the Indian and Malay groups show minority behaviour and indeed they have increasingly
come to think of themselves in minority terms. However, minority status is not defined linguistically with regard to
orientation to English, but with regard to Mandarin, as we will see.
English is neutral with regard to racial groups, although not with regard to social groups, as proficiency in and
widespread use of English are associated with more educated groups. The minority groups do not feel threatened by the
imposition of English but do feel threatened by the extension of Mandarin, which is in the process of creating a
linguistic unity among the hitherto linguistically diverse Chinese group, thereby creating, for the first time in
Singapore, a linguistic and cultural majority group which combines majority numbers with social privilege. It could be
said that in recent years Mandarin has in some senses become the majority language not only numerically as a native
language but also in terms of its impact on the minorities. Indeed, as we shall see, in the 1990 election campaign,
politicians contrasted two groups: the English-educated 'minority' with the 'silent majority' of the Chinese-educated.
The bilingualism literature generally links multilingualism with multiculturalism, but in Singapore the prevalent pattern
is (and increasingly) of multilingual individuals whose languages do not represent multiple cultural access. Schumann
(1979:77f) discusses social factors which combine to create bad or good language learning situations. His analysis is in
terms of target language groups and second language groups, a term which again is rather difficult to transfer to a
community in which the languages children learn are generally languages which are to some degree rooted in their own
ethnic and

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cultural groups. This is what I mean by saying that in Singapore multilingualism is not associated with
multiculturalism. When children learn or develop their English they are becoming like high status members of their
own community. If non-Tamil-speaking Tamil children learn Tamil at school they are becoming like members of their
own community who do speak Tamil. Malays who learn English join other English speakers of their own community.
If we apply Schumann's mode of analysis, bearing this difficulty in mind, we find an optimal language learning
situation for English, virtually without psychological distance or culture shock.
Fasold (1992) indicates that there may be both practical and sociolinguistic objections to the use of the mother tongue
in education, and reviews the inconclusive case studies on the benefits of the use of the mother tongue. In Singapore,
practical, sociolinguistic and political objections would seem to preclude the possibility of giving all children the
experience of education in their mother tongues.
First of all, assessing mother tongue would be extremely difficult in a situation where most families are multilingual. It
would not be clear to anyone (parents, assessors, teachers) which was the dominant mother tongue. If children have
more than one mother tongue would education have to be in all the child's mother tongues?
Secondly, there would be problems in the definition of language. The Chinese 'dialects' (such as Hokkien, Teochew,
and Cantonese) have not been taught in Singapore for many years. They are not felt to be appropriate for education, and
Mandarin is seen as their educational counterpart. There would be enormous practical and cultural problems in teaching
the 'dialects', while if Mandarin was deemed to be the (educational) mother tongue of all who spoke any variety of
Chinese, we would still be left with a situation of some children not being given initial education in their mother
tongue.
Because the domestic use of English is still (although to a lessening degree) associated with socially privileged groups,
the separation of speakers of different mother tongues would result in an even greater separation of the social classes
than at present applies. The races would also be separated to an even greater extent than they are now. Applying
Cummins and Swains's distinction between the education of the majority and minority groups would require definition
of majorities and minoritieswould domestic English speakers (of whatever race?) be classed as a majority or as a
minority? Would Mandarin speakers be classed as a majority (and would that mean they were offered more English?
Malay? Tamil?), while Tamil and Malay speakers got more English? Mandarin? I cannot imagine the chaos, ill-feeling,
and discrimination that would result from an inappropriate application of a majority-minority model which does not
transfer into this setting.

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Parents of all races in Singapore see skill in English as a doorway to social status and educational success, which is
why 90% of parents of kindergarten children voted for more English rather than more second language. For cultural
reasons, and to meet the demands of the educations sytem, skill in another language is also seen as desirable. The early
years of education are expected to provide these language skills. In recent years the association of language learning
and primary education has been further emphasised by the phasing out of virtually everything else but language
education and mathematics in the early years of education. Currently, as we have seen, the impetus is to use initial
education to provide the language missing from the home environment. Furthermore, parents in Singapore are used to
being told that a switch to the school languages will benefit their children as "the type of language spoken . . .
contribute[s] to a child's learning of languages" (Ko 1992:164). They have shown how willing they are to switch
domestic language in order to give their children the obvious linguistic advantage of not having to learn both school
languages just in school.
If children were required to have initial education in their native languages, it is highly likely that parents would shift
both claims of domestic language use and actual language use to educationally advantageous languages. If they were
allowed to choose the language of education, the overwhelming majority would choose English, as they did
increasingly until 1987, and as they still do whenever they have a choice. To persuade the population of Singapore to
see education in the real mother tongue as important would require a radical shift both in educational philosophy and in
Singapore's social structure, such that people with skill in English would not be rewarded over people with skill in other
languages. As long as language use and social class remain linked it would appear to be disadvantaging children to
deny them access to the languages of power unless they already speak those languages.
In planning its education system Singapore also needs to consider the issue of political unity of a diverse population,
and cannot, I feel, move towards a system which would so extensively separate classes and races. We have seen how
the English-medium nursery class effectively teaches classroom behaviour by using varieties of English and other
languages on an ad hoc basis. It seems to me that this integrated and casual approach is a more appropriate one for
Singapore. A casual mixing of language, the negotiation of a lingua franca and a readiness to change language
repertoire are all part of normal language use in Singapore. Thus a mixed, relatively open approach mimics what the
children are used to in the wider urban environment, where people of all ethnicities and language backgrounds use the
same public facilities and negotiate language use on a case by case basis. The separation of language groups would
seem like a return to the earlier urban setting when the different ethnic groups lived each in their own areas.

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Quah (1990a, 1990b) discusses how racial and religious consciousness has increased in Singapore in recent years as a
result of the "unintended effects" of the compulsory Religious Knowledge programme, the Speak Mandarin Campaign,
the separation of language groups in the mass media, and the measures to prevent the development of racial enclaves in
HDB estates. Quah suggests a need to focus on nation building "through the renewed emphasis on the common bonds
or similarities among the various races in Singapore instead of focussing on their differences" (Quah 1990b:61).
Referring to the public discussion of the enshrinement of a Singapore ideology in 1989, Bello and Rosenfeld
(1990:319) discuss how ''to the Malays and Indians . . . the effort to make the Confucian culture of the Chinese majority
the cornerstone of the Singaporean ideology is, of course, potentially threatening." Promoters of a pan-Singaporean
identity link it with English: Walter Woon, MP (The Sunday Times 13 September 1992), attacking the East-good/West-
bad assumption, asked whether it was "inimical to our society that many (if not most) English-speaking Singaporeans
are colour-blind." Woon's views on good moral values being independent from language created a month of vitriolic
debate. One participant (He Yaoming, Straits Times 29 September 1992) claimed that in most Singapore families "the
kind of language used . . . is inadequate for any effective transmission of values", which therefore need to be
transmitted at school.
In the Singapore context an increase in education in the actual mother tongue would be seen as disempowering the
lower social classes and as threatening to the minorities.
We have seen that in the Singapore socio-political system (Benjamin 1976, Gupta 1985b, PuruShotam 1990), 'education
in the mother tongue' means education in the language of paternal ethnic ancestry. The offering of education in the
'mother tongue' in this sense does not fulfill the requirements of the UNESCO axiom, as the 'mother tongue' may be a
new language to the child. In response to a letter concerning the Malay and English speaking child of an Indian Muslim
man and a Malay woman, who was required to take Tamil as 'mother tongue' (Malay was requested), Raymond Ong,
answering on behalf of the Permanent Secretary for education confirmed what has been the policy since the early
1980s:
The Education Ministry's second language policy requires that every pupil offer an official mother tongue, be it
Chinese, Malay or Tamil, as a second language.
The mother tongue depends on the child's race, which is determined by the race of the child's natural father.
Any pupil who wishes to offer a second language which is not his mother tongue may apply to do so through his
school.

