The Linguistic Features of Translanguaging Interactions in Singapore: A Discourse Analysis Perspective

Abstract

Translanguaging has been researched as a heated topic about multilingual discourse studies. However, there were few studies observing from the perspective of translanguaging among Chinese Singaporeans in routine conversations, which is a research gap. Accordingly, this paper aims to examine the nature and discuss the influencing factors of translanguaging among Chinese-English bilinguals in Singapore with the use of discourse analysis as a research method. Major findings were: 1) some Chinese-English bilinguals were more efficient in English than others; 2) Singapore's localized and multilingual use of English have resulted in Colloquial Singapore English or Singlish; 3) influencing factors of translanguaging shown in the clips include students’ inadequate training for learning English as a second language, teachers’ time constraints, and teachers’ limited resources to incorporate support strategies for students, which were restricted by schools. Nonetheless, the contribution of this study is to explore the nature of translanguaging of Chinese-English Bilinguals, especially in the Singapore context, which will provide further implications for Singaporean English discourse studies.