ABSTRACT:Language attitude studies have shown that the majority language and its speakers tend to be rated positively along status, intelligence, and power dimensions ('Educated', 'Successful', 'Intelligent'), while the minority variety and its speakers elicit positive responses in the solidarity semantic category ('Friendly', 'Honest', 'Responsible'). This study examines subjective reaction to Singapore Standard English (SSE) and Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), widely known as 'Singlish', using the matched guise technique. Though SCE has been widely reported to be a strong solidarity marker for Singaporeans, no systematic study has been carried out to attest this observation. In this study, 75 Singaporeans and 19 non-Singaporeans listened to a recorded speech sample in SCE and another in SSE and were asked to rate the 'speakers' on a series of semantic traits. The results conformed to widely reported trends of other matched guise studies showing clustering of responses along dimensions of status and solidarity. However, unlike previous studies in other contexts, which tend to show increased solidarity ratings with non-standard varieties, the data from this present study points to a different trend. Contrary to expectations, SCE was rated lower in solidarity traits compared to SSE. This raises questions about the widely perceived role of SCE as a high solidarity language. The discussion evaluates the attitudes of world Englishes in other contexts and seeks to explain the discrepancy in the findings by drawing on the unique and intense language awareness campaigns Singaporeans have been subjected to since independence.

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The Foreign-Language effect (FLe) on morality describes how late bilinguals make different decisions on moral judgements, when presented in either their native or foreign language. However the relevance of this phenomenon to early bilinguals, where a language's “nativeness” is less distinct, is unknown. This study aims to verify the effect of early bilinguals' languages on their moral decisions and examine how language experience may influence these decisions. Eighty-six early English-Chinese bilinguals were asked to perform a moral dilemmas task consisting of personal and impersonal dilemmas, in either English or Mandarin Chinese. Information on language experience factors were also collected from the participants. Findings suggest that early bilinguals do show evidence of a language effect on their moral decisions, which is dependent on how dominant they are in the language. Particularly, the more dominant participants were in their tested language, the larger the difference between their personal and impersonal dilemma response choice. In light of these findings, the study discusses the need to re-examine how we conceptualize the FLe phenomenon and its implications on bilinguals' moral judgement. It also addresses the importance of treating bilingualism as multidimensional, rather than a unitary variable.

Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) or ‘Singlish’ is a variety very distinct from Singapore Standardised English (SSE), and its use is a polarising issue in Singaporean society. In stark contrast to the results of most language attitude studies in which non‐standardised varieties are rated positively along solidarity dimensions, participants of matched‐guise studies investigating Singaporean attitudes toward SCE have assigned lower solidarity ratings for SCE than for SSE. This is in stark contrast to anecdotal and public opinion that SCE is a language of solidarity and identity for most Singaporeans. By including participants from non‐tertiary sectors and a wider range of stimulus guises as well as supplementing matched‐guise results with interview data, this study seeks to reveal the covert prestige that SCE does, in fact, appear to enjoy in Singaporean society. While the matched‐guise results of this study largely conform to previous findings, the interview data suggest that many participants were basing their ratings on perceptions of SCE use in the public domain rather than the private domain. The study has implications for the extent to which we can extrapolate results from matched‐guise studies, a widely used instrument for the study of language attitudes in the last 50 years.