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The ministry will consider each application on its own merits and give approval on a case-by-case basis.
(Straits Times 16 July 1991)
If we take the Singapore government's definition of 'mother-tongue' and examine the possibility of extending education
in the mother tongue, the situation for the minorities becomes even worse, and social class divisions even more
insidious. The extension of Mandarin education among the Chinese would separate the Chinese from the other races,
foster the use of Mandarin among them (as opposed to English) and may reduce the access to English of those from
homes which cannot support English. At present English is privileged. The groups least likely to speak English to their
children are the lower social groups: so that any reduction in their access to English would further disempower them.
The privileging of Mandarin would empower the majority of working class Chinese. On the other hand the further
empowerment of Mandarin would disempower the minorities.
At present more extensive education in the 'mother tongue' in this sense is being developed in Singapore, and it seems
likely that this will apply only to Chinese.
The government has denied that such campaign slogans "If you are Chinese, make a statementin Mandarin" (the 1990
slogan) and the promotion of the use of Mandarin in the workplace are a threat to the interethnic use of English. For
example, as part of the controversial 1990 campaign the Straits Times ran a series called "Mandarin in the Executive
Suite" which portrayed Mandarin being spoken by the staff of a "multinational company dealing in computers". This
campaign generated a great deal of public discussion, with members of the minority groups expressing fears about job
opportunities.
In 1990 the then First Deputy Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong (now Prime Minister of Singapore) met with members
of the Malay/Muslim community, who indicated four areas of unhappiness, two of which relate to the extension of
Mandarin (Straits Times 8 October 1990). The four areas of unhappiness were:
1. The Speak Mandarin Campaign (putting Malays at a disadvantage in getting jobs as they do not know Mandarin).
2. SAP schools (giving Chinese students an unfair advantage, as these schools, which have better facilities and teachers,
teach only Chinese and English).
3. The discrimination against Malays in the Armed Forces.
4. Stereotyping of Malays as lazy and stupid.
Goh explained the campaign as a need to redress the loss of "sense of culture" among the Chinese, a problem the
Malays did not have, and claimed

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that the Chinese were not being told to speak Mandarin to non-Chinese. This reassurance, and the government's
commitment to English, has been reiterated many times in response to objections from members of the public and
opposition parties. Organizations involved in the promotion of Mandarin are also reminded of the issue. For example
the Minister for Information and the Arts, George Yeo, in a speech at a seminar on promoting Chinese culture in a
multi-racial society emphasised that the promotion should be in a form that was "not exclusive or threatening to other
communities" (quoted in Straits Times 29 June 29 1992).
Goh also undertook to provide SAP schools "for Malays if they wanted it" (Straits Times 8 October 1990, 18 October
1990). However, the minority groups do not want mono-ethnic education with more emphasis on "mothertongue",
which could only disempower them further. The existence of elite schools which are virtually restricted to the majority
Chinese community is seen as a reduction in access to power by the minorities. Gopinathan (1992:62) points out how in
the 1991 educational changes involving changes in the teaching of Mandarin, "the needs of Malay and Indian pupils
remained invisible and unspoken for."
The minority groups are more interested than the Chinese in a pan-Singapore identity based on English. They do not
want education in their 'mother tongues' to be strengthened. Malay is strong and is well-supported within the
community, and while Tamil is culturally supported by some of its speakers, others, in a situation of language loss see
little use in the greater development of a minority language that does not give access to good jobs and positions of
power.
Despite attempts at reassurance that the minorities need not be concerned with the Speak Mandarin Campaign, there
continue to be problems in the promotion of Mandarin, which give the other races the impression that Mandarin is to be
extended to areas which are for the whole population, and where English has hitherto been the expected language. For
example Chen Keng Juan, the president of the Singapore School Teachers' Union, a member of the Chinese Language
Review Committee, drew up a thirteen point list to promote a "favourable environment for the learning of Chinese"
(Straits Times 15 June 1992). These included the suggestion that "the mother tongue should be used at community
centre, residents' committee and other such gatherings." Unlike the use of English, this would deny political access to
the non-Chinese. An Indian teacher reported a case of a school principal making all staff announcements in Mandarin,
as a response to the Speak Mandarin Campaign (Straits Times 4 September 1990). The more that Chinese is used in
hitherto English-using public domains of this sort, the more the minorities are likely to feel excluded.

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There are no race relations laws in Singapore, although, as the then National Development Minister, S. Dhanabalan
pointed out (Straits Times 3 September 1990) it is the case that on the whole "government and top corporations . . .
practise . . . meritocracy." In the private sector, however, job advertisements often stipulate the race or language skills
(often English and Mandarin) required of applicants. Even where race is not given as a requirement, it may be hard for
a non-Chinese to be employed in certain organizations. Braga-Blake (1992:20) reports how "young Eurasians have
begun to speak of the discrimination they experience when seeking jobs." The fear that a time might come "when
Mandarin becomes a virtual requisite for getting a good job" in Singapore was voiced (Straits Times 10 September) by
a member of the tiny Bengali community in Singapore. Quah (1990c:97) identifies a need to ''reduce racial and other
forms of discrimination in the private sector" in Singapore.
A potential solution for a minority fearing that Mandarin might be required for advancement is to learn Mandarin.
Indeed, one Singaporean Indian, Shyamal Bhattacharya, (another Bengali) interviewed by the Straits Times (28 March
1992) actually suggested that all students in Singapore should be required to learn English and Mandarin, to give all
students "regardless of race, equal economic opportunities." The small Eurasian community,only 0.4% of Singapore's
population in 1980 (Braga-Blake 1992:11)are at liberty to choose whatever second language they wish for their
children, but, not surprisingly "Eurasian children experience difficulty in learning Mandarin as a second language in
school" (Braga-Blake 1992:19), hampering progress through the educational hoops. Many therefore choose Malay, in
which high marks are more likely, thus giving easier access to higher education.
PuruShotam discusses how:
the second language as mother tongue learning forecloses the option of Mandarin for the majority of non-Chinese
students, especially Malays, who must offer the Malay language, and Tamil-speaking Indians, for whom the
Tamil language is available. Simultaneously, it enforces the learning of this language by all "Chinese" students.
This creates and maintains a majority-minority thesis and social experience at the everyday life level
(PuruShotam 1990:13)
For some students secondary schools offer a third language (for beginners), which may be Malay, Japanese, French or
German. Some foreign languages are taught at the National University of Singapore also (French, German, Japanese
and Bahasa Indonesia). However, only students literate in Mandarin are permitted to take the Japanese course, and
some teaching is actually taking place in Mandarin. The relative ease of access to Japanese by those proficient in
Chinese may be denying minority groups access to this prestigious and commercially important language. Mandarin
could be offered to non-Chinese

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children both as a third language at secondary school, and at university level. At present non-Chinese who wish to learn
Mandarin attend classes in private language schools.
The emergence of a Mandarin-speaking majority in Singapore has come about partly through the promotion of
Mandarin as the Chinese 'mothertongue' and has exacerbated minority feelings in the minorities. It is also a divisive
issue among the Chinese.
There are substantial numbers of people who either were Chinese-educated or who are noticeably more proficient in
Mandarin than in English. The term "Chinese-educated" may be being used by politicians to cover both these groups.
Even children being educated through the medium of English can be Chinese-focussed, which means that the "Chinese-
educated" are not a dwindling anachronism, but a self-perpetuating group. Many of the "Chinese-educated" have been
disadvantaged by poor English skills, and many of them are noticeably chauvinistic. Singapore's current dilemma is
how to reconcile the perceived needs of these ''Chinese educated" with those of the ethnic minorities.
The "Chinese-educated" are seen as a powerful lobby, whose needs were much emphasised in the period of the General
Election of August 1991. They were seen as responsible for the drop in support for the PAP, and as having been largely
responsible for the election of the three opposition MPs. Speaking, as it happens, at a press conference in Alma Ata, the
Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, disappointed at the PAP's 61% vote, analysed the result as follows:
Singapore's General Election on Aug 31 has shown that the government must refocus and pay greater attention to
the Chinese-educated who form the silent majority, said Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew yesterday.
He said that in the polling three weeks ago, the Chinese-educated group had, in effect, issued a reminder to the
Government that they must not be taken for granted.
By their vote, they were telling the Government that their concerns, such as the dilution of Chinese culture,
language and identity should also receive full government attention, he said.
They were beginning to feel that as the majority, they were being neglected because the government chose to pay
more attention to the English-educated and the Malay community.
(Straits Times 23 September 1991)
Sharing the front page with this report, in the main feature, the Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, promised to "review
its policies over the next two to three months to see how best they can be presented, especially to lower-income
Chinese-speaking Singaporeans."

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The Chinese-educated were disempowered by the devaluation of Chinese-medium education, and the emphasis on
English of the 1970s and are concentrated in what was referred to by the PAP as the "HDB heartlands"they represent
the bulk of the Chinese working class. For their own empowerment, and for cultural reasons, they are pleased by the
promotion of Mandarin. However their needs are opposite to those of the racial minorities of all social classes, who feel
threatened by the promotion of Mandarin. One of Singapore's elder statesmen, S Rajaratnam wrote to the Straits Times
(27 September 1991) expressing his concerns at the way racial issues had developed during and after the election,
concluding that "The Chinese, not the Malays, have suddenly become a high priority ethnic problem" and wondering "if
a Singaporean Singapore is dead, then what arises out of its ashes?'' However, Chua Beng Huat (quoted in Mutalib
1992:73) suggested that "racial issues could have been played up during the Election to prevent the emergence of class
antagonism."
In trade and business links Singapore is increasingly looking towards the Chinese world and the Chinese diaspora,
where Mandarin, and Chineseness, are of enormous value. If Mandarin is not privileged, the continued privileging of
English will disempower those whose Mandarin is good but whose English is weak. These people are unlikely to be
from elite families, as higher prestige families are more likely to use English at home, and are able to maintain a high
standard of English in their children.
The rhetoric of language planning in Singapore is that Singapore needs English for technology and trade (outward
looking) and the 'mother tongues' for culture (inward looking). However, the most important role of English is in
facilitating equal access to power to all the racial groups, and as a lingua franca that crosses cultural and linguistic
boundaries of all sorts within the country. Increased emphasis on Mandarin, if it was accompanied by privileging
Mandarin, would benefit the majority of the population, while disempowering the minorities, unless substantial
arrangements are made to allow the non-Chinese access to Mandarin. A continued emphasis on English in the
Singapore schools is crucial for the maintenance of racial peace.
Singapore's Bilingualism
Some years ago Kuo (1977:28) predicted an "upper and middle-class population [which] would be ethnically
heterogeneous but linguistically homogeneous with English as the lingua franca" contrasted with a working class
population " . . . composed of those educated in ethnic mother languages only". M Lee's (1992:96f) analysis of Straits
Times reports shows three surges of interest in bilingualism. The first was associated with the promotion of Malay and
English bilingualism, during the brief period when Singapore was a part

