Singapore English Research Articles

The Homogenization of Ethnic Differences in Singapore English? A Consonantal Production Study.

Past research on Singapore English (SgE) has shown that there are specific segmental and prosodic patterns that are unique to the three major ethnic groups, Chinese, Malay, and Indian in Singapore. These features have been highlighted as the "stereotypical" ethnic markers of SgE speakers, assuming substrate influence from the speakers' "ethnic" languages (Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil). However, recent research suggests that Singaporeans are becoming increasingly English dominant and has challenged the position of the ethnic languages as true "mother tongues" of Singaporeans. Hence, this study seeks to question if such "stereotypical" ethnic features exist, and if so, the extent to which a less dominant ethnic language would affect the phonology of speakers' English. This study looks specifically at the production of consonants /f/, /θ/, /t/, /v/, and /w/ as salient segmental features in SgE. Participants' phonetic behavior of /θ/, which was produced similarly across the three ethnic groups, disputed substrate influence. Tamil speakers were the most disparate, particularly with the /v/-/w/ contrast production. However, these deviations were often sporadic phonetic changes, which scarcely reflect robust speech patterns in the community. As a result, consonantal production in SgE is found to be largely independent of substrate influence and relatively uniform across the three ethnicities. The homogeneity observed in this study sheds light on bilinguals' acquisition of sounds, and it also provides phonological evidence toward the understanding of the evolutionary process of postcolonial Englishes.

Stative progressives in Inner and Outer Circle varieties of English

Stative progressives in Inner and Outer Circle varieties of English

The Auditory English Lexicon Project: A multi-talker, multi-region psycholinguistic database of 10,170 spoken words and nonwords.

The Auditory English Lexicon Project (AELP) is a multi-talker, multi-region psycholinguistic database of 10,170 spoken words and 10,170 spoken nonwords. Six tokens of each stimulus were recorded as 44.1-kHz, 16-bit, mono WAV files by native speakers of American, British, and Singapore English, with one from each gender. Intelligibility norms, as determined by average identification scores and confidence ratings from between 15 and 20 responses per token, were obtained from 561 participants. Auditory lexical decision accuracies and latencies, with between 25 and 36 responses per token, were obtained from 438 participants. The database also includes a variety of lexico-semantic variables and structural indices for the words and nonwords, as well as participants' individual difference measures such as age, gender, language background, and proficiency. Taken together, there are a total of 122,040 sound files and over 4 million behavioral data points in the AELP. We describe some of the characteristics of this database. This resource is freely available from a website ( https://inetapps.nus.edu.sg/aelp/ ) hosted by the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF COMMUNICATION(Asan Example of Singapore English)

This article discusses the origins of the English language, its international status, and a comparative analysis of the conversations of speakers of this language. In particular, we are talking about the characteristics of speakers in Singapore. The article provides a brief overview of the use and development of English around the world and the diversity of English through a comparison between Singaporean and literary English species, which are part of an expanding circle of English for the current, globalized era (Kachru 1988:5),explained.

Lexical Retention in Contact Grammaticalisation: Already In Southeast Asian Englishes

Amongst the problems of contact grammaticalisation research in past studies has been, first, the problem of searching for diachronic evidence in relatively ‘new’ language situations, something which was advocated by Bruyn (2009), amongst others as essential to contact grammaticalisation research. Because of the absence of stage-by-stage diachronic evidence for contact grammaticalisation, many cases of ordinary contact-induced grammaticalisation may at first appear as simply calques (polysemy-copying in Heine & Kuteva 2005). The present study reveals the presence of lexical persistence in the age-graded distribution of the perfective marker already in Singaporean and Malaysian English, and demonstrates that even ordinary contact-induced grammaticalisation may be gradual if it is mediated by constraints from the lexifier source material. The study also questions the hypothesis of Total Systemic Transfer of the Chinese perfective aspectual system in Singapore English (Bao, 2001; 2005; 2015), and suggests an extended function for the Lexifier Filter in contact.

Corpus-based Analysis of Verbal and Nominal Reduplication in Colloquial Singapore English

Reduplication has always been an important subject of morphology and language typology. Cross-linguistic studies have identified 45 functions of reduplication in 108 languages. Total reduplication is recognised as productive and systematic in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), possibly due to language contact. The paper aims to present the cases of verbal and nominal reduplication in CSE described in the linguistic literature, and juxtapose them with the examples from the Singapore component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-SIN), which seem to be indicative of discrepancies in form and functions.

ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ СИНГАПУРСКОГО ВАРИАНТА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА КАК РЕЗУЛЬТАТ ПОЛИЛИНГВАЛЬНОСТИ КУЛЬТУРНО-ЯЗЫКОВОЙ ЛИЧНОСТИ

Accomplished within the World Englishes paradigm, the article deals with linguistics specifics of Singapore English and its Singlish subtype with a special attention paid to the speakers, subject to the influence of various cultures and languages, including Malay, Tamil and Chinese. The provided examples of phonetical, lexical and grammatical features of the vernacular Singlish contribute to a better understanding of the English language variability, the ways of its development, as well as demonstrate the result of polylingualism and pluricultural interactions. The current research shows the extent to which the speakers’ linguistic and cultural features may exert an influence on the language

The Grammar of Singapore English Used in Skype Conversation

<p class="abstrak"><em>This article aims at investigating the grammar of conversation occurred among PT. BSI staffs and Cocomas Singapore (CMS) staffs. Since it was a cross cultural communication, the conversations were mostly taken place via Skype. Most of the time, CMS staffs used Singapore English (Singlish) during the interaction in the workplace while the government of Singapore has encouraged Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English in formal settings such as workplaces. In this article, the researchers analyzed the conversation by describing tha grammar used in the Skype conversation. The data were collected from Skype chat history derived from daily conversation among the staffs of BSI and CMS. Then, the data were analyzed and described based on the grammatical characteristics of Singlish proposed by </em><a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a><em>. The findings reveal that the grammatical features of Singlish mostly appeared in the conversations were copula deletion, agreement, and the use of particles. In short, all participants fully utilized Singlish rather than SSE in discussing their work</em><em>.</em></p><div><p class="StyleAuthorBold"><strong>Abstrak</strong></p></div><div><p class="abstrak">Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki tata bahasa percakapan yang terjadi di antara staf PT. BSI dan Cocomas Singapore (CMS). Karena percakapan ini merupakan komunikasi lintas budaya, sebagian besar percakapan dilakukan melalui Skype. Staf CMS menggunakan Bahasa Inggris Singapura (<em>Singlish</em>) selama berinteraksi di tempat kerja sementara pemerintah Singapura telah mendorong warga Singapura untuk menggunakan bahasa Inggris yang benar secara tata bahasa dalam situasi formal seperti ditempat kerja. Pada artikel ini, para peneliti menganalisis percakapan dengan menjelaskan tata bahasa yang digunakan dalam percakapan Skype. Data dikumpulkan dari riwayat obrolan Skype yang berasal dari percakapan harian antara staf BSI dan CMS. Kemudian, data dianalisis dan disajikan berdasarkan karakteristik tata bahasa Singlish yang diusulkan oleh <a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. Temuan mengungkapkan bahwa fitur tata bahasa <em>Singlish</em> sebagian besar muncul dalam percakapan adalah penghapusan kopula, kesepakatan, dan penggunaan partikel. Singkatnya, semua peserta sepenuhnya menggunakan <em>Singlish</em> daripada SSE dalam mendiskusikan pekerjaan mereka.</p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div><p><a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Leimgruber (2011)</p></div></div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div><p><a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Leimgruber (2011)</p></div></div>

The role of parallel constructions in imposition

Abstract Imposition, a general mechanism of contact-induced change that manifests itself in creole formation, second language acquisition, and even language attrition (Winford 2013), is a result of unequal dominance in a multilingual’s languages, whereby linguistic features from an individual’s more dominant language are transferred to a less dominant language (van Coetsem 1988). In order to flesh out how imposition operates in multilinguals, this study compares the differences between Singaporean Chinese and Malay speakers in their use of already in Colloquial Singapore English. Based on sociolinguistic interview data from twelve Chinese and eight Malay individuals, it is found that Chinese and Malay speakers differ primarily in two ways: (1) the preferred syntactic position for already; (2) the frequency of different contexts that already appears in. By integrating theories from cognitive linguistics and findings from psycholinguistic studies, this paper argues that ‘equivalent’ constructions across two grammatical systems within a multilingual’s mind is a key channel through which imposition operates. To support this argument, differences between the speech of Chinese and Malay speakers are shown to be motivated by the presence or absence of ‘equivalent’ or parallel constructions.

