Singapore English

capital of capital of capital of Singapore face IntroductionThe range of subjects and depth of character of slope atomic number 18 fast related to the degree and manner of nativization in a non autochthonal variety. For the south category of exercisingrs, however, the go for of face is restricted to global purposes and the elite of societies in certain very specific domains equivalent academic discussions and publications.The Singapore award-winning poet, Edwin Thumboo, chatesWe were very conscious of writing in position plainly non writing in England. We had to domesticate the position Language, give it a local anaesthetic habitation. For instance, I necessitate never published a poem rough a nightingale. But, of course, you cannot substitute one bird for another(prenominal) you flip to machinate the language your birth. We were looking for an identity while using incline to express it. (The Straits Times, 1989, November 1) Countries be institutionalized va rieties, which have developed everywhere an elongate period of time and ar now use in many a(prenominal) domains. In his arguments for recognizing these varieties, Kachru says that non-native users of side of m deplete have internalizations which are linked to their own multilinguistic, sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts (B. B. Kachru, 1991, p. 5). The varieties differ from native varieties, in range and depth of their nativized features. The deviations from native norms occur at almost all linguistic levels -phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, style and treatment, and they are systematic and productive. These latter varieties of non-native side (or new position (for exercisings of non-native slope, see (Moag, 1982), as they have been called recently, have been accorded status by both native and non-native utterers and have received much attention from linguists, educators and bring throughrs. around linguists have gone to the consummation of advocating us e of the educated nativized variety of side of meat as the standard for belief (Tay Gupta 1983 Gupta 1986). Historical Background of English in Singapore and Malaysia Any diachronic discussion on Singapore, especially relating to the period before its independence in 1965, is almost eternally linked to historical development in Malaysia. This is undeniable as Singapore was one of the Straits Settlements in British Malaya and, in 1963, it became a governmental component of the independent Malaysia. Therefore, until its separation from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore and Malaysia constituted a single political entity. The insane asylum of British settlements in Penang (1786) and Singapore (1819) and the British take-over of Malacca in 1824 from the Dutch in abundant Britains attempt to control access to the Straits of Malacca, essential to its tea sight with China, mark the beginning of the influx of immigrants and the development of large and diverse name and address communit ies in Malaya.The increasing British influence on the MalayPeninsula coincided with the farther influx of large groups of Chinese from the south-eastern provinces of China and the Tamil-speaking Indians from South India. This was a military issue of increased production of tin and, at the beginning of twentieth atomic number 6, the initiation of the rubber industry (Platt Weber, 1980). Platt and Weber note that by the twentieth century there had developed in the British Straits Settlements and the Malay States a series of complex communities consisting not only of ethnic subgroups speaking their own native languages and dialects scarce also belonging to different social classes and backgrounds and occupied in different forms of employment (Platt Weber, 1980, p. 4). At the beginning of ordinal century, British interests in Malaya and the Straits Settlements expanded, and it was idle to virtually members of non European ethnic groups that English was an important, powerful la nguage. It was the language of the colonial masters it was the language of government and administration, and it was used extensively in the judiciary. Thus, a good command of the language was certainly an asset. However, with the rapid expansion of their interests in the region, the British soon saw the pick up for a group of English-educated non-Europeans who could assist them in their duties. They thus authorized the establishment of private secular mission-supported schools in the Straits Settlements at the beginning of the nineteenth century (for a brief account of the history of English learning from 1819 to after 1978, see Chua, 1990). These schools were at first available only to children from the well-to-do families of the different ethnic groups but later medium families were able to use these education. These English-educated school children would use English at home with their neighbors who also be English-medium schools. Their junior siblings, being impressed by th e new language, also acquired some English even before kickoff school. Thus, the use of English give from the school domain to the home domain, and later, to the employment and association domains (Platt Weber, 1980). It is thus clear that unlike some other varieties of English, Singapore-Malaysian English has developed through education. Some varieties of English like American English, Australian English, Canadian English, unfermented Zealand English, etcetera have evolved in a natural way because of mixing of settlers over a period of time, while others like creoles have developed though pidgin English (Platt Weber, 1980).The post-colonial era in the history of Malaysia and Singapore is marked by two major political changes. One was the independence of Malaya in 1957 from British rule, followed by the formation of Malaysia incorporating the Federation of Malaya, the crown states of Sabah and Sarawak and the then self-overned Singapore in 1963. The other was the separation o f Singapore from the political union of Malaysia in 1965.These political changes have had an immense influence on the spread and use of English in Malaysia and Singapore.English spread in SingaporeUnlike Malaysia, where the use of English is gradually decreasing, Singapore has seen an expansion in its use. This is mainly collect to increased enrollments in English-medium schools (Doraisamy ,1969).At the end of 1983, when the Ministry of Education decided that all schools, starting from January 1984, would be gradually converted into National Stream schools and English get out be taught as first language. However, as more people are educated in English and with fewer people speaking Malay, English is slowly replacing Malay as the language for inter-ethnic communication, especially among the younger generation (for discussions on interethnic communication, see Platt Weber, 1980, and Tay1982a) . As English is now the green language in all schools we can thus assume that it exit pl ay an even more important role in international domains like trade, diplomacy, cultural exchange, conferences and intranational domains such as government administration, law, education, home and friendship communication in the near future. The widespread use of English deep down the nation itself inevitably means that English has gone through the mathematical operation called indigenization (Moag Moag, 1977 