Multilingual Singapore: Language Policies and Linguistic Realities

Multilingual Singapore This volume brings together researchers whose rich insights make for a comprehensive and upto-date account of Singapore’s rich linguistic diversity. Applying a combination of empirical, theoretical, and descriptive approaches, the authors investigate not only official languages such as English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil, but also minority languages such as the Chinese vernaculars and South Asian and Austronesian languages. The chapters in this volume trace the historical development, contemporary status, and functions of these languages, as well as potential scenarios for the future. Exploring the tension between language policies and linguistic realities in Singapore, these contributions capture the shifting educational, political, and societal priorities over time. Ritu Jain is a lecturer at the Language and Communication Centre at Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests lie in the areas of language policy and planning, and language and identity. In her work, she has examined the role of language education policy in the maintenance and promotion of minority and heritage languages, and the implications this has for language maintenance and shift. She is currently exploring the interplay of language and identity among the Indian language communities of Singapore. Routledge Multilingual Asia Series Series Editor: Kingsley Bolton Stockholm University, Sweden This series focuses on the sociolinguistic dynamics of multilingual societies within South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, and provides a forum for frontline empirical research on the dynamics of multilingualism in the Asian region. The series includes areal studies dealing with multilingualism in particular polities or regions, and also tackles such pan-Asian issues such as the dynamics of multilingualism in urban Asian societies, multilingualism in Asian education, English as a lingua franca between Asian speakers, and the learning and teaching of Asian languages across the region. Micro-studies of language contact and variation are a regular feature of the series, as well as titles dealing with multilingual media and linguistic landscapes. Although the orientation of the series is broadly sociolinguistic, the series also welcomes contributions that offer cognitive or psycholinguistic perspectives where such issues are central to the understanding of contemporary multilingualism in the Asian context. Multilingual Global Cities Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai Edited by Peter Siemund and Jakob R. E. Leimgruber Multilingual Singapore Language policies and linguistic realities Edited by Ritu Jain Multilingual Singapore Language policies and linguistic realities Edited by Ritu Jain Contents List of figures List of tables Foreword Series editor’s preface Acknowledgements List of contributors 1 Multilingual Singapore: Language policies, challenges, and responses Ritu Jain 2 The fetishization of official languages Lionel Wee 3 Singapore English, language mixing, and vernacular speech Kingsley Bolton and Werner Botha 4 Spoken Tamil in Singapore Helen Dominic and Lavanya Balachandran 5 The Indian languages of the South Asian speech community in Singapore Ritu Jain 6 The changing status of Malayalam in Singapore Anitha Devi Pillai and Rani Rubdy 7 Singapore’s other Austronesian languages Geoffrey Benjamin 8 Baba Malay Anne Pakir 9 Pronouncing the Malay identity: Sebutan Johor-Riau and Sebutan Baku Mukhlis Abu Bakar and Lionel Wee 10 The curious case of Mandarin Chinese in Singapore Ng Bee Chin and Francesco Cavallaro 11 Chinese dialects in Singapore: Context and situation Goh Hock Huan and Lim Tai Wei 12 Unpacking ‘multilingual’: Filipinos in Singapore Ruanni Tupas 13 Towards a liquid-multilingual Singapore? An outsider’s view Li Wei Index Figures 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 10.1 10.2 10.3 12.1 12.2 12.3 First language learnt as a child (N=1037) Language(s) usually spoken at home (N=1037) Responses for ‘usually speak or use’ for each specific variety across the two immigration waves Frequency of Tamil usage across the two immigration waves Responses for awareness of Singaporean Tamil Responses for awareness of Indian Tamil Responses for awareness of Literary Tamil Responses of attitudes to the ‘purity’ trait Population of Malayalees in Singapore from 1911 to 2015 Malayalam class photo at Sree Narayana Mission (circa 1950s). (Reproduced with permission from B. Aravindakshan Pillai) Onopaharam magazines. (Reproduced with permission from the Singapore Malayalee Association) The Austronesian family (Source: Language Gulper website, with the permission of Alejandro Gutman. Redrawn by Lee Li Kheng.) The western sphere of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. (Source: Wikipedia Commons, after Smith (2017). Redrawn by Lee Li Kheng.) Malayic languages. (Source: Bellwood (1993)) Some non-standardised Malay varieties. (Source: Adelaar (2005, p. 203)) Orang Seletar settlement on the north coast of Singapore, 1984 (photos by the author) Orang Suku Laut from the Riau Islands (Indonesia) visiting Pulau Seking (offshore Singapore), 1979 (photos by the author) Dialect groups in Singapore in 1990 and 2000 by population and percentages (Lee, n.d.) Home language use in Singapore 1980-2015 (Cavallaro & Ng, 2020; Department of Statistics, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2018; Kuo, 1980; Lau, 1993) English as the home language of Chinese Singaporeans 2005-2015 by age (Department of Statistics, 2005, 2010, 2015) An English-dominated sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore A market English sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore A Taglish sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore Tables 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 6.