The Simple View of Reading Made Complex by Morphological Decoding Fluency in Bilingual Fourth‐Grade Readers of English

AbstractThe authors examined the complexity of the simple view of reading, focusing on morphological decoding fluency in fourth‐grade readers of English in Singapore. The participants were three groups of students who all learned to become bilingual and biliterate in the English language (EL) and their respective ethnic language in school but differed in the home language they used. The first group was ethnic Chinese students who used English as the dominant home language (Chinese EL1); the other two groups were ethnic Chinese and Malay students whose dominant home language was not English but Chinese (Chinese EL2) and Malay (Malay EL2), respectively. The measures included pseudoword decoding (phonemic decoding), timed decoding of derivational words (morphological decoding fluency), oral vocabulary, and passage comprehension. Path analysis showed that oral vocabulary significantly predicted reading comprehension across all three groups, yet a significant effect of morphological decoding fluency surfaced in the Chinese EL1 and Malay EL2 groups but not the Chinese EL2 group. Multigroup path analysis and commonality analysis further confirmed that morphological decoding played a larger role in the Chinese EL1 and Malay EL2 groups. These findings are discussed in light of the joint influence of target‐language experience and cross‐linguistic influence on second‐language or bilingual reading development.

Attitudes and exposure as predictors of -t/d deletion among local and expatriate children in Singapore

AbstractAlthough orientation towards local norms is increasing in Singapore, Singapore English (SgE) is still perceived by some as a nonnative variety. Variation in attitudes towards SgE may shape acquisition of SgE features by both Singaporean and expatriate children, who increasingly attend government schools. The present study investigates how the -t/d deletion patterns of 60 children reflect their attitudes and school setting. Significant correlations are observed between deletion rate, attitude towards SgE, and accent self-perception among Singaporean children, highlighting that this variety is undergoing endonormative stabilization. However, while some expatriates in local schools delete more than peers in international schools, expatriate children generally do not acquire local -t/d deletion rates or constraints, regardless of familiarity with SgE or attitudes towards the variety. This gap between locals and expatriates reflects the persistence of ideologies that delegitimize SgE, as well as the growing prominence of SgE as a marker of local identity.

Lexical bundles in conversation across Englishes

AbstractThis study adoptsNelson’s (2014)methodological framework to investigate core and peripheral lexical bundles (i.e. recurrent multi-word sequences) in conversation, using data from the British, Canadian, Singapore, and Hong Kong components of theInternational Corpus of English(ICE). The overlap and non-overlap comparisons reveal (dis)similarities in the use of bundles across the four World Englishes (WEs). Our findings suggest that in terms of discourse building blocks, the more advanced a variety is according toSchneider’s (2007)Dynamic Model of New Englishes, the more lexical bundles it shares with the common core in conversation. Canadian English (CanE) shares the most common ground with British English (BrE). As a nascent variety, Hong Kong English (HKE) differs most from BrE, while Singapore English falls between CanE and HKE. Though the results do not correlate with Schneider’s Dynamic Model at the level of recurring chunks, they allow us to test predictions of WEs models. Quantitative and qualitative analyses enable the identification of bundles with significantly high frequency in each regional variety, thus enriching comparative research of WEs.

Colloquial Singapore English in advertisements

AbstractThroughout 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.

Stylistic Analysis of Philippine English and Singaporean English in Automotive Review Articles

English as a global language has been used widely in various communication modes. The communication in the automotive industry is highly characterized as technical therefore, it possesses certain features that may be exclusive to its communication type. Since today’s time veers on amalgamating World Englishes, this discourse analysis study investigates the stylistic features of Philippine English and Singaporean English.Three pairs of automotive review articles written by Filipino and Singaporean writers were subjected to compare and contrast the stylistic features of these two English varieties. The findings reveal that Philippine English and Singaporean English used in automotive communication are similar in terms of register, grammatical feature, and writer’s style. On the other hand, the two varieties differ in terms of article contents and conventions. The study has implications in the creation of curriculum in automotive engineering that emphasizes both technology teaching and language teaching.

Probabilistic indigenization effects at the lexis–syntax interface

Szmrecsanyiet al.(2016) define probabilistic indigenization as the process whereby probabilistic constraints shape variation patterns in different ways, which eventually leads to more heterogeneity in the constraints governing syntactic variation across different varieties of English. The present study extends our knowledge of the heterogeneity of probabilistic grammars by sketching a corpus-based variationist method for calculating the similarity between varieties thereby drawing inspiration from the comparative sociolinguistics literature. Based on linguistic material from theInternational Corpus of English, we ascertain the degree of regional variability of five probabilistic constraints on the genitive, dative, particle placement and subject pronoun omission alternations across three varieties of English, namely British, Indian and Singapore English. Our results indicate that, of the four alternations under study, the genitive alternation is the most homogeneous one from a regional perspective, followed – in increasing order of heterogeneity – by subject pronoun omission, dative and particle placement alternations. On the basis of these findings, we evaluate claims in the literature according to which the extent of probabilistic indigenization is proportional to the lexical specificity of the syntactic phenomenon under study, a hypothesis that is borne out by our data.