Moag, 1982 Richards, 1979a) or nativization (B. B. Kachru, 1983a). To use B. B. Kachrus words (B. B. Kachru, 1982b), English has been transplanted from its source country (Britain) and acculturated to the local environment. What this means is that certain features in native British English have been permanently modified in view of the new cultural cathode-ray oscilloscope in Singapore which involves the interplay of the distinct ethnic cultures of Malays, Indians, and Chinese. These features manifest themselves in the phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and styles of discour se in Singapore English. Therefore, when Singaporean English users speak or write English, there are telling signs that distinguish them from native English speakers or writers from Britain, America, Australia or vernal Zealand, although educated Singaporean speakers or writers have subaltern problem making themselves understood. What are the features that distinguish the English of Singaporeans from that of, for example, the Englishmen or Americans?Characteristics and features of Singapore EnglishThe pioneering work done on Singapore and Malaysian English is the obtain by Tongue entitled The English of Singapore and Malaysia (1974). The book contains useful data on the phonology, syntax and lexis of Singapore English but it lacks theoretical readyation. The data are categorized under the dichotomy of standard and sub-standard forms. Some of the sub-standard forms given are actually not wrong but used in the variety of English. More importantly, Singaporean English is not treate d as a system on its own, and the sociolinguistic contexts touch the use of sub-standard forms are not considered. Crewes works (1977, 1978a, 1978b, 1979) reflect his purist attitudes towards Singapore English. He regards Singapore English as a foreign language and implies that the English-educated Singaporean is a helpless and pitiable person. Later, Crewe came forward with the book British English and Singapore English.Exercises in Awareness (Crewe, 1979). The book claims to help Singaporeans to get free of Singaporeanisms with a series of exercises where individual sentences have to be corrected so as to make them look more like British English. A more scholarly and systematic treatment of Singapore and Malaysian English is by Platt and Weber in their book entitled English in Singapore and Malaysia (1980). Using the methods of statistical correlation designed by Labov (1972a, 1972b), they go on that there is a direct correlation between the degree and very muchness of diver gence from Standard British English and variables such as formality, topic, domain and relationship of interlocutors. They looked at Singapore English as a system. Singapore English have been discussed from different views and therefore variety of characteristics and features have been mentioned and discussed. This composition covers commences of these characteristics. Rythem Deterding (Deterding, 2001 Deterding, Brown, Low, 2005) investigated the contrasting staveic properties of two varieties of English Singapore English, which is often described as syllable-timed, and British English, which is more usually assumed to be stress-timed. Deterings (2001) study showed that there is a significantly great variability in this measure of syllable-to-syllable duration for British English, which supports previous indications that, by comparison, Singapore English might indeed be regarded as being more syllable-timed. Additionally, it was found that there is little evidence of the influ ence of speaking rate on the measured differences in rhythm, but there is some evidence that the greater frequency of reduced syllables with a schwa in British English contributes to the difference between the two varieties. Grammar Difference between Singapore and British English grammar has been discussed by scholars (Deterding, Low, Brown, 2003 Lim, 2004). VerbsVerb generally appears in an uninflected form (Wee, 2004).For example, as Wee shows, the verb eat is not marked for tense or number. Because the verb are uninflected, time and aspectual information are conveyed via words (using words like yesterday or already). o A.He eat here yesterday o B. He not yet eat lunch o C. They eat already Aspect is marked via forms like always, already or mum. Thus, always is used to mark habituality o The bus always late The state-of-the-art aspect is marked by still o Late already, you still eat. Be and got Platt and Weber (1980) noted that Singapore English clauses that are attributiv e or equative tend not to use the verb be o The manse very nice The verb got is used variously in Singapore English as a perfective, a possessive, and an existentional marker o He got go to Japan o You got buy lottery? o You got nice fit out o Here got many people Nouns As Wee (2004) mentioned at bottom the noun dialect, Singaporean tends to make use of articles. It treats non count nouns and its relstive clauses are ordered kinda differently than their counterparts in more standard varieties of English(p. 1058) Objects Object preposing is another characteristic of Singapore English. The object, (direct or indirect) is commonly preposed, giving rise to example like following o To my sister sometimes I speak English o The movie dont know whether good or not Question forming In wh-interrogatives, the interrogative pronoun typically remains in situ(Wee, 2004, p. 1063) o You buy what? o This bus go where? For yes/no questions, they make use of the invariant tag is it. It also ha s another tag or not o The food good or not? o You sprightly or not? The passive Singaporean use kena passive phrase (Wee, 2004, p. 1064) o The thief kena caught (by the police) Adjective reduplication Adjective reduplication in Singapore English intensifies the meaning of the base adjective o Dont always eat sweet-sweet (very sweet) things.La and Lah These two Variables perform an important part in Singapore English and are interesting topics for linguistic experts. For instance, findings from cost and Ser (1983) concluded that The existence of strict rules governing the occurrence of La not only in sentences but also inside the structure of noun phrases and verb phrases. La demonstrates the value of solidarity, friendship, a reduction of social distance between participants, in contrast with Lah dignals hostility and social distancing function(p.17)ReferencesBell, R. T., Ser, L. P. Q. (1983). To-day la? tomorrow lah the LA Particle in Singapore English. RELC Journal, 14(2), 1 -18. Deterding, D. (2001). The measurement of rhythm a comparison of Singapore and British English. Journal of Phonetics, 29, 217-230. Deterding, D., Brown, A., Low, E. L. (2005). English in Singapore phonetic research on a corpus. Singapore unsanded York McGraw Hill. Deterding, D., Low, E. L., Brown, A. (2003). English in Singapore research on grammar. Singapore New York McGraw Hill. Lim, L. (2004). Singapore English a grammatical description. Amsterdam Philadelphia John Benjamins. Platt, J. T., Weber, H. (1980). English in Singapore and Malaysia status, features, functions. Kuala Lumpur New York Oxford University Press. Wee, L. (2004). Singapore English morphology and syntax. In E. W. Schneider B. Kortmann (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English a multimedia reference tool. Berlin New York Mouton de Gruyter.