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 9.1 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 Self-report of bilingualism Self-report of proficiency in English Respondents’ self-reported language mixing practices Comments on Singaporean Tamil Comments on Indian Tamil Comments on Literary Tamil Indians in Malaya/Singapore by specific community, census of 1947 Census data on Indians by ethnic group, 1957-2010 Predominant household languages by ethnic groups 1980-2010 Number of sites for community language classes Student enrolment for Non-Tamil Indian Languages: 2010-2018 Population of Malayalees and status of Malayalam in Singapore (1911 to 2015) Austronesian-linked ethnicities of Singapore, translated and re-tabulated from Leclerc & Jean (2019) Austronesian languages spoken in Singapore, 1911. (Modified from Tan, 2014, p. 20) Changes in Singapore-‘Malay’ sub-ethnicities, based on Roksana (2015) and Hidayah (2017) Resident population aged 5 years and over by language most frequently spoken at home The Language Endangerment Index with reference to Baba Malay Major features of standard pronunciations in Malay Age and dialect groups distribution Attitudes to the use of dialects Attitudes towards dialect as a form of identity Attitudes towards the functions of dialects Responses to social stereotypes concerning dialect use Frequency of dialect use in various domains Frequency of dialect use with family members and others Reasons for using dialects Foreword When Ritu came to me in 2018 with the plan of organizing a workshop on the theme of ‘Language diversity in Singapore’, I could immediately see what an excellent idea it was. Later, when she showed me the list of distinguished speakers and exciting topics, I was convinced that she had an exceptional book in the making. There has been no shortage of studies of Singaporean multilingualism in the past, but, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is clear that a serious update is sorely missing. I am therefore delighted to see the papers of the workshop coming together so nicely to provide a comprehensive and in-depth treatment of the subject matter. The present volume, wide-ranging as it is in its representation of the community’s array of languages (historically as well as in contemporary society), contains nuanced accounts of languages going well beyond the ‘official languages’ to include not only Singlish, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese, but also Baba Malay, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, and more. The issues that drive the lively discussions across the different chapters subsume not just nation-building and bilingual education, but also the evolution of the community’s venerable cultural traditions and the transformation of its demographic and social structures. As my friend Li Wei rightly points out in his ‘coda’, Singapore’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity is challenging and enlightening at the same time. And it is this very special quality of Singaporean interculturalism that will repay continued efforts to deepen our understanding of this fascinating field. Kang Kwong Luke President's Chair in Linguistics School of Social Sciences Nanyang Technological University Singapore, November 2020 Series editor’s preface The second volume in Routledge’s new series on Multilingual Asia is an important contribution to the series. Unlike the first volume, which researched various aspects of multilingualism in multiple contexts worldwide, this volume focuses on multilingual research in a single setting, that of the island city state of Singapore, whose language policies and practices have long attracted interest from frontline researchers in the fields of applied linguistics, education, sociolinguistics, and a range of related disciplines. This current collection of articles is arguably the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of multilingualism in Singapore society published in recent years. The volume not only deals with such major languages of the community as Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English, but also provides coverage of the numerous minority languages, that have often been ignored in previous studies. These include Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese; South Asian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Urdu; as well as varieties of Malay and other Austronesian languages. The title for this volume aptly captures the tension between language policies and linguistic realities, which characterize many of the issues discussed in individual chapters, including the somewhat conflicted status of colloquial Singapore English or ‘Singlish’. Dr Ritu Jain is to be commended for having produced an authoritative and innovative volume, which is likely to remain a key reference work for many years to come. Kingsley Bolton Stockholm, November 2020 Acknowledgements Putting this volume together has been both rewarding and challenging in equal measure. It has been the realisation of a long-held dream to offer an updated account of Singapore’s rich multilingualism that has increased manifold in complexity in recent decades. At the same time, the limited scholarship in some areas of linguistic heterogeneity has proved to be a significant difficulty in realising this dream. I am therefore deeply grateful to the various contributors who have trusted me with their work, as well as for their professionalism and patience in accommodating my requests. