Standard, colloquial, and strategic: a generic analysis of Singapore English in Healthier SG video campaigns

Pragmatics of the sentence-final uses of can in Colloquial Singapore English

Bobaljik & Wurmband (2015) have recently developed a hypothesis that no language truly mixes wh-movement and wh-in-situ structures in its syntax, with seemingly optional wh-in-situ in a wh-movement language being analyzed as a question with declarative syntax. In this paper, we will present novel data from Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) which question this hypothesis. Instead of assuming that the Q-feature of the interrogative CWH head in a language must be specified in a binary manner (valued or unvalued), we will propose that this feature is underspecified in languages such as CSE. The proposed amendment is not only sufficiently restrictive to cover the type of languages predicted by B&W’s original hypothesis, but also flexible enough to accommodate languages with a mixed wh-system. We will further argue that contact-based explanations, though plausible, do not have to be taken as a reason for CSE to develop this specific trait, which could have developed under independent, non-contact situations. This position is supported by Malay and Ancash Quechua, two non-contact languages which nonetheless exhibit optional wh-in-situ like CSE.

Many scholars consider clause-final adverbs (CFAs) like already, also, and only to be a prominent feature of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), but little is known about their use in present-day CSE. Using data from the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), we investigate patterns of variation involving CFAs and examine whether they are sensitive to factors such as speaker age and gender. We find that clause-final already and only has increased over time, while clause-final also has remained stable. Overall, the results suggest that CFAs are a stable feature of CSE. Variation in the use of CFAs is conditioned by semantic function, age, and gender. Specifically, clause-final already is associated with the inceptive function. Clause-final already and also are more likely to be used by younger speakers, while clause-final also and only are more likely to be used by males and in all-male conversational settings respectively. We suggest that these patterns are due to present-day English-Mandarin bilingualism, increasingly positive attitudes toward CSE, and National Service for males.

Singapore English is a nativised variety of English, which comes in essentially two forms: Standard Singapore English and Colloquial Singapore English. This article describes the sound system and the grammar of this variety, including an overview of the local vocabulary. A concluding section explains the various models that have been proposed to explain that variation in Singapore English, including the post‐creole continuum () and diglossia (), before settling on more recent research using a cultural orientation model () and indexicality ().

Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause is not marked morphosyntactically, and must precede the consequent clause. We show that Singapore English, like Chinese, the main substrate language, is topic prominent, and the novel conditional construction is a direct consequence of this new typological status. We analyze the unmarked conditional clause as topic, a basic syntactic position in topic prominent languages. Our analysis shows that substrate influence is systemic: the entire cluster of properties associated with topic prominence is transferred from Chinese to Singapore English.

Singapore is an ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse nation‐state that has always practiced deliberate language policy and planning. The bilingual education policy, introduced shortly after the young nation's independence has led to the emergence of English‐knowing bilinguals who are proficient in both English and their ethnically ascribed mother tongues, namely, Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians. The linguistic landscape of Singapore, documented in the most recent population census of 2020, shows the rise in the use of English as the home language across all three major ethnic groups, leading scholars to adopt the term “English‐dominant bilinguals.” It is of prime importance to document the English used by these English‐dominant bilinguals who have to balance between being globally competent but also having to be accommodating to the local realities of English use in Singapore. This paper extends the findings in Low's presentation of an empirical study of 31 expert users of English who hold Director‐level positions in the Singapore civil service and 6 literary writers to examine the linguistic spaces where Standard Singapore English and Colloquial Singapore English (also known as Singlish) function and the choices and factors influencing the choices are made. Through an online qualitative survey, a new model for looking at variations in the use of English in Singapore is introduced. This three‐dimensional model proposes the cline of glocality which adds to Pakir's original 1991 two‐dimensional model of the expanding triangles of English expression in Singapore which only has the clines of proficiency and formality explaining the variety of English used at the time. Proposing the cline of glocality more accurately reflects the current situation of English in Singapore where users need to balance between achieving global competence while yet adapting to the local realities of its use. Adopting the cline of glocality also necessitates rethinking how language teacher education needs to be repositioned to help young Singaporeans navigate between the global and local uses of English. This paper articulates the key concepts surrounding the theory of change proposed and practical implications for language teacher education policy and practice to effect this change.

Discourse particles are among the most commented-upon features of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE). Their use has been shown to vary depending on formality, context, gender and ethnicity, although results differ from one study to another. This study uses theCorpus of Singapore English Messages(CoSEM), a large-scale corpus of texts composed by Singaporeans and sent using electronic messaging services, to investigate gender and ethnic factors as predictors of particle use. The results suggest a strong gender effect as well as several particle-specific ethnic effects. More generally, our study underlines the special nature of the grammatical class of discourse particles in CSE, which is open to new additions as the sociolinguistic and pragmatic need for them develops.

This article introduces the first version of the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a 3.6‐million‐word monitor corpus of online text messages collected between 2016 and 2019, compiled and managed by a group of scholars who share an interest in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) research. The paper explains the motivations behind developing a new corpus for the investigation of CSE. It also documents the process of compiling and organizing CoSEM and describes the corpus's initial structure and composition. We further discuss the social variables used in tagging the data, as well as ethical challenges, advantages, and disadvantages unique to online message datasets. In addition, we present preliminary analyses of two selected CSE features: (1) the Hokkien‐derived expression (bo)jio and (2) sentence‐final adverbs (already, also, only). As CoSEM is an ongoing project, we conclude the article with notes on future directions.