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of Malaysia. This came to an abrupt end in 1965. Then followed the 1970s, when the main concern was the
development of a high standard of English. Since 1979, concern with English-Chinese bilingualism has dramatically
increased, with the annual Speak Mandarin campaign. Kuo's prediction was made during the period when English was
being promoted while Chinese-medium education continued.
To counter the trend noted by Kuo, most noticeable among the Chinese, the speaking of Mandarin by all the Chinese
was encouraged (from 1979) while at the same time (from 1987) English was made the main medium of education for
everyone. The elite SAP schools, which specialise in the teaching of English and Mandarin to high levels, were
developed, leading to a juvenile Chinese elite at home in both English and Mandarin. This policy already seems to have
led to Chinese schoolchildren and university students increasingly speaking to each other in Mandarin, weakening the
position of English and creating a greater ethnic separation in the elite groups than there has been in the past. In this
way Kuo's prediction has to some extent been offset, although one of the effects of the new policy has been to increase
racial separation among the elite.
The older generation's skills in a range of non-official varieties is devalued: the term 'bilingual' would not be applied to
someone who knew 'only' Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese and English. For example in a Straits Times report of 20
June 1992, Singapore's Senior Minister (and former Prime Minister) Lee Kuan Yew was quoted as saying that "the
number of bilingual Singaporeans decreased with age" with 68% of Singaporeans aged 10 to 24 considering themselves
bilingual dropping to 8% of those over 45 years. Bilingual here means biliterate in two official languages: if
bilingualism were used to refer to knowledge of any two languages, no such drop would be apparent.
The situation in Singapore now is that in any non-segregated school environment there is likely to be a critical mass of
both English speakers and of Mandarin speakers. As long as that is maintained these two languages will continue to
grow in function at the expense of other languages. However there have been a variety of separatist moves in recent
years which make it likely that in the future there will be less racial mixing in schools, including in pre-school centres.
It is important to maintain ethnically integrated schools, not only for the needs of racial harmony, but also in order to
maintain the use among children of SCE, which is at present a major means of expressing cross-ethnic solidarity.
Mandarin is the major threat to SCE. Although many Singaporeans feel that SCE is a deplorable corruption of English,
it seems to me that it is a better basis for skill in English than is another language.

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Where certain languages are privileged, access to them needs to be available across the society. At present access to
English is good, but this needs to be maintained among the working-class Chinese. Minority races would benefit from
greater access to Mandarin.

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5
Speech and Language Therapy in Singapore
(Anthea Fraser Guota and Helen Chandler Yeo )
Introduction
In previous chapters the normal patterns of development of English in Singapore have been outlined. The picture is on
the whole one of success. The children whose development is outlined in Chapters Two and Three suffered no
dislocation, delay, or confusion from their complex multilingual histories. Their development in English was rapid, and
they show every sign of being at ease in it in a range of social situations and of being able to express a range of
functions. Chapter Four showed how responsive the population is to government directives on education, which is one
of the factors that enables the majority of children to be able to proceed through Singapore's highly competitive
education system. However, the study of normal development, in the context of a celebration of rampant
multilingualism, should allow assessment of development in children for whom it may not be as easy as it was for the
children in the study reported in Chapters Two and Three, or for most of the children in the nursery school. In this
chapter we would like to turn to children whose language learning is not smooth.
All over the world, children who could benefit from speech and language therapy frequently fail to get it. There is some
evidence that this is even more true in Singapore than in other places, despite the excellence of health facilities in
Singapore. It is likely that Singapore's pattern of multilingualism is a factor in the low identification rate of speech and
language disorders.
We are just beginning the study of developmental patterns of language in Singapore, and of issues of speech and
language therapy (Gupta and Chandler 1993). We began with a study of the speech and language therapy services in
1990, asking simple questions such as "How many new pediatric cases were seen in 1990" and "What difficulties do
speech and language therapists identify."
Speech and language therapy provision in Singapore has grown dramatically since the mid 80s. Between 1985 and 1990
(the year to which our study

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has reference) the number of therapists grew from around 5 to 20. One aspect of this recent and rapid development is
that there remains little awareness of the function of speech and language therapy in the general community, or in
referring agencies.
Speech and Language Therapy and Multilingualism
Multilingualism presents many difficulties for the speech and language therapist. On the one hand, children from
minority groups may be seen as intellectually disabled simply because they do not speak the majority language. For
example, Cummins and Swain (1986:139f) report cases of children classified as of 'low intelligence' based on a verbal
IQ test in English the results of which were uncritically accepted, whatever the child's language background. In some
cases poor achievement on standardized tests is actually suggested to be due to the 'negative influence' of an ESL
background (Cummins and Swain 1986:190). This does in all likelihood happen in Singapore too, where standardized
psychological tests administered in English, requiring English proficiency, and a knowledge of a foreign culture may
also be used. On the other hand, Cummins and Swain (1986:196) also report cases where "it appears likely that serious
learning problems were not identified by the psychological assessment," especially where non-verbal tests only were
used, and the problem was reading difficulty.
Some children may never get to take tests. It has been suggested that in Britain, for instance, bilingual children are less
likely to be referred for speech and language therapy than monolingual English-speaking children because difficulties
in speaking may be seen by teachers, health visitors and so on as problems in speaking a second language. Those in a
position to refer a child for therapy are unlikely to have access to the child's performance in the first language (Moffatt
1990:2). As a result, in the UK, it has been suggested that children from linguistic minority backgrounds may "be
referred, if at all, when they were much older than monolingual children with the same problems" (Moffatt 1990:2).
Roberts and Gibbs (1989:170) suggest that professionals aware of the dangers of wrongly classifying a child as
'handicapped' when the primary difficulty is a language or cultural one, may be led to "err on the side of caution and
fail to recognize actual difficulties."
Even within Britain, the picture is not clear. It has also been said that children who are bilingual are more likely to find
themselves in speech and language therapy. Some feel that this is because bilingual children are more likely to have
speech and language problems, while others feel it is because they may be referred for therapy because of not having
learnt English. Abudarham (1987b:169) says that "it is claimed that there is some evidence of a greater incidence of
stuttering among West Indian and Asian children in

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Britain." Ara and Thompson (1989:145), report an exceptionally high referral rate for speech and language therapy of
pre-school children from the South Asian community in Manchester. Such children constituted approximately 25% of
total referrals, although the population of South Asian origin is less than 4% of the Manchester population. Ara and
Thompson (1989:144) suggest the possibility that the child may be confused by extensive code switching, and by
having to learn more than one pragmatic system. Miller (1984) seems to see many problems in bilingualism, and, like
Ara and Thompson, sees code-switching or mixing as likely to present difficulties for some children.
This raises the notion that bilingual children may be more likely than monolingual children to suffer from speech and
language delay and disorders. It should be remembered that bilingualism in Singapore is not associated with
biculturalism and that code-switching and repertoire shift are both normal parts of linguistic behaviour for the general
population. If bilingual children really are more likely to suffer from language problems (an idea we are not very happy
with), we should see many more children in need of intervention in Singapore than in the less multilingual UK, for
example. Impressionistically, this is not the case, and stuttering does not seem to be more prevalent in Singapore than
in the UK. Stuttering may result from a sense of inadequacy: thus if dysfluency is more common among bilingual
children in the UK it may be because such children come from bilingual minorities, and are faced with the intolerance
of a monolingual majority. In Singapore, where bilingualism is not associated with minority status, a bilingual child
tries out multiple languages in a more supportive atmosphere. In this paper we will assume that the rate of speech and
language disorders in Singapore can be predicted to be approximately the same as in the UK.
Pragmatically Rich, Morphologically Simple, Languages
A further complicating factor in Singapore is that colloquial varieties of most of the languages involved, including, as
we have seen, English, have been very much influenced by contact with each other and do not correspond with written
descriptions of their corresponding standard/formal languages. The majority of speech and language therapists (over
75% in 1990) are foreigners, few Singaporeans having trained for speech and language therapy. This adds to the
difficulties, as generally the only one of Singapore's languages which is spoken by the therapists is English. The speech
and language therapist language profile in 1992 is a shown in Table 5.1.
The language names here are those the speech and language therapists gave for inclusion in the Directory of Speech
Therapy and Audiology Services in Singapore. European languages and Indian languages are well covered, but the
varieties of Chinese are less well served, with only 7 of the 22 therapists being