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the reviewers who have lent their expertise in scrutinising the manuscripts. For their feedback and constructive comments, often on more than one chapter, I’d like to thank: Beatrice Lorente, Francis Hult, James McLellan, Joanna Rose McFarland, Lim Ni Eng, Liu Yanhua, Luke Lu, Mark Fifer Seilhamer, Nala Lee, Ng Bee Chin, Peter Teo, Phyllis Chew, Rajesh Rai, Rani Rubdy, Rebecca Starr, Sujata Kathpalia, Stefanie Pillai, Susana Eisenchlas, Tan Ying Ying, Tej Bhatia, Tong King Lee, and Uma Ganesan. A special thanks to Bee for her unstinting help, expertise, and counsel through the various stages of the volume and much more. Most of all, I would like to thank the very patient and generous Rita Elaine Silver for reading and responding to multiple manuscripts, for her constant encouragement, and frequent hospitality. I am grateful to NTU’s Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences for the workshop grant that has ultimately led to this volume. I would like to thank Francis Hult and Li Wei for their critical insights during the workshop. I am also indebted to KK Luke for his interest and support for the project. I would also like to thank the series editor, Kingsley Bolton, for his gracious support towards the volume and for his confidence in my abilities. I would also like to thank Liz Lanza and Unn Royneland at Multiling, the University of Oslo, for hosting me in the summer of 2019. The time and space, and the valuable comments and suggestion from helpful colleagues and friends, allowed me to complete the bulk of my chapters and more. This volume would not have been possible without the support of the very capable research assistants, Charlotte Choo and Ling Cher Keane, whose behind the scenes support has allowed me to focus on the more macros tasks. Thanks also to the Routledge editorial team, Katie Peace and Jacy Hui for the extensions and support that they’ve generously provided. Finally, I thank our readers for joining the conversation initiated by the contributors and hope you find the process as rewarding as we did. Contributors Mukhlis Abu Bakar is Associate Professor at the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He teaches in the area of Malay linguistics, literacy education, discourse and bilingualism. His research interests lie in the fields of bilingualism, biliteracy, and literacy learning, and span the domains of home, school and faith settings. He is currently an Associate Editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Education. His recent book, Rethinking madrasah education in a globalised world (edited), was published by Routledge in 2018. Lavanya Balachandran is Lecturer at the College of Alice & Peter Tan, National University of Singapore. A qualitative sociologist, she draws on ethnographic approaches to examine issues of social mobility and social inequality in Singapore in topics such as family, deviance, race and ethnicity and social networks and has published in these areas in peer-reviewed journals. Geoffrey Benjamin is Senior Research Fellow in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at NTU. He was previously Associate Professor in the Division of Sociology, NTU, and has held positions in Sociology at the former University of Singapore and the National University of Singapore, and in Prehistory & Anthropology at the Australian National University. Since completing his PhD thesis in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University in 1967, he has continued to research in the fields of religion, social organisation, language (including Austronesian and Austroasiatic linguistics) and music, with special attention to the Malay world and Southeast Asia. Kingsley Bolton is Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University. He has published widely on language and globalization, sociolinguistics, and world Englishes. He is Co-Editor (with Daniel R. Davis) of the journal World Englishes. He is also Series Editor for the new Routledge book series, Multilingual Asia. Werner Botha is Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, Adelaide. His academic interests include the use of English in Asian higher education, educational linguistics, multilingualism, and language variation, with particular reference to the Asian region. Francesco Cavallaro is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests are in sociolinguistics and the social aspects of bilingualism, especially of minority groups in multilingual contexts. He has published on language maintenance and shift, overaccommodation, the Italian community in Australia, language attitudes in Singapore, and on minority groups in Southeast Asia. He is the author of the book Transgenerational language shift: From Sicilian and Italian to Australian English. Helen Dominic is a doctoral candidate of sociolinguistics at Georgetown University. She studies dialect variation in the Tamil diaspora and investigates the language and identitybuilding practices of marginalised multilingual communities with regard to mobility and access. Goh Hock Huan is Research Scientist in the Office of