The Chinese English dictionary: An online resource for Chinese English lexicography

AbstractThis study adopts a transnational perspective and attempts to survey a comprehensive range of the lexical outcome of diverse Chinese–English contact ecologies. It constructs a unified systematic framework of identifying and defining contact‐induced lexical items that originated in Chinese by qualitatively analyzing the admitted as well as excluded data of the Chinese English dictionary and evaluates the applicability of the framework by quantitatively checking the data derived from the framework against six sets of lexicographical and corpus data of three Chinese‐based varieties, namely, Hong Kong English, Singapore English and Malaysian English. Three major findings are: (1) Chinese English words (CEWs) are identifiable through three essential sets of parameters: entry form, Chinese orientation and acceptance and currency; (2) the identification criteria could be applied to locate CEWs in Chinese‐based varieties worldwide; and (3) a fair proportion of the CEWs are used in the corpora of the three Asian Englishes in GloWbE.

Linguistic insecurity and the linguistic ownership of English among Singaporean Chinese

AbstractLinguistic insecurity and linguistic ownership rest on the same foundational ideas. However, despite the extensive study of both, the two concepts have never been discussed in conjunction. This paper refines both concepts and puts forth a set of conditions to test for the presence of linguistic insecurity and the exercise of linguistic ownership in 287 Singaporeans through an empirical survey examining their use of English, as well as their perceptions of other speakers in the Singapore English‐speaking community and Singapore English itself. The results reveal that Singaporeans are linguistically insecure but yet exercise full ownership of the English language. These somewhat paradoxical findings uncover an unusual relationship between linguistic insecurity and ownership. We argue in this paper that there exists a new type of linguistic ownership in Singapore, one that does not invoke notions of authority or legitimacy. It is this new notion of linguistic ownership that drives a new brand of linguistic insecurity documented in this paper.

High-frequency initialisms: Evidence for Singaporean English stress

In light of recent findings that Singlish (Colloquial Singaporean English) makes use of three densely distributed tones in its intonation, it has been suggested that this variety of English may lack stress. Here I show that initialisms such as NTUC (National Trade Unions Congress) display tonal variation which cannot be explained straightforwardly in terms of lexical access routes, but indicate recursive prosodic word structures linked to lexical frequency. This analysis is supported by frequency counts and acoustic measurements, and represents not only evidence of stress in Singlish, but multiple levels of stress.

‘Technically wrong leh’

There has been much discussion on the use of particles (also referred to as ‘discourse particles’ or ‘pragmatic particles’) as a key feature of Singapore English. Wong (2004) has pointed out that particles are essential in the Singapore speech community, and in order to pass as a functional member of the speech community a speaker needs to have a proficient knowledge of the meanings and functions of particles in spoken (and increasingly in texted) discourse. There is no doubt that the use of particles in Singapore Colloquial English is prevalent in the language use of speakers in Singapore, as attested by the numerous studies conducted on the topic since the 1970s (including Tongue, 1974; Richards & Tay, 1981; Kwan–Terry, 1978; Platt & Weber, 1980; Platt, Weber & Ho, 1983; Platt & Ho, 1989; Gupta, 1992; Wong, 2004, 2005; Wee, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010; Liemgruber, 2016; Botha, 2018). Despite the fact that particles have been studied extensively, very few studies have investigated which particular particles can be considered prototypical in Singapore English in general, as well as more specifically in the vernacular speech of Singaporeans. Not only that, there appears still to be a lot we do not know about the functions and uses of many of these particles, specifically in the vernacular speech of Singaporeans.

“But you don’t sound Malay!”

Abstract This study examined the English accents of English-Malay bilinguals in Singapore to ascertain whether language dominance was a determinant of accent variation in Singapore English, with a hypothesis that a Malay-dominant bilingual would have more ethnic-specific features than an English-dominant one. Ten English-Malay bilinguals – five English-dominant and five Malay-dominant – who differed greatly in their language dominance took part in this study. In an ethnic discriminability task that involved 60 naïve raters, Malay-dominant bilinguals were significantly more often correctly identified as ethnically Malay and were rated as having a significantly more perceivable Malay-accented English accent, while those who were English-dominant had an English accent that lacked ethnic-specific features so much so that naïve raters, including raters who were English-Malay bilinguals, were less able to identify the speakers as ethnically Malay. The results of this study indicate that early sequential bilinguals or simultaneous bilinguals of the same two languages need not have similar accents. The findings also suggest that language dominance is a determinant of accent variation in Singapore English, at least for the English-Malay bilinguals.