Toward more homogeneous bilingualisms: Shift phenomena in Singapore

Modern, multilingual Singapore is undergoing language shifts that may foreshadow what occurs in some other areas of the world in the twenty-first century. The shifts affect the status, functions, and corpus of Singapore's languages, the types of literacy and bilingualism that Singaporeans are competent in, and the cultural identities of Singaporeans. To date, much of the interpretation of the 'success' of the language policies of the government of Singapore has assumed an isomorphic relationship between language and culture, and has focused on the shifts among the majority Chinese to English and Mandarin. This paper instead suggests that six interrelated shift phenomena can best account for changes in language use that are occurring across all of Singapore's ethnic communities. The shifts indicate that in the next few decades Singapore will become more linguistically homogeneous than it has ever been. Past and current language policies on the part of the Chinese-majority government and their effects on the non-Chinese minorities are probed