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able to speak any sort of Chinese. There is an urgent need for more speech and language therapists who are proficient
in a range of the languages used in Singapore: about six students at present training overseas are expected to return to
Singapore within the next two years.
The spoken varieties of the languages used in Singapore, including SCE, share many linguistic features in common. In
all of them there are many context-sensitive features which require the cooperation of speaker and hearer. These
include, as we have seen in earlier chapters, the absence of tense and number marking, the optional deletion of a
pronominal subject or object, and the use of pragmatic particles which build on shared judgments of situation and which
make explicit the speaker's attitude to what is said.
Table 5.1 Speech and language therapists by language skill.
Language Number of therapists
Varieties of Chinese
Mandarin 2
Hokkien 1
Chinese 3
Dialects 1
Malay
Malay 5
Indian Languages
Bengali 1
Hindi 4
Kannada 4
Malayalam 1
Marati 1
Punjabi 3
Tamil 5
Telugu 1
European Languages
English 22
Dutch 2
French 4
German 3

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Children seem to find it easier to learn the pragmatics of language than to learn complex syntax (Slobin 1985). One of
the effects of SCE's morphologically simple grammar is, as we have seen in Chapters Two and Three, to produce a
normal child language with few errors. This has also been found in studies of other languages with extensive context-
sensitive features, including Japanese (Clancy 1985) and Kaluli (Schieffelin 1985).
Learning pragmatically rich, morphologically simple, languages may allow children learning SCE to develop in some
functional and conceptual areas (e.g. threats, conditionals) at an earlier stage than do children who are grappling with
complex morphology and syntax. The effect of this on children with language handicap is not at all clear. Learning an
'easier' language may initially facilitate language learning, resulting in fewer children with functional language
handicap. However, such facility may mask real language difficulties which become apparent only when StdE is
demanded of the child in the school system.
The ease of learning syntactically simple, pragmatically elaborate, varieties like SCE and like Chinese may also be one
of the factors that allow Singaporean children to learn a large number of languages, and to change language repertoire
with no evidence of social dislocation, as the children in the two families of this book did. In its grammar, SCE is mid-
way between Standard English and Chinese. It is also structurally closer to Malay than is Standard English (Gupta
1991b). Chinese, Malay and SCE are all languages with few inflections, which are pragmatically rich and
morphologically simple. This may allow SCE to create a bridge which facilitates the subsequent learning of StdE, as is
required in the school system. Community acceptance of changing repertoire is also a factor here, but so is the adult
acceptance and use of languages which allow for the pragmatically rich 'telegraphic' language that children seem to
favour.
Another major element in Singapore's multilingualism is the linguistic tolerance of its population. Every Singaporean
has the experience of being more fluent in some languages within their repertoire than in others. Everyone also has the
daily experience of needing to communicate with people whose best language is not the same as one's own best
language. This disparity may even operate within families, as it did in the families reported in Chapter Two. This
experience results in a pragmatic attitude to language in which the focus in face-to-face interaction is on
communication, not correctness, and in which interlocutors are less likely to be surprised by unusual structures,
pronunciations and so on. The impatience and intolerance that majority members of a largely monolingual community
often show with second language or foreign language speakers are generally not seen in Singapore, where people
expect to learn a range of languages in order to maximise communication, and expect to use them. Unfortunately this
tolerance may be inappropriately extended to cover usages outside the normal.

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Another cultural attitude which can present problems is the widespread view that learning the school languages is what
really matters (and here the cultural ethos is very normative). Children are not likely to present for intervention until
they start doing badly at school. A child's slow development in Hokkien, or even in SCE, may be identified but not
seen as important, the focus being on the acquisition of the school languages (Mandarin and Standard English, for
example) and of literacy. Learning taking place at home may be devalued: it may be assumed that the school will sort
out any problems. This is related to official approaches which may measure a child's cognitive development by a child's
development in English.
Speech and Language Therapy Provision in Singapore
Speech and language therapists in Singapore are working within a mosaic of private, voluntary and public facilities. In
Singapore many organisations can be described as semi-governmental. One government hospital has an attached speech
and language therapy service. Four voluntary welfare organisations catering for children with special needs (the
multiply handicapped, the deaf, and cerebral palsy), and two of the privatised hospitals have speech and language
therapy services attached. These six centres are substantially assisted by government. Other speech and language
therapy services are in the completely private sector: one is in a hospital, and another in a private school which has a
substantial special needs unit, while two Singaporean speech and language therapists are in independent private
practice. There are no speech and language therapists attached to mainstream state or state-aided schools and none of
the pre-school services provide speech and language therapy.
The potential referring agencies in Singapore are kindergartens, schools, and doctors. Self-referral to speech and
language therapy by a patient or the parent of a patient is common. There is no service in Singapore comparable to the
Health Visitor in the UK. Medical agencies in Singapore seldom make home visits: this is true of doctors, and also of
speech and language therapists. Speech and language therapy typically takes place in the premises of the therapist, and
in mant centres the therapist has to achieve a target number of cases per day. This situation makes inappropriate some
of the recommendations which have been made by speech and language therapists having the British situation in mind.
Abudarham (1987a:81) and Miller and Abudarham (1984), for example, stress the importance of a home visit in
allowing for assessment of a child's situation, which in Singapore is hardly ever possible.
In Singapore, children with identifiable medical conditions associated with speech and language disability (such as
cerebral palsy, cleft palate, hearing impairment, etc.) may be referred for speech and language therapy through medical
and voluntary agencies. As anywhere else (Enderby and Philipp 1986)

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even in these cases some children who would benefit from therapy fail to get it, both from lack of awareness and lack
of speech and language therapists.
Many of the organizations that might be expected to have a speech and language therapy service, do not. Until 1992
neither of the two major organisations in Singapore which provide education for the mentally disabled had speech and
language therapy provision (one now does), yet it could be anticipated that a substantial proportion of the mentally
disabled need speech and language therapy (Quirk 1972:75, Enderby and Davies 1989). One of the two schools for the
deaf, which offers an education using the aural-verbal approach, does so without input from a speech and language
therapist.
Estimates of Incidence of Speech and Language Disability
We began by attempting to compare the rate of referral for speech and language therapy in Singapore with the rate in
UK, where speech and language therapy is longer established and has a less medical orientation. It is not really possible
to examine the difference between incidence and treatment, in order to show the extent of any under-referral. Estimates
of incidence of speech and language difficulties vary considerably depending on the nature of the sample and the type
of assessment used (Webster 1988).
Enderby and Philipp (1986:154) estimate that in the UK in 1975 school age children had speech and language disorders
at a rate of 0.4% of the child population, apparently excluding children who stammered and those with known causative
factors. Estimates of language disorder alone range from 0.1% to 1%, and of language delay vary widely too, from 1%
to 5% of five year olds, for instance (French 1990:3). Taking the lower figures, we could expect a minimum of about
3000 3-9 year olds with language delay in Singapore, and 300 with language disorder. If, as Enderby and Davies (1989)
estimate, serious communication disorders affect 5% of school age children, we would expect around 15,000
Singaporean children aged 5-9 to be in need of speech and language therapy. As we shall see, the actual numbers being
seen by therapists do not approach these figures.
It remains to be seen whether the proportion of children needing speech and language therapy is the same from one
community to another. A major cohort study would be required to assess the incidence of speech and language
disorders in Singapore, which we do not have the resources to do. Also, as we will see, many issues need exploring
before that becomes possible. It is also very difficult (everywhere) to establish how many children are undergoing
therapy at any point. In Singapore none of the speech and language therapists keeps computerized records of cases.
Even if they did, and could retrieve information, irregular attendance and attendance at more than one centre both make
calculating the number of people in therapy extremely difficult.

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Our starting point, then, is to compare the proportion actually referred for therapy in Singapore with the proportion
actually referred in a region of the UK, for which the figures were available to us. Even discovering the number of new
cases is not easy. Figures are not always collated, or are kept in a way that makes them comparable for one place to
another. 'Referred' is also an unfortunate choice of word, which should be glossed as 'presenting themselves for the first
time'. We attempted, then to find the number of new pediatric speech and language therapy cases in Singapore in 1990.
UK Northern Region Referrals and Singapore Referrals
We have collected data on referrals to speech and language therapy in Singapore in 1990, and will compare these with
the Körner Implementation Statistics (annual returns related to health made by National Health Service practitioners
including speech and language therapists) for the Northern Region of the United Kingdom for 1990. The collated UK
figures were not available to us at the time of writing. The Northern region covers Northumberland, Cumbria, Tyne and
Wear, Durham, and Cleveland. National Health Service speech and language therapists in the region were asked how
many 'initial contacts' were made during the year, 'initial contact' being the first face-to-face contact with a patient
during an episode of care. The rate in Table 5.2 is calculated on the basis of the 1989 population figures.
In the Northern Region, the age group 3-4 had the highest rate of referral and age 5-9 the second highest. At the other
end of England, the Frenchay HSTMS data (Enderby and Davies 1989: 305) saw a smaller proportion of the population
for speech and language therapy. If we compare initial contact rates for Northern Region, Frenchay, and Singapore, (for
the age group 0-15 years) we see Singapore far behind both Northern Region and Frenchay (Table 5.3).
If Singapore had a comparable rate to Northern Region's, every year speech and language therapists in Singapore would
be seeing for the first time around 4500 children aged 3-4, and around 3000 children aged 5-9. In fact the total number
of pediatric speech and language therapy referrals reported in Singapore in 1990 was only 766.
We recognise that the speech and language therapy services in the Northern Region are at a high level of coverage
relative even to other parts of the UK. However the level of coverage even in the Northern Region is still below the
recommended levels based on estimates of incidence. As a centralized city-state with a good level of general health
provision, Singapore should be aiming for an optimal coverage of paramedical services, including speech and language
therapy.

