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Contents

1. Introduction...............................................................................................................1
2. Origins and developments of English in Singapore................................................2
3. Origins and developments of Singlish.........................................................................3
4. Conclusion................................................................................................................... 6
References.......................................................................................................................... 7

1. Introduction
Singapore is a city-state located in the southern of the Malay peninsula and near the
Straits of Malacca. The island is also known as a multiracial city with 74.3% of Chinese,
13.4% of Malays, 9% of Indian, and 3.3% of others (Department of Statistic Singapore,
2017). As a result, official languages in correspondence with the main races in Singapore
are Chinese, Malay and Tamil. But English is the lingua franca even though this language
does not represent any ethnical groups in Singapore. English was adopted by
Singaporeans during the British colonial time and it is one of the main reasons that foster
Singapore to become a fast-developed country in the world with a powerful economy and
modern education system. Based on Kachru’s (1985) framework, Singaporean English is
a variety of English which is in the Outer Circle of the three concentric circles along with
Nigeria or India, in contrast to the United Kingdom, the United States belonging to the
Inner Circle since English is spoken as a second language in Singapore. Nowadays it is
undeniable that the extent of English usage varies in every country and region, even in
English-speaking nations. And when it comes to Singaporean English, there have been
socio-political controversies surrounding Singlish.

2. Origins and developments of English in Singapore


Commencement of modern Singapore’s history was marked by Sir Stamford Raffles in
1819, on behalf of the British Empire, who recognized the immerse potential of the island
in shaping a strategic port of Asia, located along the main trade routes between China and
India. Nature favorably granted Singapore, a deep harbor and abundant supplies of fresh
water with a small Malaysian settlement. From 1826 to 1967, the city quickly became an
entrepot trade hub and business centre of South East Asia, therefore attracted immigrants
from various Asian origins such as the Malay Archipelago, China and India, leading to
the complexity in language ecology (Chua, 2011). English initially was used for trading
purpose then was spoken widely by the colonial power and began a common language
among non-native speakers. Under the British colonial government, English was used as
the language of law, administrations, and business. That facilitated Singapore to reach out
the common language of the world early, spread the language over Singapore and grow
more rapidly than other countries in Asia. During the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese
took advantage of education to promote Japanese cultures and values. They introduced
Japanese into schools and Singaporean children are expected to learn Japanese as the
second language and sing the Japanese national anthem.
In 1959, the Singapore government gained its independence and allowed the use of four
official languages, that is the Chinese language for Chinese, the Malay language for the
Malays, Tamil for the Indian and English. The three main ethnic groups selected their
first language corresponding with registered race. Few years later, Singapore participated
in the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, which previously had been British Malaya
including Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak. Then Malay was considered
the national language during the merging time.The political and economic conflicts
among countries led to the expulsion of Singapore from the Federation. Singapore
became an independent republic in 1965 (Chew, 2007). Singapore’s geographical location
connecting two ancient civilizations of China and India, and rapid development of trade
between Asia, Europe and America generated a city of racial, linguistic and religious
diversity. The multiracial country with the Chinese, Malays, Indians and other races is
popular with four official languages of English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. The ethnic
diversity required a common language to unite a country. During British colonialism
from 1819 to 1942, English achieved prestige and spread over Singapore since the
language was used in business, administration, and education. After the expulsion, the
prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, decided to remain English as the main
language due to the need of a lingua franca to not only boost communication among the
various racial groups, but also sustain the country’s economic development, and also
generate preconditions for nation-building purpose (Chua, 2011). He emphasized the
importance of learning English since English would give Singapore huge competitive
advantages to enter into the developed world (Han et al., 2011). The fact has proved this
decision was such wise that Singapore has got tremendous values from using English as a
common language. According to the Constitution of Singapore, Malay was considered a
national language, which played an important role for the indigenous people of Singapore
and also for the anticipation of the merge with Malaysia. As a result, Bazaar Malay used
to be the lingua franca of the island, a creole of Malay and Chinese. However, English
was eventually chosen as the main language among different dialect groups upon
Singaporean independence in every aspect of life. The way to bridge the social gaps
between the various ethnic language groups in the country is to use a language that
belongs to none of the races. In this situation, using English was a wise selection and it
added huge value for Singapore in maximizing the economy. Then English has become
the medium of instructions in schools.
Due to the ethnic and cultural diversity, Singapore’s government promoted a bilingual
language education and set up a dual-language learning system to encourage integration
with a world language, but still retain the cultural identity, which facilitated fluency in
both English and their mother tongue. This would enable Singapore to nurture
connections with English-speaking countries in Western, as well as foster trade routes
with Asian countries (Han et al., 2011). The government officially introduced the
bilingual education policy in 1966 with the perception of transforming Singapore into an
English-knowing society, which has encouraged Singapore to become a major power in
Asia later. However, there was a challenging for the government that the majority of
Singaporeans did not use English as their mother tongue. The exposure of English outside
the schools is limited. Hence, the Singapore government financed substantial funding for
its education system and work well with the Ministry of Education in designing education
plan and promoting bilingualism amongst children. English could be taught compulsorily
in schools either as their first or second language and the other vernacular languages are
taught simultaneously in order to safeguard Singapore’s culture and traditional values.
Mother tongue was only taught as an academic subject meanwhile English was used as
the first language in most subjects after the government placed an emphasis on English as
the main language of administration, commerce, education and global communication.
The English language is now compulsory from primary schools to universities as English
is a common way of communication among students and the country’s default lingual
franca in the formal settings of government departments, laws, courts and TV programs.
English is used as the main medium instruction for children at the young age, that is
kindergarten level. This practice is expected to equip children with a wide range of
background and support by being immersed English completely before they enter into
primary schools. The primary-school children accessed and developed their listening and
speaking skills and fostered the expression of their ideas in both speaking and writing. In
secondary school, students are expected to write and speak English with correct grammar
and also use English properly with purpose or in certain context. University students are
assumed to use English fluently as a native speaker. Singapore has marked a considerable
progress in the use of English over the years when it currently the most proficient
English-speaking in Asia. Nowadays, few people in Singapore are monolingual due to the
bilingual policy of Lee Kuan Yew and the diversity of races.
The fact remains that an abundant number of families in this cosmopolitan city use at
least two languages at home, including English and the second language in line with their
ethnic group. Some of Chinese Singaporean could speak Mandarin at home and the
remaining speaks mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. The Indian Singaporean
could speak either English or Tamil. As such, not all Singaporeans can use English as
native speakers and English proficiency level among residents fluctuates greatly. Despite
people in Singapore use English in their daily communication since Singapore was a
colony, they gave rise to a variety of English called Singapore English. Then Singlish was
created with the arrival of the British and the foundation of the English education system
together with Standard Singapore English.