Education Research, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). His academic interests include Chinese language education in multilingual context, child Mandarin competence, curriculum evaluation, and corpus-based application development. He has compiled and co-compiled a few frequency dictionaries of Singapore Chinese and published a book on Mandarin competence of Singaporean Chinese preschoolers. Ritu Jain is a lecturer at the Language and Communication Centre, NTU. Her research interest lies in the area of language policy and planning. In her work, Ritu has examined the role of the language education policy in the promotion and maintenance of minority and heritage languages and implications to language maintenance and shift. In her current Tier 1 research project, Ritu is studying the shift to English among the Indian language communities of Singapore. Li Wei is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics at UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK. His main research interests are in the broad field of bilingualism and multilingualism. He is Principal Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism (Sage) and Applied Linguistics Review (De Gruyter). His book with Ofelia Garcia, Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education (2014), won the British Association of Applied Linguistics 2015 Book Prize in 2015, and his edited volume with Vivian Cook, The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multi-competence (2016), was shortlisted for the 2017 BAAL Book Prize. He is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. Lim Tai Wei is Associate Professor and Regional Advisor at Singapore University of Social Sciences and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute at National University of Singapore. He works on Overseas Chinese and Contemporary China issues as an area studies expert and East Asian historian. Ng Bee Chin works in the area of bilingualism and multilingualism with a focus on the impact of language contact on individuals and the community they live in. Her research approach is to explore both cognitive and social aspects of language use. Currently, she is working on language and emotion in multilinguals, language attitudes, identity and social categorisation and communicative aspects of aging. She is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Anne Pakir (NUS) works in the fields of applied linguistics, Asian Englishes, language planning and policy, and world Englishes. Her most recent publication is a co-edited book, World Englishes: Rethinking paradigms (Low and Pakir, Routledge, 2018). Anne was President of the Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics (SAAL, 1997-2004), President of the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE, 1998-2000), and a member of the TOEFL Board (2004-2009). She was conferred the Inaugural SAAL Mentoring Medal of Honour (2015) and an honorary lifelong membership of the International Association for Applied Linguistics (at AILA 2017). Anitha Devi Pillai (PhD) is an applied linguist and teacher educator at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University where she teaches courses on literacy practices, writing pedagogy and writing skills. She won a National Heritage Board, Singapore grant in 2013 to study the literacy practices and ethnic heritage of the Singapore Malayalee community and subsequently was the first author of From Kerala to Singapore: Voices from the Singapore Malayalee community (Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2017). Rani Rubdy has served as Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, and as Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. She has published widely on the sociolinguistics of English as a global language and language policy. Books co-edited by her include English in the world: Global rules, global roles (Continuum, 2006); Language as commodity: Global structures, local marketplace (Continuum, 2008); The global-local interface: Exploring language and identity (Multilingual Matters, 2014) and Conflict, exclusion and dissent in the linguistic landscape (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Ruanni Tupas is an Assistant Professor and the Programme Leader of the MA in Applied Linguistics, English Language and Literature Group, National Institute of Education. He is editor of Unequal Englishes: The politics of Englishes today (Palgrave, 2015), co-editor (with P. Sercombe) of Language, education and nation-building: Assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia (Palgrave, 2014), and co-editor (with Bunce, Phillipson & Rapatahana) of Why English?: Confronting the hydra (Multilingual Matters, 2016). His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language and Education, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, RELC Journal, and Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Lionel Wee is Professor and Provost’s Chair in the Department of English Language & Literature at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on language policy, new varieties of English, and general issues in sociolinguistics. His latest book is The Singlish controversy: Language, culture and identity in a globalizing world (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He currently has two research projects ongoing – one is concerned with the study of affect in linguistic landscapes, and another critiques the systems view of language, arguing in favor of an assemblage-theoretic approach.