6.The evolution of Singapore English: Finding the matrix

Ansaldo, Umberto

doi:10.1075/veaw.g33.08ans

Cited by 65 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) or ''Singlish'' is first acquired by a majority of Singaporean preschoolers, and may also be used by Singapore Standard English (SStdE) speakers in informal situations [60]. This form of English varies in morphology and syntax (e.g., noun plural marking is variable and pragmatic particles are added), phonology (e.g., reduced vowel repertoire) and prosody (e.g., word stress is moved to later in a word) to standard English [61,62]. On the other hand, SStdE is also spoken in Singapore, and comparable with other forms of Standard English spoken worldwide except for local variations in vocabulary and accent [63].…”

Section: The Context Of Singaporementioning

confidence: 99%

Expressive language skills in Chinese Singaporean preschoolers with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Young

Purcell

Ballard

2010

International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology

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Section: The Context Of Singaporementioning

confidence: 99%

Expressive language skills in Chinese Singaporean preschoolers with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Young

Purcell

Ballard

2010

International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology

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“…chapters in Lim 2004b, based on the Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC; Lim 2001; Lim and Foley 2004), comprising data of naturally occurring spontaneous speech of young Singaporeans). In (15) and (16), both from GSSEC, numerous Singlish features are observable, including zero copula (Ansaldo 2009b), kena passive (Fong 2004), absence of inflection on 3rd-person singular and past tense verbs (Fong 2004), is it question tag, use of one (Wee and Ansaldo 2004), reduplication (Ansaldo 2004;Wee 2004), lah, ah, what and lor particles (Lim 2004(Lim , 2007Wee 2004), and borrowing from and code switching with local languages. Interestingly -and perhaps this is what worries the government more -Singlish is not just found in colloquial speech in informal domains, as in (15) and (16), but is also used in the domain of education.…”

Section: Non-neutral Native-speaker Englishmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…5 The emergent variety of English, Singlish (or colloquial or basilectal Singapore English), 6 which exhibits particular phonological patterning, syntax and vocabulary derived from the various local languages, in particular Malay, Hokkien, and Cantonese (see e.g. Ansaldo 2004Ansaldo , 2009Bao 2001Bao , 2005Bao and Lye 2005;Bao and Wee 1999;Lim 2004aLim , 2009bWee 2004;Wee and Ansaldo 2004), can in fact be said to be much more Asian than English (Ansaldo 2009). Crucially it is this variety of English which fulfils identification and integrative functions for Singaporeans.…”

Section: Non-neutral Native-speaker Englishmentioning

confidence: 98%

Beyond fear and loathing in SG

Lim

2009

AILA

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This paper considers the real mother tongues of Singapore, namely the Chinese 'dialects' and Singlish, the linguistic varieties which, respectively, arrived with the original immigrants to the rapidly developing British colony, and evolved in the dynamic multilingual ecology over the decades. Curiously these mother tongues have been regarded with fear and treated with loathing in the official language policies and accompanying prestige planning that have been developed and executed in Singapore since independence, being actively denigrated and discouraged in official discourse, viewed as not having a place in the globalization goals of the nation. Looking beyond the official line and census figures, actual linguistic practices of the community of speakers testify to the vitality of these varieties, in spite of the official sanctions; moreover, in spite of itself, the government does in fact allow itself the use of these mother tongues when certain contexts call for it. This paper suggests that an enlightened consideration of native 'dialects' and nativized Singlish and the plurilingual practices in which they are used, as well as of the question of intelligibility, must point policy makers in directions where fears are assuaged and spaces made for the natural existence and evolution of such varieties in multilingual ecologies. Fear and loathing in SGIn an age where vernaculars, whether endangered languages spoken by a last community or languages with minority status in larger nation states, are receiving greater (positive) recognition, support and funding, from linguistic organizations and bodies such as UNESCO, it is always intriguing to examine a context where the mother tongue of a people is regarded with fear and loathing. This paper has as its focus the real mother tongues of Singapore's multilingual population -not the officially designated 'Mother Tongues' (MTs) of English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, which are the linguistic varieties which are officially associated with the official races of the state, namely Chinese, Malay and Indian, and learnt as second languages in school, but the actual linguistic varieties that arrived with the original immigrants to Singapore or that have evolved in the Singapore context.While this paper has as its main focus the English language, the situation with the Chinese languages is also examined, first because it parallels that of English, as will be seen in the sections following, and second because the possibility of (a) Chinese language(s) as competitor to English needs to be considered. In examining English, a significant aspect involves the contact dynamics of Singapore's multilingual context and the emergent variety of English which has been nativized and

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“…Lowenberg 1984, 1986, 1992; Baskaran 1988) and Singapore English (e.g. Alsagoff and Ho 1998; Wee 1998; Brown 1999; Ansaldo 2004; Lim 2004) have illustrated the different ways in which Chinese as well as other local languages, such as Malay and Tamil, left their mark.…”

Section: English‐chinese Contact: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lexical borrowing from Chinese languages in Malaysian English

Imm¹

2009

World Englishes

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This paper explores how contact between English and Chinese has resulted in the incorporation of Chinese borrowings into the lexicon of Malaysian English (ME). Using a corpus-based approach, this study analyses a comprehensive range of borrowed features extracted from the Malaysian English Newspaper Corpus (MEN Corpus). Based on the contexts of these features, the specific processes that shape the patterns of changes in ME are deduced. Haugen's analysis of lexical borrowing is employed in the description of the linguistic changes. It is proposed that the preservation of traditional Chinese culture and practices by a multilingual society that maintains a local variety of English has created the stimulus for this type of contact phenomenon. Borrowers are conditioned not only by their need to expand the communicative and expressive powers of English but also by their need to integrate the borrowed features into the linguistic system of the English language. The outcomes of this phenomenon, as represented in the relatively formal genre of newspaper English, are mainly loanwords, compound blends and loan translations, although some inflected and derived forms based on these borrowings are also observed.

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6.The evolution of Singapore English: Finding the matrix

Cited by 65 publications

References 0 publications

Expressive language skills in Chinese Singaporean preschoolers with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Expressive language skills in Chinese Singaporean preschoolers with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Beyond fear and loathing in SG

Lexical borrowing from Chinese languages in Malaysian English

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