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Table 5.2 Initial Contacts for Speech Therapy, Northern Region, 1990
Age 3-4 5-9
Population1 99,300 195,000
Initial contacts 5005 2606
Rate 6.3% 1.34%
1 The Körner Statistics population estimates give population for <1,
1-4, and 5-9, while the speech and language therapy statistics bracket
0-2, 3-4, and 5-9 (reflecting school boundary points). The population
estimate 3-4 here is calculated by dividing the total population 0-4 by
5 and multiplying by 2.
Table 5.3 Initial Contacts for Speech Therapy 0-15, Northern Region,
1990, Frenchay 1987-88, Singapore 1990
Percentage ofage group
Northern Region 1.68
Frenchay .41
Singapore .11
Sources of Referrals
In the UK's Northern Region the health visitor service and the education service are major referring agencies. The
categories meaningful in the UK do not perfectly convert to another medical system. Details of the source of referrals
in Singapore are available only for the National University Hospital (NUH) for October 1989 - October 1990. Some
regrouping allows comparison of the Northern Region's sources of referrals with NUH's. NUH is one of the two large
privatised, non-profit, government-owned hospitals and has Singapore's second largest speech and language therapy
centre (three therapists in 1990). Although it does get many internal referrals from other departments within the
hospital, its referral pattern is not unusual in showing the large number of medical referrals, the low number of
educational referrals, and the high rate of self-referrals (Table 5.4).
During this period at NUH the majority of patients were referred by hospital specialists. Most of these referrals (91%)
were from specialists within NUH, which is perhaps not surprising. Slightly more referrals were coming to NUH from
general practice (in Singapore, this covers private practice, maternal and child health clinics, the armed forces' medical
service and government polyclinics) than from general practice in the UK. There was a very high rate of

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Table 5.4 Source of referrals in Northern Region and to NUH.
Northern Region NUH1
% %
General practice 5.89 12.14
Specialist/other medical 30.73 56.07
Health visitor/nursing 25.47
NA
Social service 2.57
NA
Education service 16.87
6.63
Self referral 3.99 24.94
Speech therapists in
other districts 2.17 -
Other 12.29 -
N = 14,319 N = 4531
1 Chandler, Maren and Buller (1990) give the number of referrals as
457: there are 4 individuals who may have been counted twice.
self-referral (which includes parental referral in the case of children), and rather fewer referrals from the schools.
The school referral rate is even more imbalanced than it looks. Only 4 children were referred directly from the schools'
health clinic. 57% of the other schools referrals were from two special schools: one for the hearing impaired and the
other for the multiply handicapped. The remaining schools referrals were from a single private school catering for
expatriate children and following the British syllabus, with which NUH has special links. The (excellent) medical
services associated with the Singapore schools deal primarily with physical problems, such as dental and eye care, and
obesity control. A school based psychology service has now (1992) begun on a pilot basis, but was not in operation in
1990. It seems unlikely that a speech and language therapist will be associated with this service.
Discussion with other speech and language therapists and our questionnaire results suggest that other centres share with
NUH the high rate of self-referral, and the low rate of referral from the Education Service.
1990 Pediatric Speech Referrals in Singapore
There is no centralised collection of statistics on speech and language therapy in Singapore. However, the speech and
language therapists in Singapore have regular talks and meetings and as individuals were readily accessible to us. The
final version of our questionnaire was distributed in May 1991. The

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questionnaire had two parts: an impressionistic section asking about salient aspects of speech and language therapy in
Singapore, and a quantitative section which asked for the numbers of new pediatric cases grouped according to age and
5 diagnosis categories. A list of definitions was attached which most speech and language therapists had felt they could
operate with.
Some sort of response was received from all 10 major centres and full numerical responses were received from 8 of the
10. The principal reason for the incomplete response is the high turnover of speech and language therapists in
Singapore, which results in a discontinuity in record keeping. The absence of local training of speech and language
therapists in Singapore is one factor in the unusually large numbers of non-Singaporeans in the profession, which in
turn affects the turnover rate. Some clinics kept no records during 1990, and none had computerised their records.
In August 1991 a questionnaire on referral practices was sent to Polyclinics, potentially a major referring agency. This
asked for estimates, not exact figures, and produced a helpful response. 11 of the 20 currently-operating clinics which
were approached responded.
Findings
Despite the incomplete response, the returns do show the extremely variable awareness of speech and language therapy
on the part of the referring agencies, a low rate of referral compared to UK, and the difficulties faced by speech and
language therapists working in a multilingual context.
The returns (Table 5.5) show the low rate of speech and language therapy take-up in Singapore, and indicate how new
cases are coming forward at late ages. The remaining centre which returned partial figures had 282 new pediatric cases,
166 of whom were below two years of age. This is the largest speech and language therapy centre in Singapore. Only 5
cases (all below age 2) were diagnosed by this centre as isolated language delay, while 72 children aged 0-2 and 53
children over two had a known cause for their disorders. In addition a high rate of phonological disorder was reported.
The figures illustrate one of the recurring comments from the therapists: a late referral date. Although virtually all the
doctors gave 2 years as the appropriate age for referral for speech and language therapy of a non-speaking child (one
gave 4 years as the appropriate age), the peak age for initial therapy referral is actually 3-5 years, even for children with
readily identifiable pathologies which are likely to cause speech difficulty. In only one speech and language therapy
centre was 0-2 the peaking age for referral. Many children are being referred at a much later age than is desirable: more
than 70 children with a known cause for language disability were first being seen in the age range 6-9 (62% of speech
and language therapy referrals at that age).

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Table 5.5 New pediatric speech and language therapy cases in
Singapore, 1990
Known Isolated Articulation/ TOTAL Singapore
Cause lang. delay dysfluency Population
Age
0-2 117 9 1 129 133,800
133,800
3-5 124 33 38 203 130,220
130,220
6-9 70 16 20 113 164,080
164,080
10-15 23 7 8 39 241,68
241,68
TOT 334 65 67 484 452,268
[Note: the rows do not total because of partial returns by one centre]
It is true that 'first referral' in these figures means 'first referral to this centre' and that unknown numbers of these
children may have been seen by other centre(s) at an earlier stage. Some children who are on waiting lists for one
centre will be taken to see another therapist until they are admitted to the program of their choice. A high turnover of
therapists in some organisations may result in the temporary withdrawal of speech and language therapy provision from
an organisation, which may prompt some parents to take up therapy elsewhere. In a few cases children are seen
simultaneously by two therapists, sometimes without the knowledge of the therapists. Shopping around, and therapist
hopping were mentioned as problems by many of the therapists.
Very few children are referred for speech and language therapy who are then diagnosed as having isolated language
delay. Only 70 were seen for the first time in 1990 (a rate of 0.01% for children aged 0-15, compared to the estimates in
the literature of a minimum of 1% of children needing therapy for language delay and disorder).
Polyclinics also report seeing few children with speech and language difficulty. Those they do see are likely to be
referred in the first instance to ENT, and as the clinics do not follow up the results of the referral it is not known
whether hearing loss accounts for most of these identified difficulties. The clinics which responded saw from 382 to as
many as 7000 children per month. Between them the clinics saw around 18,000 children per month. The rate of
children seen with speech and language difficulty ranged from less than .01% of these to 0.2% (only one clinic was this
high!), both of which are considerably below the likely incidence level, and below the UK referral rate. Although the
question asked for a rate per month most clinics sent so few children for speech and language therapy that they were
obliged to answer this question as a rate per year. The clinic which saw only .01% of children with

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speech and language problems dealt with 1700 children per month and had identified only one child as having speech
and language problems in the last six months. At the other extreme, a clinic seeing 469 children per month had referred
6 children with speech and language problems over a six month period.
The low rate of referral from referring bodies results in there being few unnecessary referrals. In the UK as many as
60% of newly referred children may be assessed by the speech and language therapist as needing no intervention
(Enderby and Davies 1989:305). On the other hand, in Singapore, speech and language therapists report that virtually
all children presenting for assessment are diagnosed as being in need of intervention. This in itself suggests that many
children in need of intervention are being passed over by referring agencies.
Even if a polyclinic or other agency refers a child for speech and language therapy this does not mean it will be taken
up. Once a referral is made parents can choose which centre to attend, and whether to attend or not. Many will not
pursue the referral at all. Others who make an initial contact will not appear for the appointment, or will attend only
once. Nearly every therapist commented on the high no-show rate. In some centres the no-show rate is as high as 25-
50% of all referrals. Private charges for therapy are around S$35 per session with the most expensive centre costing
$42.50 for half an hour (£1 = S$2 approx.). However, cheaper therapy is available at government centres (from $3 to
$12 per session), and many organisations offer assistance. Voluntary Welfare Organisation's schools do not charge extra
for speech and language therapy above normal monthly charges for school attendance. Cost may be a factor in the high
no-show rate but we feel it is more likely that speech and language difficulties are not seen as sufficiently serious
disorders to invest in the time and trouble needed to pursue therapy. This relates to the general societal acceptance of
linguistic variation. An acceptance of linguistic variation has positive manifestations, such as a tolerance for use of
language by speakers of low proficiency, and the acceptance of changing language repertoire in childhood. However, if
members of a community are tolerant there seems to be a danger that they will also accept the pathological.
It might be added at this point that the case load of speech and language therapists varies dramatically from centre to
centre. Looking at new referrals only, the number of referrals per annum in most centres was from 33 to 71 per
therapist. In one centre, however, the sole therapist was overwhelmed by 282 new cases in 1990 (by 1992 she was no
longer alone). The voluntary welfare organisations, following official guidelines, allocate speech and language
therapists on a ratio of 1 therapist to 100 children in school (whether all children in the school need speech and
language therapy or not), which is not felt to allow for adequate direct therapy. Even with the present low referral

