Language Research

Being Singaporean means being fluent in English, a language which serves both as a neutral medium for all ethnic groups and as the language of international business, science and technology. The schools, the government, and the offices of international corporations use English as their working language, for the most part. The four official languages may be used in Parliament or in the Courts; however, the proceedings are recorded in English only. The typical Singaporean is bilingual, speaking English as well as the language of one of the three component ethnic groups.

The 1990 Census of Population showed that proportionately more Singapore residents were multilingual in 1990 as compared to the previous census of 1980. Among literate residents aged 15 years and over, those who were literate in two or more languages increased significantly, from 37% in 1980 to 45% in 1990. The use of English and Mandarin as home languages had also increased. The proportion of resident households speaking English at home increased from 12% in 1980 to 21% in 1990. Those speaking Mandarin at home more than doubled, from 10% to 24%. Consequently, Chinese dialect speaking households declined, from 60% in 1980 to only 38% in 1990.

Singaporeans have developed their own form of spoken English, though some features of it are sometimes seen in informal writings. Singaporean English, sometimes referred to as Singlish, differs from English in rhythm and intonation, stress patterns, vowel length and quality and sometimes also word order. It has taken in some features of Chinese and it has some distinctive discourse particles like lah, lé and á, which are frequently used in Singlish.

Literacy, numeracy, bilingualism, physical and moral education are emphasized in Singapore's education system. The bilingual policy requires each child to learn English and his or her mother tongue so as to ensure proficiency in English (the language of commerce, technology and administration) and their mother tongue (the language of respective cultural heritage).

The four official languages are used in broadcasting as well as in the press. In 1998, English language newspapers attained the highest circulation (538,529), followed by Chinese (458,154), Malay (64,342) and Tamil newspaper (9,179) language publications.

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