3. Origins and developments of Singlish


It is noticeable that Singapore English can be divided into two kinds: Standard Singapore
English (SSE) – the type of English that is used in formal and official contexts and
Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE) – better known as Singlish to the most
Singaporeans (a combination word of English and Singapore), this is used in daily
communication and informal contexts among friends, families and is impacted by local
vernacular languages such as Chinese and Malay (Tan, 2005). The three sociolects of the
language include Acrolect, Mesolect and Basilect (Harada, 2009). Both Acrolect and
Mesolect are referred to Standard Singapore English, while Basilect is regarded as
Singlish (Harada, 2013). In other words, Standard Singapore English (SSE), that is used
by better educated Singaporeans, obtains a high position meanwhile Colloquial
Singaporean English (CSE), that is used by the less-educated or Singaporeans whose first
English is not English or who they do no satisfy when using English, takes a low
position. Gradually people speak Singlish in casual communication but avoid this
language in workplace because Singlish is not professional enough to use frequently in
formal places. For this reason, Singlish is not used in formal communication and
Standard Singapore English is preferred by educated residents. In a multilingual and
multicultural city-state where people are of different social classes and different
educational backgrounds, the advent of the Singlish is indispensable for harmonizing the
discrepancies of languages and religions. Though Singapore Standard English prescribed
the official norm of the community, there is no doubt that Singlish is closer to the
majority of Singaporeans. This language is used for day-to-day interactions at homes,
schools and streets. People use Singlish as their first language and Singlish is now more
prevalent on the Internet despite official discouragement of routine censorship is
conducted usually by the government.
Singlish was assumed to be created in the late 1970s and linked closely with the second
generation of English speakers in Singapore (Lee, 2001). Singlish has various linguistic
similarities with Manglish of Malaysia due to the close proximity of these two countries
in culture and history (Yoong, n.d). At the beginning, Singlish and Manglish were the
same dialect impacted by British Malaya economy between the 18 th and the 20th centuries
under British control. But Singlish also was affected partially by Chinese dialects that
caused the difference between Singlish and Manglish (Trudgill & Hannah, 2002). The
characteristics of different mother tongue as Chinese, Malay and Tamil converted
Singlish into a different language with its own phonological, lexical, and grammatical
features. People in South East Asia when first are exposed to English speakers who are
not familiar with the language are said that the language sounds familiar in spite of their
incomprehension. This is because of the bases of Singlish on Chinese, and Malay
languages.
In the early state of the English foundation in Singapore, English spread out of school and
the border of English expanded to all walks of life. English in a pidgin-like form is
adopted by non-English speakers for practical and effective communication purposes to
erase the social linguistic gap. Due to the diversity of race and the vastly populated
civilization mainly from Indian, Chinese and the Malay Archipelago, people picked up
new loan words borrowed from their local languages such as Chinese, Hokkien, Tamil
and Malay, mood practice then infused English with other words and grammar to found a
new form of English that became the language of the streets and declined standards of the
official English (Gil, 2003). In Singapore, where English is learned simultaneously with
three mother tongue languages, learners who acquire more than one language become
more proficient in using and mixing these languages with one meaning in an unconscious
way (Chua, 2011). From time to time, many Singapore’s residents have used this new
form and not Standard English as their first language. This give evidence to the
occurrence of creolization and Singlish is now an English-based creole language. The
consequence suggests that people are not aware that they do not learn Standard English
and use it in their daily life.
The fact remains the criticism and discussions of Singlish over the years due to its
origins. There were arguments both for and against the use of Singlish. It is not endorsed
by the country’s government since they supposed the language is a substandard and
merged by different languages so that it is not recognised in comparison with standard
norms. As a matter of course, the use of Singlish is not encouraged and approved by the
government. The first two prime ministers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok
Tong, highlighted the variety of Singlish handicaps Singaporeans in general, presents
hurdles in absorption of Standard English in a proper manner and renders ineffective
communication among speakers rather than Singlish speakers (Deterding, 2007). English
speakers would find it difficult to understand Singlish embedded with loan words. The
current prime minister also emphasized that Singlish should not be part of Singapore’s
symbol or identity. The interfere of the government to encourage Singaporeans to speak
proper English is promoted and launched the Speak Good English Movement in 2000, so