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and high no-show rate there is a dire shortage of therapists. We have suggested that children who would benefit from
speech and language therapy are not being referred, but if they were referred the present service could not cope with
them. On the other hand, speech and language therapists cannot request for an extension of the speech and language
therapy unless there can be proved to be a need for it . . .
Assessment of Language Disability in Singapore
Assessing the bilingual child presents even more problems in Singapore than in the UK. In the UK, as in Singapore,
''there is a paucity of information about the development of L1 in languages other than English" (Moffatt 1990:403).
However, where a child is acquiring English in England, it can be assumed that "one of the fundamental linguistic
findings is that early emerging morphology and syntax of English seem to develop in a similar pattern in both first and
second language English, in primary school aged children" (Duncan 1989:13, also Kessler 1984). This allows Duncan
to suggest the appropriacy of profiles such as LARSP (Crystal, Fletcher and Garman 1989) for assessing the morpho-
syntactic development of L2 English.
This is not the case in Singapore, where the variety of English the child is likely to learn first, Singapore Colloquial
English, has, as we have seen, a different pattern of development from varieties of British English and of Standard
English.
There are two stages in assessment. The first is that someone, not a speech and language therapist, has to decide that a
referral for speech and language therapy may be advisable. Unless this initial screening is done no-one will ever get to a
speech and language therapist for intervention. Anyone who comes into contact with a child becomes a potential
referring agency, but especially important are parents, teachers, and general practitioners or pediatricians. We would
like to see the extension of awareness of speech and language therapy into all these groups. We are hoping to be able to
train pre-school teachers to perform informed assessments of the children they see daily, allowing them to be referred
for a professional assessment.
An initial screening chart needs to be developed, something on the same lines as Masland's speech and hearing
checklist (1970) issued by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the deaf, which asks parents such questions as
whether their baby of 3-6 months turns the eyes in the direction of a voice, and whether a 2 year old can use some
words. Gupta drew up such a list, which relates to features of common languages in Singapore, and illustrates points in
SCE. Such a list should refer to functions. Cross-linguistic assessments can be principally on functions of speech
(French 1989) both at this level of screening and at the therapist level.

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WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT YOUR CHILD TO BE ABLE TO DO
By
1 Has said the first word.
years Words may not be recognisable to people outside family circle.
2
years 2 word speeches but not like adult language! Pronunciation,
grammar and meaning all quite peculiar.
Can identify a lot of objects both in real life and in pictures.
3
years Pronunciation may still be hard for other people to understand
but should be improving.
What/Where questions [or equivalent words in other languages].
Negatives"Don't want". [and equivalents in other languages].
Holds conversations.
Should be able to draw so that drawing stays on paper. What they
draw might not be recognisable.
4
years Pronunciation should be clear to other people who speak the
same language.
Should be able to tell you about something they have done, when
you were not there, so that you can more or less follow the story.
Why/how questions [and equivalents in other languages. (But not
when )
Drawings look something like what they are supposed to be.
5
years Can hold a long and clear conversation (in their best language or
dialect, or a mixture). Conversation makes sense even to people
outside the family. Can quarrel. Persuade.
Can read own name when printed. Can copy simple shapes,
including the shapes of letters.
This initial screening test was presented to parents at a talk in English to parents at the pre-school centre (Loke Kit Ken
presented a similar guide at the same time in Mandarin). An edited version of the chart (Yeo 1992, written by the
nursery supervisor) was published in Petir (Publication of the People's Action Party), with a report of the talk, which
would disseminate it to members of Singapore's major political party.
Such a guideline to parents and other potential referring agencies could form the basis for identifying children with
problems. In fact, several parents approached the speakers (Gupta and Loke) after the session with accounts of children
who might well prove to have difficulties. They included a Mandarin-speaking child of 4;6 who was described by her
mother as having speech so unclear that people could not understand her, and a voice with a rough quality which
everyone had commented upon. A doctor had recommended this child for therapy, but the parents had not taken up the
suggestion because they

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thought it would put too much pressure on child. Such responses suggest that this chart could be given a wider
publicity, that might result in children coming for assessment before they begin primary school.
The initial assessment is by the referring agency. The second assessment is by the speech and language therapist. The
speech and language therapy practitioner in Singapore needs to assess all the child's languages in the light of the norms
of the speech community in Singapore. At discussions with the speech and language therapists great interest was
expressed in hearing more about normal development in SCE, and in learning more about the grammar of SCE so that
errors could be identified. It might be assumed by readers from linguistically intolerant communities that therapists
continually assess SCE-speaking children against the norms of StdE and find them wanting. This appears not to be the
case. The therapists are well aware that children not exposed to StdE cannot be expected to speak it, and know that
non-standard sentences might be expected in SCE. What they do not know is how to recognise an ill-formed utterance
in SCE.
There has as yet been no standardization of any language tests in Singapore, a major need. Abudarham (1987a)
discusses the problems in converting standardized tests to other languages and stresses the importance of local
calibration. It is not enough to simply translate standardized tests, which, due to differences between languages, "may
alter the complexity of the stimulus questions to which the child has to respond" (Abudarham 1987a:88). Susan Rickard
Liow has made efforts at developing norms for bilingual versions of various tests on a large sample of schoolchildren.
At present these tests are being done only in English and Mandarin: ultimately they need to be extended to Malay,
Tamil, and languages other than school languages.
At present, some speech and language therapists assess children using tests standardized in the UK or USA (but with
caution, in the absence of local calibration, and especially where tests are administered in languages other than
English), while others resist standardized testing and rely on informal assessment. Certainly when a therapist is faced
with a child from a multilingual home speaking a cocktail of languages which the therapist does not wholly share,
assessment inevitably is somewhat improvised.
Faced with a patient with whom they do not have a common language, some speech and language therapists refer
patients to a therapist who is known to have skills in relevant languages. This puts a heavy burden on those few
Singaporean therapists who have skills in other languages, especially in Chinese. The most experienced speech and
language therapist in Singapore, and a Singaporean (who has since died), said that most of her patients were Mandarin-
speaking and that she assessed patients in the languages they were most exposed to.

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Therapy aides (informally trained) are used in at least four centres, but under supervision only, and are not competent
to carry out assessments or intervention independently. As in the UK (Moffatt 1990) there is no professional class of
translator in the medical services although ad hoc translators are sometimes used. Patients' relatives and untrained
interpreters (informally appointedfor example nurses and secretaries) were also used to translate. Several writers have
pointed out the problems of using ad hoc and untrained interpreters (e.g. Barnett 1989, Miller and Abudarham 1984,
Guidelines of the College of Speech Therapists (UK) 1990, Moffatt 1990). The establishment of a professional grade of
multilingual therapy co-worker in Singapore would represent a considerable improvement in the situation.
Case Studies
Speech and language therapists faced with SCE, especially those from outside the region, may have one of two
responses to hearing it from a patient. On the one hand, they may measure it by StdE and see everything as
pathological. In practice, this seldom seems to happen. What is more likely is that the therapist will see SCE as a
variety in which 'anything goes' and will accept as SCE anything a client produces. In this section we will present some
extracts from SCE speaking children who were undergoing therapy and indicate why certain structures are not
acceptable SCE.
The children whose usage is exemplified here are discussed clinically in Rickard Liow and Chandler (1992). All of
them show the characteristic pattern of late referral. All have SCE as the principal or sole home language, no hearing
problem, and no significant medical conditions.
The first child, 'Karen', was referred by a pediatrician at the age of 4;2, despite the pediatrician's having made a
diagnosis of 'familial speech delay' a year previously. Her kindergarten teacher felt that there was nothing wrong,
probably because her behaviour was normal and her play appropriate for her age. Karen initially used single words,
seldom spontaneously. As her speech began to develop, she started to use fluent and confident SCE speech to talk
spontaneously about present and past events, but when asked to talk about specific topics she had great difficulty
formulating sentences and finding vocabulary.
Karen had particular difficulty using prepositions. Prepositions are used in SCE in essentially the same way as in StdE.
When Karen (at age 6;2) produced sentences such as:
Put the car in the petrol.
Put the lock in the key.
Put the oven in the cake.
The box is in the pencil.

