This paper examines the problem of a curriculum which promotes a standard linguistic variety in a context where non-standardisms are common in the learners' milieu. There have been curricula which try to incorporate the non-standard and have its function discussed; some have considered the nonstandard a stepping-stone towards the standard; and yet others have tried to keep the non-standard out of the school context. We examine the Singaporean context with reference to English in the classroom, where the last option seems to be the implicit one. We focus in particular on the views of 260 upper secondary pupils in five non-elite schools, elicited through survey questionnaires. The results show that there is clear appreciation of the value of Standard English; it is, however, also clear that that the non-standard, Singlish, plays an important social role in the community; and we suggest that it might be possible to harness the non-standard in a curriculum that promotes the standard. STANDARD ENGLISH AND THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTCommenting on the National Curriculum (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), 2 the well-known British linguist David Crystal expresses much optimism:In the 1990s I thought we were entering an era where a more flexible attitude to language was becoming routine. I could sense it in the way the new National Curriculum was reintroducing formal language study into schools, but with an emphasis on explanation rather than prescription. Grammar was back, but now kids were being asked to explain grammatical variations, not to blindly condemn them. For the first time in English linguistic history, there was hope of a rapprochement between the study of the standard language, which is so important for promoting universal intelligibility, and the study of non-standard language, which is so important for promoting local identity. (Crystal 2006: 142-3) He sees this in contrast to the school system (and the associated exams) of his own time, which would not countenance any variation to the prescribed standard. Clearly, the school curriculum has moved on in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Whilst the curriculum clearly stresses the importance of Standard English, it also calls for an appreciation of variation. The programme of study calls for students to be taught about how language varies, including . . . the vocabulary and grammar of standard English and dialectal variation; the development of English, including changes over time, borrowings from other languages, origins of words, and the impact of electronic communication on written language. (National Curriculum Online: English, key stage 4; emphasis original) This represents a solution to the problem of how schools can provide training in Standard English in a context where pupils encounter non-standard varieties around them. The
This paper investigates the medium-of-instruction debate in the press and news agency reports in 2002 in Malaysia in the wake of a policy change which would see the introduction of an English-Malay bilingual or mixed medium education in schools from 2003. The author uses this debate as a springboard for examining the position of English in Malaysia. This is done within the framework of the development of non-Anglo Englishes (Schneider 2003a). Whilst there is much evidence pointing to the indigenisation of the English language and an acceptance of it to represent a Malaysian identity, especially in situations of mixed ethnicity, it is interesting to note that much of the debate appears to stay clear of these issues and instead emphasises the international, as opposed to the Malaysian, status of English. The paper proposes some reasons for this silence and suggests that this might problematise a characterisation of English in Malaysia in the manner of Schneider.
An analysis of naming patterns among ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans.The study of names (or, to give it its Sunday name, onomastics) has not always been accorded high academic prestige and is often thought of as a non-specialist's hobby horse. The fact that most books on naming in bookshops seem to address only prospective parents who need to name their child also does not give the study a high standing. In the university context, this is not something that receives a lot of attention, except within semantics and philosophy where the status of names (as opposed to other words) has been discussed; and within the history of English where place names are studied in relation to their etymology. In this journal, though, attention has been given to commercial names (Banu & Sussex (2001), McArthur (2000)) because of interesting instances of hybridisation involving English and other languages.
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