Debating Singlish

In his encyclopedia of language, Crystal (1995) identified two main perspectives contributing to a nation’s decisions around language: national identity and internationalism. In the former, the nation looks within itself at its societal structure and composition, defining its needs in relation to national identity. In the latter, the nation looks outside from itself at the world and global economy, and defines itself and its needs in relation to its position within that world. In multilingual Singapore, it is the juxtaposition of these two perspectives, which I call ‘glocalism’, that form the nexus of the nation’s ‘English’-plus-‘mother-tongue’ bilingual policy. And it defines the parameters of the ongoing debate about English and Singlish, the more colloquial and home-grown variety of English in Singapore. In this article, I will unpack this ‘Singlish debate’, positioning the debate in the growing body of literature on language ideologies and the ways in which they mediate between social structure and linguistic practices.