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Give the Karen to the blocks.
They give to the bread to . . . to . . . to somebody.
the sentences were ungrammatical in SCE, as in StdE, because:
(a) in and to must precede the nomial they govern, in the car/lock/oven/to Karen/somebody.
(b) except for marked structures, the direct object (petrol/key/cake/the blocks ) must follow the verb
Ungrammaticality of the sort Karen has here is also not to be expected in normal development of SCE. The absence of
a third person subject (these are not imperatives) on the other hand, is grammatical in SCE. The use of the before the
proper name was attested by the normally developing children in my study, although it is not part of mature SCE.
Karen also had difficulty repeating sentences, even when the sentence presented to her was a wellformed SCE sentence
she had said herself on a previous occasion. For example:
The children happy because Children's Day go to the
Therapist: zoo.
Child: The children . . . is . . . going the zoo.
(Karen, 6;0)
Karen pauses here twice. Her repetition omits the main predicate, happy, and simply picks up the beginning and end of
the sentence. Karen also could not follow two step directions without contextual support. Her linguistic memory was
limited. Rickard Liow and Chandler concluded that "her apparently intact conversational understanding relied on the
fact that much of the information being discussed was already shared or predictable knowledge."
Another child, 'Sharon', was referred by her father, a doctor, at age 3;6, at which point she had around 50 single words
and some memorised phrases. As she developed during therapy she produced utterances (at age 5;0) such as 'I /no/ me'
( = "I don't know") and:
Sharon I got swim red.
The grammatical SCE equivalent of this would be "I got red swimsuit." The use of one's name (Sharon ) instead of a
pronoun is a developmental stage in all children, of course, although it is unusual in SCE-learning children as well as in
StdE-learning children to use it alongside the pronoun (Sharon I ) The ordering of adjective-noun is the same in SCE as
in StdE (red swimsuit ) and, as in StdE swim cannot be used as a noun in the sense swimsuit.
At this stage too, she used 'I don't want' as a general negational formula. This is a common SCE formula used by
children to mean 'I don't want to do it/eat it' etc.. Sharon extended it even further. For example, Sharon, her mother, and
the therapist were looking at a picture of three girls. Sharon

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identified one of them by her own name, and the second by the name of one of her two sisters, Philippa. The therapist
pointed to the third girl:
Therapist:So what about this girl?
1
Is this Philippa or is this
2 Sharon?
Sharon: I don't want!
3
Mother: Ruth. [name of third
4 sister]
Here Sharon's 'I don't want' seems to be a forceful way of indicating that the therapist (who has a history of confusing
Sharon's two sisters) is talking rubbish, equivalent to normal SCE 'No what', 'No lah' or 'How can?', StdE 'Certainly not'
or 'No way'. For Sharon, 'I don't want' appears to have been an unanalysed chunk that could be used in any emphatic
denial.
Sharon has made excellent progress in therapy, and now, a year later, at 6;0, she exploits the particle system of SCE to
use forceful speech. For example, the therapist had cancelled an appointment with Sharon. On her next appointment
Sharon referred to this, not marking the tense reference, as is usual in SCE:
Sharon: You busy.
1
Therapist: What?
2
Sharon: You busy lor.
3
Here the therapist has not understood the time reference. Sharon uses the assertive particle lor to point to the validity of
the assertion, based on something the therapist already knows.
A boy, J, was referred by a polyclinic doctor at the age of 4;6 when he showed "extremely distractible attention, much
echolalia and largely jargon spontaneous speech" (Rickard Liow and Chandler). He could not understand simple
instructions and could not maintain a conversation. Even by 6;10 he could not follow two-step directions, had a
severely restricted vocabulary and became confused if the topic moved from the immediate setting. Both syntax and
semantics were disordered.
Put on the pants the leg ( = "put the pants on the leg". Same issues of preposition and word order as with Karen.)
The boy is sitting the cry, he crying the sitting. ( = "the boy is sitting (in the tree) and crying". In SCE as in StdE
the can only precede noun phrases. Here cry and sitting appear to be verbs. J seems to be creating some sort of
serial verb here in a way certainly not possible in SCE)
Carrying the man. ( = "The man is carrying". The absence of copula and object are possible in SCE, but not the
word order with the verb first, then the subject.)

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Utterances like these may be un-decodable in SCE as in StdE. Another child, Y, when asked (at age 7;0) why workers
in a picture of a building-site were wearing helmets, was unable to produce an answer which was contingent upon the
question:
Therapist:And why are they wearing helmets?
Boy: HelmetsBecause the helmet . . . is . . . going wear . . . in the
man.
Y repeats in his because clause the content words of the question. He responds to a why question with because but does
not understand the semantic relationship implied. His answer is not a very successful repetition either, with the
introduction of the preposition in in front of the semantic subject, and the reversion of positions of subject and object.
The neglect of the singular/plural distinction, however, which would be of interest in a child learning StdE, is a normal
part of SCE.
Therapists faced with SCE-speaking children need to concentrate on different linguistic aspects than therapists working
with StdE-speaking children. StdE has well-known developmental landmarks such as the plural marker, tense marking,
the third person singular present tense, the genitive, and the copular verb. These features will not be regular in children
learning SCE, whereas in children learning StdE they can be expected to be categorial at age 4. These morphological
structures do present challenges for children. SCE is generally easier, as we have seen, so that a child with a disorder
might progress better than they would if they were learning StdE. For example, the StdE She went to the supermarket to
buy bread is a lot harder that the SCE Go supermarket buy bread. However, vocabulary level, fluency, and
connectedness of ideas should not be affected by the variety being learnt. Therapists need to concentrate on these areas,
and on language functions. It is also necessary for therapists to be able to identify structures which are not well-formed
in SCE. This would include aspects of word order and use of prepositions.
These children are all moderately or severely language disordered. All use English as one of their main languages, and
all are in mainstream schools. They would have benefitted from an earlier referral date.
Linguistic Tolerance Masking Language Disability
We have seen how multilingualism is near-universal in Singapore and is therefore not associated with minority groups,
as it is in the UK. Many of the issues relating to cultural difference discussed by papers in the collections edited by
Abudarham (1987), Duncan (1989) and Miller (1984) are irrelevant in a majority bilingual community. The sense of
fear, discomfort, and cultural gulf between majority and minority groups in UK which comes through the guidelines for
dealing with minority groups (e.g. Miller and Abudarham 1984,

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Guidelines of the College of Speech Therapists 1990) is absent in a situation where everyone is multilingual. Nearly all
Singaporeans are familiar with the experience of speaking in a language in which they have limited proficiency. While
this leads to a linguistically tolerant atmosphere, it seems also to result in an unknowing tolerance of language
problems. There may be a wide acceptance by parents and by pre-school teachers of different types of speech. Parents
too may have an expectation that it is the school's job to teach language skills in English and the child's other school
language. Informal language learning in the home may be devalued, especially if the home languages are not school
languages and the development of skills in languages other than school languages may be seen as unimportant. These
factors can all contribute to the failure by referring agencies to identify language problems and contact speech and
language therapy agencies.
In Singapore the bulk of speech and language therapy is based in hospitals, and is seen in medical terms. Some centres
specialise in certain areas: this is true of those based in the special schools, but also of the private hospital: an estimated
60% of its speech and language therapy cases are adult neurologically impaired in-patients. The private school with a
speech and language therapy centre has an unusually high proportion (more than half) of expatriate children on its
caseload. This, and the fact that another private school for expatriates refers many children for speech and language
therapy, probably means that the proportion of children in the British expatriate community receiving speech and
language therapy is considerably higher than in Singaporean community. The mainstream state and state-aided schools
do not support a speech and language therapy service. Medical facilities in general are also clinic and hospital based.
There is little community medicine, and no equivalent to the health visitor in the UK system.
Although education services referrals are low, many of those who referred themselves had been alerted to a speech
problem by the school. The peak of referrals in the first year of primary school reflects some awareness in the schools
of the service. This awareness needs to be extended to pre-school centres. Drop-out rate from speech and language
therapy is generally felt by the therapists to be high: at NUH 31% of all new cases did not follow through the
recommended treatment in the period October 1989-90 (Chandler, Maren and Buller 1990). In the prevailing free-
market economy, clients may also sample several therapists without a formal referral from one to another. Just as a high
proportion of clients discontinue therapy, it is likely that the schools and clinics do recommend speech and language
therapy to other parents who never bring their children forward for treatment. This may be due to lack of money, lack
of awareness of speech and language therapy or a sense that it is shameful. Parents find that their children must work
hard in Primary School in Singapore's competitive, exam-based system, and may not wish to subject