eradicates Singlish at least in formal usage. But the campaign does not seem to work well
so far than the campaign of ‘Speak Mandarin’ in 1965 when Singapore joined the
Federation of Malaysia. This government-launched language campaign has been an
annual event in Singapore. Although people can see the idea of embracing ‘good
English’, they understand the implications of the government to consider Singlish ‘bad
English’ (Tan, 2017). It is said by the public on the government side that Singlish is a
sign of localizing an international language, leading to the deleterious economy of poor
English. The Minister of Education pointed out the mixture of local language with
Standard English is significantly discouraged in Singaporean schools as it is the main
reason that students at different ages are getting worse in using Standard English, and
many young people are not able to differentiate Standard English and Singlish, so that the
country faces a situation of diglossia (Goh, 2000). In other words, both Standard English
and Singlish are used simultaneously when people speak English. The government also
criticized Singlish, which was promoted in media such as the TV comedy series, ‘Phu
Chua Kang’, as an obstacle to achieve a huge competitive advantage in the purpose of
being a first-world economy of Singapore (Wang, 2015). Singlish is avoided in formal
settings in workplaces, particularly in meetings, conferences, interview, or presentations,
where Standard English is more preferred. Moreover, many foreigners when visit
Singapore may be less impressed by the local English since English has been variant and
become a non-global language in the island , which create a negative image to the world.
Apart from the opinion of the government, other people supposed Singlish is a part of
Singapore identity. Singlish is incorporated progressively to the world of television, the
Internet. People use Singlish without restriction in their informal settings, such as daily
conversations with friends and families, transactions in banks or shopping malls.
Furthermore, Singaporeans may vary their use of English in certain social attitudes and
situations. Singaporeans are a country adept at code-switching (HO, 2015). According to
Trudgill (2003), the bilingual speaks could ‘switch back and forth between one language
or dialect and another within the same utterance’. Code-switching is a result of languages
connection in communities where people have access to two or more languages and they
have alternative language code during a conversation (Perts and Letts, 2006). The way
people speak to their friends or a taxi driver in Singlish has to be different from the way
they present themselves at schools or a conference. The proliferation of Singlish is also
proved by the addition of 19 ‘Singapore English’ words on Oxford English Dictionary in
March 2016. Many students argue on forums or articles that they are good at speaking
and writing Standard English, in addition to Singlish which is a linguistic phenomenon
and an extraordinary unique vitality of a small island in South East Asia. There is no
doubt that students have to learn Standard English at schools and participate in English
examinations. Besides, acting as the centre business of South East Asia, using Standard
English is an important criterion when Singaporeans communicate and work with other
people only in Europe and America but also other countries in Africa and Asia. As a
result, the assumption that students are not proficient in Standard English is not
completely correct. Additionally, some people suggest that Singaporeans are always in a
hurry so that speaking Singlish instead of proper English with correct grammar could
help them save much time. Even the political leaders use Singlish during their election
campaign to acquire a better and close connection to local audiences. When it comes to
informal conversations, Singlish can be considered to bind Singaporeans of all races
together. These days, many people are becoming the intrinsic value of this language and
adapting to speak Singlish frequently.

4. Conclusion
Over time, Singlish has been accepted gradually as one of Singaporeans’ conversational
languages because it also has a long history since the British colonialism. The unique mix
of English and other dialects is a unique language that people only found in Singapore,
and also is seen as a badge of Singapore’s identity. Foreign people can easily recognize
Singaporeans by the way they communicate. It has transformed from a habit among
residents and a culture in Singapore. It is expected that both Standard Singapore English
and Singlish co-exist in the later run. Currently, the term of ‘World Englishes’ has been
prevalently spread out and many varieties of English are used and spoken all over the
world. Other difference versions of English can be found in Scotland, Ireland or Jamaica.
Although the Singaporean government still discourage the use of Singlish in formal
settings, Singlish may be seen as a mixture of global and local functions of English in
Singapore and an undeniable development of a multiracial and multicultural country as
Singapore. It still develops dramatically in this fast-changing era of technology since the
language is closely related to the cultural reference point of any country. This mean
government policy has a little impact on Singlish language use and attitudes. However,
Singaporeans would admit that Singlish will never become Standard English that is used
and understood worldwide.

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