Throughout the history of Singapore, Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) has been treated as an obstacle to Singaporeans’ acquisition of standardized English. The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched in 2000 to promote standardized English while discouraging the use of CSE. Nonetheless, CSE is increasingly used in local commercial advertisements by private companies. Recently, the state has also changed its firm anti‐CSE position, and begun to recognize CSE as part of the unique identity that ties Singaporeans together. Rather surprisingly, government advertisements have begun employing CSE expressions, particularly since the state's 50th anniversary in 2015. This study investigates how the use of CSE is semioticized in both government and private‐company advertisements that have appeared in recent years. The findings suggest that CSE is integrated into government advertisements as an invocation of a pan‐Singaporean identity in order to naturalize the state's larger political discourses.

In this paper, I investigate the nature of parameters responsible for the distribution of argument ellipsis (AE) from the perspective of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE). One recent theory by Saito (2007) suggests that this process, technically analyzed through LF‐Copy, is blocked by ϕ‐feature agreements of T with subject DPs and v with object DPs, respectively. I provide evidence from Case marking, VP‐ and CP‐ellipsis, and Exceptional Case‐Marking constructions that in CSE both functional heads possess abstract ϕ‐feature agreement, as in Standard English. The agreement theory predicts that neither the null subject nor null object position should permit AE in CSE. The fact, however, is that AE is blocked in subject positions but permitted in object positions. I propose that AE in CSE is controlled, instead, by the presence of an operator–variable topic chain, formed to reflect the language's topic‐prominent profile, as manifested in its definite subject preference. This analysis is supported by the observation that the null subject position allows AE in CSE as long as it is not linked to the topic position, as in the case of the hanging topic construction. The alternative analysis suggests that the cross‐linguistic distribution of AE is conditioned by (at least) two parameters: agreement and topichood.

The continuous co-existence in Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish) of the past tense alongside already, an aspect marker expressing iamitive functions (Olsson 2013), has not, to present knowledge, received an adequate explanation in terms of diachronic change. The two forms are often seen to overlap in function, but a more intensive survey reveals that only the completive functions overlap, the non-completive functions accounting for the majority of uses in present-day Singapore English. The bias in functions is considered to be the result of a renovation in contact grammaticalization, or a convergence towards the lexifier, often expressed in terms of decreolization in creole languages. The present study considers quantitative data of both completive and non-completive already across four diachronic time periods, concluding that the constant diglossic presence of the standard lexifier since colonization contributed to the convergence shown.

While much has been written about the unique set of discourse particles in colloquial Singapore English, other discourse markers which belong to the common core of English have been neglected. This paper deals with basically, a rather recent addition to the paradigm of discourse markers which typically move along the following clines in their development: clause-internal adverbial > sentence adverbial > discourse particle; scope within the proposition > scope over the proposition > scope over discourse. This paper will use the evidence from the Singaporean subcorpus of the International Corpus of English (ICE) to trace the functions and contexts for basically and to determine whether the grammaticalization clines proposed on the basis of British English also hold for an Outer Circle variety such as Singapore English with its rich array of indigenized discourse particles.

Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), also known as ‘Singlish’, features a wide range of sentence‐final particles (SFP) influenced by local languages such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay. This study focuses on the SFP sia, a relatively new and less‐explored particle with Malay roots. We examine sia and its variants (sia, sial, siak and siol) using data from the Corpus of Singapore English Messages, a 6.9‐million‐word text‐message corpus from 2016 to 2022. While previous research has associated sia and its variants with strong illocutionary contexts, particularly among young male Singaporeans due to its vulgar and masculine connotations, our data indicate that sia is now used more broadly among CSE‐speaking youth. It is employed in both strong and weak illocutionary contexts, suggesting a shift away from its negative/vulgar associations. Sia and its variants are emerging as general phatic markers reflecting the identity of CSE‐speaking youth.

Abstract: Colloquial Singapore English is an outer‐circle variety that exhibits contact‐induced linguistic change. It has been characterized as the L variant in diglossic opposition to standard English. In this paper, we address two related issues: (1) the extent to which the Singapore English diglossia is supported by corpus data, and (2) the extent to which the diglossia is reducible to register variation. We investigate the usage pattern of two linguistic variables which have acquired novel grammatical meanings, and show that our data support the Singapore English diglossia, but the variation is greater than what is normal in register variation. The diglossia of which one variant is an outer‐circle variety does not reduce easily to register variation.

The use of the adverb already in Colloquial Singapore English has long been known as one of the most readily recognizable features defining the contact dialect, marking aspectual nuances such as anterior, completive, inchoative and inceptive functions, as noted by Bao (2005, 2015). Recent observations note that the uses of already as an inchoative marker (distinguishing the adverb as an iamitive) are more frequently found than completive uses across a small, synchronic sample of speakers (Teo 2019). It is perhaps less often recognized, though, that the aspectual use of already co-exists with the variable marking for past tense in Singlish (Ho & Platt 1993), and that both the aspectual adverb and the past tense may be seen to co-occur in the same construction. The frequency of already in its various functions is examined across two corpora, and the relative frequency of completive vs. non-completive functions is quantified diachronically. It is hypothesized that, rather than grammaticalizing onwards to become a past tense marker, as is predictable for some Portuguese creole iamitives (ya ‘already’) (Clements 2006), already is becoming increasingly restricted in its functional range in today’s Singlish, and that its perfect and completive functions may be at a stage of selective renovation by the use of the past tense in Standard Singapore English.