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them to what they see as extra pressure. A schoolchild with significant language disability may nevertheless produce
high scores in examinations in the early years of primary school, even those in English, which are typically based on
memorised routines.
More positively, many of those who have written on speech and language therapy with bilingual children in the UK
have needed to refer to the minority status of bilingual speakers, who are often from groups which are seen as
underprivileged by the majority community. In these places a resolutely monolingual majority community needs to
divest itself of negative attitudes to bilingualism. Members of a monolingual majority may think that bilingual children
have language or learning problems which are caused by bilingualism, or that they are bound to be confused by being
exposed to more than one language. This negative attitude to bilingualism has even led to children, especially those
with problems, being instructed to speak only English, with an ignorance of the children's needs to function in a
bilingual society (Duncan and Gibbs 1989:185). A negative attitude to bilingualism is less likely in Singapore, where
almost everyone is multilingual. Multilingualism as such is not associated with underprivileged groups. What is
associated with underprivileged groups in Singapore is a low level of skill in English, which has been the principal
language of education for some years.
Some therapists (in Singapore and in the literature) feel it is desirable to reduce the number of languages a child is
exposed to and concentrate on one, or at the very least that there should be a clear separation of languages (Miller and
Abudarham 1984:180f). In practice this often amounts to reducing language use to the majority language (English,
usually). Cummins (1984:267) strongly. feels that enforcing a familial switch to English is destructive to self-respect
and "will often have damaging emotional and cognitive effects as a result of the lower quantity and quality of
interaction that parents are likely to provide in their weaker language." Miller and Adudarham, however, are especially
worried about 'semilingualism'. This is a controversial concept, which may well be based on the inappropriate
application of monolingual norms to multilingual people. Duncan and Gibbs (1989) argue for support of both languages
of a bilingual child.
In Singapore, for reasons more practical than theoretical, therapy is often restricted to English. All Singapore's special
schools use English only as a medium of instruction. In speech and language therapy, too, English may be used because
it is the only common language between therapist and patient. This is less than perfect: in fact the Guidelines of the
College of Speech Therapists (1990:1) say that a "decision to work in the client's less developed language because it is
the one shared by the therapist, cannot be clinically upheld." However, using English fits in well with cultural norms
which see English as the language of learning. Therapy in English may be taken more

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seriously than therapy in non-school languages. Thus, the use of English may actually encourage parents to continue to
bring their children for therapy. Because in Singapore bilingualism is not associated with minority groups, self-respect
is not threatened by the use of English in a therapeutic setting.
While providing therapy in English may be acceptable or a priority in some groups, there also needs to be a procedure
for assessing development in languages other than English, and for assessing development in Singapore Colloquial
English. There is also a real need for more therapists and co-workers with skills in relevant languages other than
English.

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Index
A
acceptability, 57
addressee, 69
Arabic, 41, 154
article, 208, 209
assent, 87
'audience design', 69
B
Baba Chinese, 41
Baba Malay, 34, 41, 149
Bazaar Malay, 34, 38, 41
'be', 11, 96, 97, 99, 108, 110, 113, 116, 118, 122, 128, 133, 210
'because', 105, 210
Bengali, 144
biculturalism, 3, 65
bilingual policy, 143, 144, 170
bilingualism, 16, 141, 151, 177, 179, 180, 188
bioprogram, 53
Brunei Darussalam, 6
C
'can', 108, 111-116, 122, 128, 129, 141
Cantonese, 38, 41, 45, 57, 150
Ceylon, 44
checks, 81
childcare, 32, 54, 60
China Pidgin English, 33
Chinese-educated, 187
code-switching, 16, 193
concord, 76, 77, 153
conditional clauses, 11
conditionals, 72
contact, 4-6, 16, 47, 49, 56
convergence, 48
creole, 17, 48, 53, 79
cultural values, 148, 170
D
determinism, 148, 156
developmental assessment, 21, 67, 140, 191, 204-207
dialects, 1, 64, 151, 181
diglossia, 7-15, 58, 69-79
directive, 113-116, 138, 140
disadvantaged, 79
discontinuity, 56
disjunctive polar interrogatives, 86, 125-130
'do', 97-100, 101, 110, 111, 118, 119, 121, 129, 141
drama, 47
E
education, 24, 25, 32, 35, 143-190
elitism, 153, 154
embedded interrogatives 93, 121, 130-140
errors, 7, 24, 80, 79, 109
ethnicity, 1, 27, 34, 36, 148, 152, 162, 188
Eurasians, 2, 19, 33, 37, 39, 44, 46, 186
Europeans, 37, 39, 44
experiential verb, 86, 114, 119, 121, 127, 129, 130, 132, 134, 137, 140, 141
F
first language, 146
focusing, 69
formulae, 98, 110, 114, 116, 119, 129, 141, 164, 168
fronting, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 102, 110, 133, 135
functions, 58
G
genetics, 153, 156, 174, 175
'go', 98, 99
'got', 77
H
Hainanese, 150
'have', 77, 118
Housing Development Board (HDB), 1
Hindi, 144
Hokkien, 41, 45, 46, 50, 57, 150, 166, 180
home language, 2, 19-23, 28, 29, 177, 227

Page 228
Hong Kong, 6
hospitals, 196, 199
I
'if', 86
imperative, 115, 116
Indians, 39, 44
indirect speech, 130
Indonesia, 6
inflexions, 12, 23
interference, 15-17, 24, 105
intermarriage, 3
interrogatives, 12, 84-142
inversion, 12, 85, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 106, 108-111, 113, 116, 118, 122, 123, 129, 133, 135
K
kindergarten, 152
'King's Chinese', 41
L
language attitudes, 193, 195, 210, 212
language choice, 49-51
language of education, 143, 145, 179
language repertoire, 45, 67, 15, 150, 161, 194
lectal continuum, 18
lexis, 48
lingua franca, 42, 49, 144, 152, 188
linguistic repertoire, 64
linguistic tolerance, 66
literacy, 25, 29, 78, 175, 177
M
Malay, 41, 42, 44-46, 144, 145, 149, 150, 160, 165, 178, 185, 195
Malayalam, 144
Malaysia, 5
Mandarin, 28, 45, 46, 50, 57, 64, 68, 144, 145, 148, 150, 151, 159, 160, 163, 165-167, 171, 177, 180, 186, 189
mathematics, 170, 172
meritocracy, 153, 158, 186
minorities, 2, 3, 66, 148, 149, 174, 179, 183-185, 187, 192, 210, 212
modal auxiliary, 13
monolingualism, 1, 3, 5, 16, 22, 28, 212
moral values, 146
mother tongue, 18, 144, 146, 148, 161, 178, 179, 183, 184
'motherese', 93
multiculturalism, 180, 193
multilingualism, 1, 6, 28, 54, 66, 180, 192, 210, 212
multiracial policy, 2
native speakers, 7, 13-15, 17, 30, 32, 56
N
negation, 87, 108, 128, 137
nominalizer, 80, 83, 90
non-native speakers, 7
normal transmission, 56
noun inflections, 13, 74
number, 68, 194, 210
nursery, 19, 152
O
official languages, 64
official race, 144
orthography, 10
P
Peranakan, 41
Philippines, 6
phonology, 113
pidgin, 17, 33, 34
plurality, 52
polar interrogatives, 85, 112-133, 136
polyclinics, 199-202
Portuguese creole, 37, 39, 44
pragmatic particles, 10, 16, 47, 49, 72, 77, 79-83, 85, 92, 123, 194, 209
pre-school education, 78, 152, 159-170, 196
prepositions, 207, 209
prestige, 47, 56, 79
primary education, 152
Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), 25, 155, 157, 158, 172
PRO-drop, 10, 78, 194, 208
proficiency, 7, 13, 51, 55, 180
pronunciation. 9
Punjabi, 144
Q
question, 87
R
received pronunciation (RP), 14, 43
relative clauses, 90
relative pronouns, 88
religious studies, 146, 183
routines, 67
S
SAP schools, 185, 189
scaffolds, 98, 169
school language, 2, 160, 171
school policy, 2
second language, 146
self report, 19

Page 229
semilingualism, 212
separatism, 169, 174, 182, 189
siblings, 31, 59
Singapore Censuses, 24
Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), 5, 7-9, 15, 24, 152, 162-164, 171, 189, 194, 206, 207, 210
Singlish, 5
social class, 159, 171, 174, 176, 182, 183, 188
solidarity, 50, 51
Special Assistance Plan, 148
special needs education, 154, 196, 200, 212
speech and language therapy 191-213
speech formulae, 98
stability, 17
Standard English, 7-9, 12-15, 45, 152
Standard Malay, 41
standardization, 206
StdE, 162-164, 206, 210
Straits Chinese, 33, 41, 46
Straits Settlements, 33, 35
streaming, 144, 155, 156, 170
stuttering, 193
T
tag question, 122, 123, 133
Tamil, 144, 145, 148, 150, 160, 178, 185
target variety, 92
teaching of Chinese, 177
temporal clauses, 11
tense, 52, 66, 68, 74, 76, 78, 153, 194,
209, 210
Teochew, 41, 45, 57, 150
Thailand, 6
topicalization, 106
transfer, 105, 128
tutorial questions, 66, 137
V
values, 147, 148
variation, 17
verb group, 13
verb inflection, 12, 74
vernacular, 34
W
wh-words, 84, 85, 88
'whether', 86, 130, 136
women, 29, 31, 38, 45
word order, 208, 209
X
x-interrogatives, 84, 85, 90-112, 119, 130, 133, 136, 137, 140

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title: The Step-tongue : Children's English in Singapore

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Anthea Fraser Gupta

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD

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Tables and Figures

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Conventions and Abbreviations

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Other participants are identified as they occur.

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Table 1.5 Ethnic groups as a percentage of the population (Straits

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