English in Singapore: Modernity and Management (Asian Englishes Today)

323 Pages·2010·1.183 MB·English

by  Lisa Lim (editor), Anne Pakir (editor), Lionel Wee (editor)

Asian Englishes Today
Series Editor: Kingsley Bolton
Chair Professor of English, City University of Hong Kong
The volumes in this series set out to provide a contemporary record of
the spread and development of the English language in South, Southeast,
and East Asia from both linguistic and literary perspectives. They reflect
themes related to English that cut across national and linguistic boundaries,
including the study of language policies; globalization and linguistic
imperialism; English in the media; English in law, government and
education; ‘hybrid’ Englishes; and the bilingual creativity manifested by the
vibrant creative writing found in many societies in Asia.
The editorial advisory board comprises a number of leading scholars in the
field of world Englishes, including Maria Lourdes S. Bautista (De La Salle
University-Manila, the Philippines), Susan Butler (Macquarie Dictionary,
Australia), Braj B. Kachru (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign),
Yamuna Kachru (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Shirley Geok-
lin Lim (University of California, Santa Barbara), Tom McArthur (founding
editor of English Today), Anne Pakir (National University of Singapore),
Larry E. Smith (co-founding editor of World Englishes), and Yasukata Yano
(Waseda University, Japan).
Also in the series:
Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity
Edited by Kingsley Bolton
Japanese English: Language and Culture Contact
James Stanlaw
China’s English: A History of English in Chinese Education
Bob Adamson
Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon
Braj B. Kachru
World Englishes in Asian Contexts
Yamuna Kachru and Cecil L. Nelson
Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspectives
Edited by Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista and Kingsley Bolton

Hong Kong University Press
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Aberdeen
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© Hong Kong University Press 2010
Hardback 978-988-8028-42-9
Paperback 978-988-8028-43-6
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This digitally printed version 2010.
Contents
Series editor’s preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
List of contributors xi
Map of Singapore and the region xiv
Part I: The Ecology of English in Singapore 1
1 English in Singapore: Policies and prospects 3
Lisa Lim, Anne Pakir and Lionel Wee
2 Migrants and ‘mother tongues’: Extralinguistic forces in the 19
ecology of English in Singapore
Lisa Lim
Part II: Reconceptualizing ‘English’ 55
3 Singapore Standard English revisited 57
Anthea Fraser Gupta
4 The Speak Good English Movement: A web-user’s perspective 91
Paul Bruthiaux
5 Hybridity in ways of speaking: The glocalization of English in 109
Singapore
Lubna Alsagoff
vi Contents
Part III: Ethnicity and Ownership 131
6 Whose English? Language ownership in Singapore’s English 133
language debates
Wendy D. Bokhorst-Heng, Rani Rubdy, Sandra Lee McKay and
Lubna Alsagoff
7 Language and social capital in Singapore 159
Viniti Vaish, Teck Kiang Tan, Wendy D. Bokhorst-Heng, David
Hogan and Trivina Kang
8 Language policy and planning in Singaporean late modernity 181
Christopher Stroud and Lionel Wee
Part IV: English in Education 205
9 Problematizing the implementation of innovation in English 207
language education in Singapore
Rani Rubdy
10 Sounding local and going global: Current research and 235
implications for pronunciation teaching
Ee-Ling Low
11 English as a lingua franca: Negotiating Singapore’s English 261
language education
Anne Pakir
Part V: Research Bibliography 281
12 Researching English in Singapore: Bibliographic sources 283
Index 305
Series editor’s preface
Of all Asian societies, the role of English in Singapore — at least from an
outsider’s perspective — has typically been regarded as most successful and
least contentious, compared to other English-using societies in the region.
In contrast to Hong Kong, for example, the societal space for English as
an interethnic lingua franca has meant that the rationale for English has
often foregrounded its utility as a ‘neutral’ language of education and social
administration. Singapore has also gained a strong reputation regionally
for the relatively high proficiency of its English users, a reputation that has
risen in pace with the city-state’s recent branding of itself as a knowledge-
based community and arts and education hub. Ironically, however, at
the same time that Singapore has worked hard to such ends, its domestic
linguistic complaint tradition has striven less to emphasize its strengths, and
somewhat more to bemoan the community’s collective mastery of English.
While linguists have been fascinated by the emergence of local varieties of
English, both educated and informal, the government has expressed much
concern about the existence of ‘bad English’, which has often been equated
with ‘Singlish’, however vaguely defined and described. Meanwhile, English
continues to spread as a language of the home in a society where ‘mother
tongue’ — for a number of official purposes — may only refer to such
heritage languages as Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
This present volume, edited by Lisa Lim, Anne Pakir, and Lionel
Wee, is ground-breaking in the way in which it is able to account for and
explain at least some of these contradictions and tensions. By engaging an
ensemble of truly expert commentators on English in Singapore, this book
succeeds in providing an insightful account of the interplay of linguistic
ecology, language policies, and sociolinguistic realities of the Singapore
community, which cumulatively offers a rich and fine-grained account of
the sociolinguistics of English in this context. Part I (with a chapter from
Lim, Pakir and Wee, and another from Lim) deals with the ecology of
English in Singapore, where an integrated ‘ecological model’ requires an
viii Series editor’s preface
understanding of the dynamics of both migration and official language
policies. Part II, with contributions from Gupta, Bruthiaux, and Alsagoff,
then highlights the need to (re)conceptualize ‘English’ in the Singapore
context, with particular reference to both the Speak Good English
Movement, and the thorny issue of Singlish.
Part III — with three chapters by Bokhorst-Heng, Rubdy, McKay and
Alsagoff; Vaish, Tan, Bokhorst-Heng, Hogan and Kang; and Stroud and
Wee — tackle the issue of ‘ethnicity and ownership’ focusing on such
topics as language debates, language and social capital, and the shifting
ground for traditional language policies, and the theorization of language
planning, in a late-modern consumer society such as Singapore. Part IV
then deals with the issue of English language education, with chapters from
Rubdy on the history of syllabuses, Low on pronunciation, and Pakir on the
implications of the world Englishes (WE) and English as a Lingua Franca
(ELF) approaches for English language education. Finally, Part V provides
an immensely useful guide to published books and articles in this field.
The level of discussion throughout is impressive, and the layering of
linguistic description and sociolinguistic commentary that is at the heart
of this volume not only serves to illuminate the Singapore situation, but
will also impact the conceptualization and discussion of the sociolinguistics
of English in Asia in the international frontline of research. This work
provides a major contribution to the Asian Englishes Today series and to the
description and analysis of English in Singapore, and, as such, it is likely
to serve a standard reference work (for both students and researchers) for
many years to come.
Kingsley Bolton
April 2010
Acknowledgements
Our appreciation extends first and foremost to all the contributors for
making this volume what it is: thank you for being part of this project. We
also express our heartfelt thanks to Kingsley Bolton, editor of the Asian
Englishes Today series, for his enthusiasm and support for a volume on
English in Singapore in the first place, his sage advice on its contents,
and his aiding and abetting throughout its incarnation. We are much
obliged to Nicole Wong, our research assistant, for the initial formatting
of chapters and checking of references, as well as for her work in the
preliminary collation of the research bibliography, and to the National
University of Singapore’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Staff Research
Support Scheme for the grant (C103-000-222-091) that funded the research
assistantship. We are grateful too to Chris Leung for his work on the
cover design and map. We thank the two anonymous reviewers appointed
by Hong Kong University Press for their constructive comments on the
chapters, and the staff at the Press for their advice, support and help
throughout the preparation of this volume.