The State of Singlish
Oh well, I have been ranting about this for quite a while...
Frankly, the key reasons for the State of Singlish, and the pidgin Mandarin we speak, are:
1) Jack Neo's GaoXiaoXingDong - contaminating two decades worth of children who grew up with the numerous Singlish expressions from his iconic characters. We applauded his genious and observational powers at that time. On hindsight, that was the beginning of the rot. Imagine the impact and linguistic influence upon the children who grew up with the 5 consecutive nights of his GXXD over the stretch of many years. (Perhaps, Jack Neo and co. did a great disservice to our nation, notwithstanding his Public Service Medal.)
2) Gurmit Singh, Andrian Pang, Mark Lee and the many other emcees and comperes on the mediacorp TV channels and Radio stations, who perpetuated Singlish and mangled English these many years. (In fact, I should be directing all the fault-finding towards Mediacorp instead, rather than these minions of the company.)
3) We the people. We the English speaking people. We the Mandarin speaking people. We the supposedly educated and informed people, who argued once upon a time that Singlish, being our de facto lingua franca (and I am damn proud of Singlish too), should be embraced by all, because we can code-switch afterall. We have forgotten that young children are not as capable of code switching as adults, and they need constant GOOD models of language in action. And we the people - parents, maids, passers-by in the market and NTUC, interviewees in national news programmes etc - are all guilty of being TOO LAZY to speak good standard English (or Mandarin as well).
So, our generation, and our subsequent generations, will not be able to out-talk the very effective and persuasive/loud speakers (people) from the West (U.S., U.K.) and the East (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan.) If we cannot persuade, if we cannot communicate effectively (not to even consider our utter lack of general knowledge and perspectives), we would have failed as individuals and as a society.
Frankly, the key reasons for the State of Singlish, and the pidgin Mandarin we speak, are:
1) Jack Neo's GaoXiaoXingDong - contaminating two decades worth of children who grew up with the numerous Singlish expressions from his iconic characters. We applauded his genious and observational powers at that time. On hindsight, that was the beginning of the rot. Imagine the impact and linguistic influence upon the children who grew up with the 5 consecutive nights of his GXXD over the stretch of many years. (Perhaps, Jack Neo and co. did a great disservice to our nation, notwithstanding his Public Service Medal.)
2) Gurmit Singh, Andrian Pang, Mark Lee and the many other emcees and comperes on the mediacorp TV channels and Radio stations, who perpetuated Singlish and mangled English these many years. (In fact, I should be directing all the fault-finding towards Mediacorp instead, rather than these minions of the company.)
3) We the people. We the English speaking people. We the Mandarin speaking people. We the supposedly educated and informed people, who argued once upon a time that Singlish, being our de facto lingua franca (and I am damn proud of Singlish too), should be embraced by all, because we can code-switch afterall. We have forgotten that young children are not as capable of code switching as adults, and they need constant GOOD models of language in action. And we the people - parents, maids, passers-by in the market and NTUC, interviewees in national news programmes etc - are all guilty of being TOO LAZY to speak good standard English (or Mandarin as well).
So, our generation, and our subsequent generations, will not be able to out-talk the very effective and persuasive/loud speakers (people) from the West (U.S., U.K.) and the East (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan.) If we cannot persuade, if we cannot communicate effectively (not to even consider our utter lack of general knowledge and perspectives), we would have failed as individuals and as a society.
posted by edwinheng at 9:40 pm
2 Comments:
singaporeans should extend their "gratitude" to the people behind the forceful imposition of Bilingualism in the education system.
It has been only as effective as providing for a semi-lingualism, as evident from the disproportionate proficiency levels between lingua franca and mother tongue.
as singaporean children struggled to straddle both concepts together (and everyone recalls only top 10% EM1 are considered bilingual), 90% of the population construe a hybrid of their own - Singlish.
but do not overlook the utility that Singlish has afforded to the daily communications of some 3 million people who fall outside the category of True, Effective Bilingualism. they have not been ashamed in espousing it, and this has permitted its use in popular culture.
has anyone else critiqued the syntax and speech delivery of the average singaporean? i contend that the staggered, intermittent syntax and speech breaks are linked to singaporeans' emphasis on compacting everything to an economic minimal. by this i mean "GCE", "ERP", "MOD", "SAF", "NDP" and the whole barrage/ plethora of abbreviations and acronyms used to "simplify" (or rather stupidify) daily life.
singlish is very much a construct of many things that singaporeans have introduced into their culture, whether endogenously or exogenously (by political will).
on a parting note, singaporeans might do well not to ascribe any positive or negative qualities to singlish; they should just accept that they are doing something different. or are they uncomfortable about being branded different? the paki's have their own brand, as do the south koreans, malaysians, indons, viets and hongkongnese.
or is singapore a place so bereft of culture that singlish is a muddled attempt at a collective consciousness?
to pick up on your last 2 points, that's what is so tragic about us Singaporeans. What are we? Who are we? In terms of language culture. If we focus on Mandarin/Chinese, we alienate the other races, we ignore their equal rights in this land. So we have only English to hold us together. Now, we have Singlish as well - it is indeed our common identity. Many times have I recognised fellow Singaporeans abroad just by the manner of speech - accent, intonation and syntax. Yet, we risk being outnumbered and out-argued by the more proficient speakers in either English or Mandarin, both within Singapore (the very vocal foreign talents who are both loud and articulate, with a strong command of vocabulary and style) and beyond.
In the next 20 years, will the native Singaporeans become a silent majority (I mean, even more than what we already are), unable to agitate and articulate as well as the new PRs and new citizens when it comes to national issues and policies? I do worry about that, because that will change the Singaporean Identity that we have developed over the past three to four decades.
I don't know...
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