Singlish as defined by young educated Chinese Singaporeans
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Jakob R. E. Leimgruber
Abstract
Colloquial Singapore English, or Singlish, exists in an environment characterised by strong language planning aimed at demoting it in favour of Standard English, as well as in a linguistic ecology featuring a number of languages that have had an impact on its current form. An actual definition of Singlish, beyond scholarly linguistic analyses, is less than straightforward, and this article sets out to address this. Chinese Singaporeans were asked to define Singlish, and elements of Hokkien (one of the major substrate languages involved in the emergence of the contact variety) in conjunction with Singlish were subjected to attitudinal ratings. The results call for a redefinition of Singlish not in terms of a clear set of features that set it apart from other varieties, but rather as a combination of linguistic resources that combine to create a stylistic repertoire appropriate for the expression of, among other stances, local identity.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
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- Frontmatter
- Language use patterns and ethnolinguistic vitality of the Shina speaking Gurezi immigrants
- The linguistic landscape: mobile signs, code choice, symbolic meaning and territoriality in the discourse of protest
- Singlish as defined by young educated Chinese Singaporeans
- The influence of social factors on minority language engagement amongst young people: an investigation of Welsh-English bilinguals in North Wales
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- ÎNÎHIYAWÎTWÂW ‘THEY ARE SPEAKING CREE’: CREE LANGUAGE USE AND ISSUES IN NORTHERN ALBERTA, CANADA
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Language use patterns and ethnolinguistic vitality of the Shina speaking Gurezi immigrants
- The linguistic landscape: mobile signs, code choice, symbolic meaning and territoriality in the discourse of protest
- Singlish as defined by young educated Chinese Singaporeans
- The influence of social factors on minority language engagement amongst young people: an investigation of Welsh-English bilinguals in North Wales
- Social identities in post-Apartheid intergroup communication patterns: linguistic evidence of an emergent nonwhite pan-ethnicity in Namibia?
- Small languages and small language communities 77
- ÎNÎHIYAWÎTWÂW ‘THEY ARE SPEAKING CREE’: CREE LANGUAGE USE AND ISSUES IN NORTHERN ALBERTA, CANADA
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities
