Repositioning Singlish in Singapore’s language-in-education policies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Singapore’s language-in-education policies have always prescribed that only a standard variety of English be allowed in teaching and learning. This view of upholding a standard has been pervasive not only in education but also throughout Singapore’s society. In this article, we review Singapore’s language policy, emphasizing the functional polarization of languages ideology that serves as its basis, and discuss the resultant natural emergence of the key linguistic marker of Singaporean national identity – Singlish. Charting the journey and growth of Singlish’s role and status from both official and socio-cultural perspectives, we highlight that changes can be observed. It is, thus, imperative that Singlish’s place in language classrooms and the affordances that Singlish has for language learning be reconsidered. Following a discussion of salient Singlish features, highlighting their appropriacy in social situations where standard English features are not and the fact that many Singapore English features are recognizably shared by both Singlish and Singapore Standard English, we propose a linguistic feature-based contrastive analysis approach for Singapore’s English language classrooms. At the core, we call for a review of Singapore’s language-in-education policies and the support of various stakeholders in the bid to nurture confident and effective English language users of the future.