Stratification
Singapore’s stance on language is highly paradoxical.
On the one hand, we seem to be proud of Singlish. Indeed, our country is, on the international stage, often associated with this unique brand of Creole. On the other, within our borders, we stratify ourselves according to command of ‘proper’ English. Many locals are hell-bent on sending their children to ‘elite’ English-speaking institutions that encourage the use of ‘proper’ English and, sometimes, paint Singlish as an informal tongue to be avoided or even disdained.
(Image Credit: Wikipedia)
This elitist sentiment surrounding English also comes through blatantly in Lim (2013)’s findings, which indicate a strong correlation between a household’s income and its likelihood of preferring English to be its domestic language.
The impact that such elitism has on the illiterate, who compose approximately 2.9% of our population, is heart-breaking, to say the least. As Channel NewsAsia has spotlighted through its 3-part documentary focusing on English illiteracy in Singapore, this minority tends to be on the receiving end of ableist judgements. It revealed that one who has gone through full-time education, even up to the diploma level, could still be deemed ‘uneducated’—with all the negative connotations that this term entails in our society—on the sole basis of their poor command of English.
(Image Credit: CNA Insider)
Easy as it is to trivialise this minority’s struggles with the conjecture that they must have simply not paid enough attention in school, many factors—e.g. lack of proper learning support and learning disabilities—often come into play, as the documentary stresses. Such exclusionary attitudes were also shown to often have pernicious influences on how members of this group view themselves and how they choose to interact with others.
English’s Privileged Status
That Singapore is a former British colony makes it relatively unsurprising how ingrained English dominance is in the local psyche.
The centuries-long perception that English-speakers are superior has influenced the education system both in its teaching methods and in the mindsets it forges, hence generating a vicious cycle that has perpetuated that very perception.
However, English’s privileged standing in Singapore may also be viewed as just a matter of utility. After all, with English being the most spoken language worldwide, Singaporeans should aim to be well-versed in it to ‘keep up’ globally, economically and socially, shouldn’t they?
(Image Credit: statista.com)
In fact, a 2018 study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) found that 71% of Singaporeans believed that English “should be the main language used in public”.
Perhaps the prioritisation of English in the education system and society isn’t all bad when seen through this lens. Yet, it is important to acknowledge that the association of the English language with economic notions can and does indeed contribute to linguistic elitism.
With all that, has Singapore given English the free pass to rule? Not exactly.
Efforts such as the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism have been put forward to encourage the inclusion of other languages alongside English among Singaporeans—to help them keep up in a “globalised world” while “strengthen[ing] links to [their] Asian heritage”.
(Image Credit: www.bilingualism.sg)
Consequently, the non-English national languages of Singapore are, in a sense, still quite well off. In many other countries, English has almost succeeded in putting non-English native languages out of daily use.
For example, Uzbek and Russian, which have historically been the dominant tongues in Uzbekistan, have already been supplanted by English. This, Hasanova (2010) reports, is not just “a result of globalisation and [...] of English [being] the language of international trade and commerce”, but also of the notions of “elitism, trendiness, late-fashion and high quality” attached to products and services marketed in English. As a matter of fact, most of the shops in Bukhara used as samples for this study were found to boast English names.
In an extreme future, then, English might just prove to be a homogeniser of countries, a conduit of intangible global colonisation by the Anglosphere.
What, then?
From the above, it seems that linguistic elitism, when it comes to English, has two manifestations in Singapore. Firstly, we stratify ourselves according to command of the language. Secondly, we treat English as somehow superior to the other national languages.
The second manifestation seems to have some justification—as a small nation that seeks to remain an economic powerhouse on a global scale, we do have reason to prioritise this modern lingua franca.
But what plausible justifications can we afford for the first? In recent years, Singaporeans have been increasingly open to Western concepts of equality. Yet, this Westernisation has ironically fed into a new form of inequality within our borders—an inequality that borrows much force from the elitist mindset already prevalent in Asia. As the aforementioned CNA documentary demonstrates, however, lack of fluency in English in no way determines a person’s intelligence and usefulness to society, or subtracts from who they are.
In any case, if we profess to champion equality, then we have no basis for maintaining this plague on our society that is linguistic elitism.