Migrants and ‘mother tongues’: Extralinguistic forces in the ecology of English in Singapore1

Innovative Second and Foreign Language Education in Southeast Asia

“…In the case of Singapore, its recent changes to banking secrecy and property taxes are in direct response to the global economic downturn and the government view that Singapore needs to remain competitive in the face of China's rapid growth. This has lead to a massive increase in the number of low-skill and highskill workers, the former with substantially greater social and political restrictions than the latter (Lim 2010). The combination of these government policies and strategies has resulted in significant population growth due to foreign workers moving to Singapore and either becoming permanent residents or taking up citizenship.…”

“…Since 1997, the Singapore government has reached beyond its immediate neighbors to attract foreign students at all levels with the promise of offering world-class education that combines Asian ideas with Western practices (Lim 2010). The number of international students has more than doubled to close to 150,000 students, many of them from China and India.…”

“…In spite of this shift to English, the General Household Survey of 2005 showed strong use of Mandarin at home among the Chinese population (Goh 2013). However, the use of Malay and Tamil is largely declining, even within its ethnic communities (Lim 2010).…”

“…In their efforts to make language learning a student-centered affair, the school has incorporated technology in a variety of ways to improve pronunciation, foster conversation among students, assist with vocabulary building skills, and engage with authentic websites that can lead to real-world experiences with the languages, e.g., booking tickets, purchasing objects, or making reservations at a hotel. Lim (2010) discusses the current linguistic situation of Singapore in terms of the impact migratory and economic forces are having on the country. With respect to the study of English in Singapore, there is considerable research interest in the notion of glocalization as a functional term to address the tension between the global projection of English and the local variants around the world (Alsagoff 2010).…”

The cowboy and the goddess: Television news mythmaking about immigrants

“…Will Western archetype reflexes be promulgated by other news services in the Western tradition, for example Mexico (Guerrero and Campo, 2012); Guatemala (Verdugo, 2007); Spain (Alonso et al, 2011; Zapata-Barrero and Van Dijk, 2007); European Union (García Agustín, 2008), Italy (Sciortino and Colombo, 2004) and; Sweden and Finland (Horsti, 2008)? And what archetypes will guide news reports about immigration in cultures that are not part of the Western tradition, for example Singapore (Lim, 2010); Malaysia (Don and Lee, 2014) and; South Africa (Danso and McDonald, 2001; Murray, 2003)?…”