Metrolingual multitasking and differential inclusion: Singapore’s Chinese languages in shared spaces

Abstract

Arrival cities are defined through migration-led diversification that structures integration, notably through everyday language practices. In Singapore’s multilingual landscape, we find hints of historical waves of migrants from Southern China speaking Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien and Teochew and the recent contributions of new migrants from Mainland China. In light of the work of Pennycook and Otsuji, this article explores how the norms of metrolingual multitasking – of adaptation through language – structure differential inclusion in Singapore through banal and commonplace interactions in shared spaces, such as markets. By focusing on historically situated linguistic scripts of inclusion and exclusion in the city-state, we contrast the linguistic adaptations of older and newer arrivals to show how integration is continuously constituted through the differential inclusion of new arrivals. Based on a series of interviews, we shed light on how metrolingual multitasking, as praxis of differential inclusion, sets up the normative framework for the coexistence of various linguistic forms and resources, whether recognised officially or not, and their use in creative ways for pragmatic communication in completing daily tasks. In this context, the norms of metrolingual multitasking reveal an overall sense of ordinary coexistence in living with such diversity as a requirement for successful integration, despite necessary instances of differential treatment and exclusionary practices, including a refusal to engage with difference.

Moving beyond survivalism? Youth perspectives on non‐Mandarin Chinese languages in the study of Chinese voluntary associations in Singapore and Vancouver

“…In Singapore and Vancouver, Chinese languages other than Mandarin have historically structured and textured local Chinese communities, their relationships to political and economic forces and the inclusion of newcomers. Whereas Singapore has a diversity of Chinese languages other than Mandarin, which shapes how local linguistic scripts help or hinder the inclusion of newcomers, Vancouver's Chinese language ecosystem builds on local Cantonese‐speaking communities and the arrival of large numbers of Mandarin‐speakers since the early 2000s (Teo, 2007; Ye et al ., 2022). In this section we turn to youth perspectives of CVAs in both cities to show how CVAs are all seen as navigating between local and global cultural forces and between intergenerational perspectives on language use.…”

Migrant-led diversification and differential inclusion in arrival cities across Asia and the Pacific

“…By taking historical changes of diversity into consideration, they argue that multicultural integration is not bound by ethnicity but rather, is now constituted through practices of ‘living-together-in-difference’. Shared spaces also become sites of negotiating inclusion and exclusion in Ye et al’s (2022) paper. Singapore’s linguistic landscape reflects a history of migrant-led diversification and strategies of inclusion, including Chinese languages other than Mandarin, such as Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien and Teochew spoken by earlier waves of migrants from Southern China.…”

Arrival cities and the mobility of concepts

“…In many ways Migrant-led Diversification and Differential Inclusion in Arrival Cities Across Asia-Pacific deploys ‘arrival cities’ as a heuristic, working across and between very different cities, forms of migration and (non)settlement. This includes a city-state with sustained migration-led demographic growth, transient labour migration and institutionalised differential inclusion (Bork-Hüffer, 2022; Goh and Lee, 2022; Yeoh and Lam, 2022; Ye et al, 2022); a post-earthquake city undergoing unexpected forms of migrant-driven diversification (Collins and Friesen, 2022) and cities shaped by the specificities of education-based migration, deterritorialisations and cross-border mobilities (Koh, 2022; Leung and Waters, 2022). It also covers the affective hospitality of forced migrants who may or may not be offered permanent settlement to remain (Sidhu and Rossi-Sackey, 2022); the complex reconfiguration of suburban spaces by new settlements and generational diversity (Robertson et al, 2022); the elite transnational migrants that are shaping the socio-spatialities of a city haunted by the myth of homogeneity (Yamamura, 2022) and the urban transformations of island archipelagos that are facilitated by the interacial relationships of foreign investors (Ortega, 2022).…”

“…Yet, as Sidhu and Rossi-Sackey (2022) demonstrate so well, while encounters can undermine the hegemony of the state by providing a form of community, they can also reveal the ‘hollowness’ of performed cosmopolitanisms. As Ye et al’s (2022) analysis of metrolingual multitasking as praxis details, encounters can both disrupt and support the sense of ordinary conviviality that arises from the daily use of language scripts in Singapore’s shared spaces of friction and fluidity. It is unsurprising, then, that across Migrant-led Diversification and Differential Inclusion in Arrival Cities Across Asia-Pacific , there are diverse examples of state policies, segregation and bubbles that enable or prohibit encounters as an important part of the story of differential inclusions.…”