English as a ‘mother tongue’ in Singapore

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of English and what it represents to speakers of the three major ethnic groups across three different age groups in Singapore. This paper reports a study conducted on 436 Singaporeans of different age and ethnic groups, looking at their language use and perceptions of English as a marker of their identity. The Singapore government has always been cautious about according the ‘mother tongue’ status to English. The latest 2010 census however reveals that over 30 per cent of Singaporeans report English to be the primary language used in the home, an increase from about 20 per cent in 2000. What remains unclear is the extent to which English has penetrated the psyche of the everyday Singaporean. The results in this study suggest that English in Singapore has to be reconceptualized as a new mother tongue, and to do so requires a reconfiguration of what it takes for a language to be a ‘mother tongue.’ This paper will take this on by adapting Skutnabb‐Kangas and Phillipson's () and Rampton's () objections and definitions of the term, and propose a set of conditions that can be used to define the term mother tongue.

Linguistic insecurity and the linguistic ownership of English among Singaporean Chinese

“…This finding is not a surprise, and in fact corroborates with Tan (), whose study unveils the extensive use of English in Singaporean Chinese speakers’ private domains. The General Household Survey, conducted in 2015, also shows that 37.4% of the Singapore Chinese population aged 5 and above currently use English as their home language (Singapore Department of Statistics, ).…”

Shame in English language teaching: Desirable Pedagogical Possibilities for Kiribati in Neoliberal Times

“…Taking the code switching approach of the local people seriously, we should explore whether English can be taught for functional purposes while emphasizing that Kiribati can continue to be used for everyday community purposes. In Singapore, for example (see Bolton & Ng, ), “mother tongues” were designated “cultural anchors, preserving one's … heritage, beliefs and traditions … [and] shields against the undesirable Western influences that come with the use of English” (Tan, , p. 324), whereas English was to function only as the language of administration, yet English is now the language of choice in many domains. It is true that the code switching model has failed in Singapore because the local communities have preferred to use English as an all‐purpose language, affecting proficiency and use in heritage languages.…”

Siblings' play and language shift to English in a Malay‐English bilingual family in Singapore

“…Since its independence in 1965, Singapore's language management has been enveloped by different narratives and ideologies (Wee & Bokhorst‐Heng, ). While the city‐state's English medium plus one mother tongue language policy has been praised for Singapore's successful racial harmonization, economic development and achieving a competitive edge in international markets (Bolton & Ng, ), the state's language management has been critiqued for the increasing use of English in the private spheres, such as within the family, and the concomitant language shift across all ethnic groups (Bokhorst‐Heng & Silver, ; Cavallaro & Ng, ; Low & Pakir, ; Tan, ). Today, English is reported to be the dominant home language for 36 per cent of Singapore's 5.8 million population, a dramatic increase from 1.8 per cent in 1957 (Department of Statistics, , ; Lim, ).…”