Neither my parents nor grandparents spoke English as their first language. As such , I feel that my \u201cnative speech pattern\u201d, with its sometimes swallowed vowels and enunciation, is already not exactly the same as what is presented to my family as \u201cproper\u201d English. It is often seasoned with Singlish or has a distinct Singaporean accent peppered with supposed mispronunciation. First, let\u2019s focus on the linguistic insecurity <\/em>present regarding Singlish. For much of the early 2000s, the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM), which focused its efforts on its titular goal, framed Singlish and English as a zero-sum game. It presented Singlish as an example of \u201cbad\u201d English to be corrected. As Labov (2006, p. 318)\u2019s explanation of linguistic insecurity provides, a \u201cstandard of correctness\u201d was imposed from beyond the group – a language policy imposed top-down from the educated Singaporean government on the seemingly less-educated and at the time, less English-proficient Singaporean public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his 1999 National Day Rally (NDR) speech that preceded the establishment of the SGEM in April of the following year, then-Prime Minister Goh (1999) Chok Tong suggested that \u201cIf they [Singaporean pupils] get into the habit of speaking Singlish, then later they will either have to unlearn these habits, or learn proper English on top of Singlish. Many pupils will find this too difficult.\u201d Although this concern was understandable, many Singaporeans today have demonstrated how speaking Singlish need not always come at the expense of speaking \u201cproper English\u201d. Today, many Singaporeans have learnt how to code-switch, whereby we use \u201cproper\u201d English in presentations and Singlish with friends, and then something in-between perhaps, when talking to teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, what was done was done. Although the SGEM had softened its message by the time of my adolescence, whereby they promoted English not to replace Singlish but to coexist with it, my (our) linguistic insecurity seemingly still exists. Here comes in Meyerhoff (2011, p.181)\u2019s definition of linguistic insecurity, that the speakers feel \u201cthe variety they use is somehow inferior, ugly or bad\u201d. On a personal level, I remember receiving SGEM-related stickers as freebies at school or at a carnival organised by my local grassroots committee. As children, we\u2019re easily influenced, easily socialised into beliefs and norms which we would deems as our \u201ccommon sense\u201d and \u201cnormal\u201d. I would know because those stickers are still on the walls of my room to this day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know how hard it is to peel off a ten-year-old sticker melted in this heat, let alone multiple of them?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On a societal level, Cavallero (2014)’s study shows how Singaporeans often rate Singapore Standard English (SSE) speakers higher on status-related traits such as ambitiousness, intelligence, confidence and being hardworking as compared to Singlish speakers. Speaking Singlish thus accords lower social prestige as compared to SSE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point you might be wondering: with all this yapping about Singlish, what about the factors that promote linguistic<\/em> insecurity<\/em> towards Singaporean-accented English then? Gupta (2010) writes that it is accepted that there are no major grammatical differences between regional variants of Standard English. As such, the English promoted by the SGEM in writing could just as easily be the same English used in countries like Britain, the United States or Australia. I bring up these countries because these are the countries that were brought up in then-Prime Minister Goh (1999)\u2019s NDR speech and implied as having favourable accents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is linked to our economic strategy of focusing on foreign investment, traditionally from the United States and Europe (Rumbaugh, 1995). Even before the SGEM, at the establishment of Singapore\u2019s language policy just after independence, a \u201cstandard of correctness\u201d was already imposed on us. Wee (2018) writes that in order to meet the standards of investors and multinational corporations, a strong focus on English learning was emphasised by Singapore\u2019s language policy. Thus, even in my parents\u2019 generation, the Western standard of English was seen as the best and most \u201cproper\u201d version of English spoken in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So parroting the government messaging, younger me took pride in using \u201cproper\u201d English, faking accents from Western countries as a kid because I thought it was \u201cposh\u201d. It\u2019s not as if my parents or grandparents could tell me otherwise. The truth was, I struggled with pronouncing words in the \u201cright\u201d way. While in lieu of my parents, I was exposed to a wide vocabulary of words through online video media, not every word I had read would be used often enough where I could pick up the pronunciation as the British or Americans would do it. Since the \u201cproper\u201d English upheld by SGEM and used at those formal settings was based on British English, this led to my second problem: the fact that even Singaporean-accented Standard English did not sound \u201cgood\u201d enough to my judgemental ears. For a long time, I couldn\u2019t shake off the feeling that I was speaking a \u201cwrong\u201d version of English. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was only after I entered university that my views changed.I took an Ideas and Exposition Module under the University Town College Program called \u201cWhat is a nation? Texts, images and national identity\u201d. In it, as part of my attempts to answer that burning question. of why I was so uncomfortable with my own English, I explored the history and framing of Singlish. Although much of what I found had already been detailed above, delving into the research inspired by my seminar also made me realise that there was no one \u201cproper\u201d way to speak English. In fact, there were many versions of English – \u201cWorld Englishes\u201d (Kachru, 1997) which were localised in their own ways. And, there was, as should have been obvious enough, no single standard accent for English (Gupta, 2010). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Singaporean accent is thus as acceptable as any other accent as long as we allow it to be. In fact, just like many accents, it often serves as an assertion of one\u2019s (national) identity. There\u2019s an intimacy that comes with using the Singaporean accent and Singlish, even in just our nearby neighbouring country of Malaysia. Once, when I was in Kuala Lumpur, just as my family boarded the small hotel-offered shuttle bus to the nearby mall, we encountered a couple that spoke in a familiar accent. Instantly, my father asked \u201cAre you from Singapore?\u201d To which they responded with a nod and a short but sweet conversation about our holiday trips ensued. If not for that accent, we would not have identified each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More personally, I think about how I first picked up Singlish to begin with. Looking back, it was in order to obtain a shared sense of identity with, as Benedict Anderson (1983) would put it, an \u201cimagined community\u201d. Sometime between the ages of eight and ten, I remember consciously noticing how my friends were using \u201clahs\u201d and \u201clehs\u201d at the end of their sentences. At the time, my father, the only other fluent English speaker in my household, had tried his best to speak the \u201cproper\u201d English as promoted by the government, and my only other encounter with English was through my copious consumption of books and interactions in the classroom. So, to me, I thought that those Singlish inflections were not \u201cproper\u201d English. But, I still adopted them anyway, to fit in. Reflecting on my past, I realised this pressure to belong was all self-imposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the answer to why am I so uncomfortable using English is this: Despite knowing better, I place pressure on myself based on the beliefs I\u2019ve internalised from society. This is the recurring conflict in my life, One that I\u2019ve become more aware of and want to break free from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of the last year, I\u2019ve become acquainted with many exchangers who spoke their variously accented English which I admired. If they could put themselves out here, speaking their first, second or even third language regardless of differences in accents, why couldn\u2019t I? So, as with many things, I try. In so far as the situation is appropriate, and mostly in daily life, I season my Singaporean-accented English with Singlish. It makes life more exciting – after all, the way I speak is uniquely me, it reflects my family background and my twists and turns in coming to terms with my own English. Insecurities are as such: I think they make us all unique. Just as I shouldn\u2019t be ashamed of the way I speak, the insecurities we all fear are nothing in the face of self-acceptance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Banner and Cover images from Unsplash<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n About the Author<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fiona is a second-year student majoring in Sociology who is trying her best to stay afloat. When not overdosing on copious amounts of caffeine, you might catch her playing tabletop games or tearing her hair out over her assignments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n References<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cavallaro, F., Ng, B. C., & Seilhamer, M. F. (2014). Singapore Colloquial English: Issues of prestige and identity. World Englishes<\/em>, 33<\/em>(3), 378\u2011397. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/weng.12096<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Foo, A. L., & Tan, YY. (2019). Linguistic insecurity and the linguistic ownership of English among Singaporean Chinese. World Englishes, 38(4), 606\u2013629. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/weng.12359<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Goh, C. T. (1999, August 22). National Day Rally Address by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Speech in English On 22 August 1999: First-World Economy, World-Class Home<\/em>. National Archives of Singapore. https:\/\/www.nas.gov.sg\/archivesonline\/data\/pdfdoc\/1999082202.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gupta, A. F. (2010). Singapore Standard English revisited. In Lisa Lim (ed.)<\/a> et al. English in Singapore: Modernity and Management<\/em> (pp. 56\u201389). Hong Kong University Press. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5790\/hongkong\/9789888028436.003.0003<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hsieh, LH., Chua, NC., Kwee, A.T., Lo, PC., Lee, YY., Lim, EP. (2022). Singlish Checker: A Tool for Understanding and Analysing an English Creole Language. In: Tseng, YH., Katsurai, M., Nguyen, H.N. (Eds.) From Born-Physical to Born-Virtual: Augmenting Intelligence in Digital Libraries.<\/em> ICADL 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13636. Springer, Cham. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-031-21756-2_9<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kachru B.B. World Englishes and English-Using Communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics<\/em>. 1997;17:66-87. doi:10.1017\/S0267190500003287<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labov, W. (2006). Self-evaluation and linguistic security. In The Social Stratification of English in New York City<\/em> (pp. 300\u2013323). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leimgruber, J. (2012). Singapore English: An indexical approach. World Englishes<\/em>, 31<\/em>(1), 1\u201314. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/j.1467-971x.2011.01743.x<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meyerhoff, M. (2011). Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd ed.). Routledge. Rumbaugh, T. (1995). “VI Singapore\u2019s Experience as an Open Economy”. In Singapore<\/em>. USA: International Monetary Fund. Retrieved Sep 12, 2024, from https:\/\/www.elibrary.imf.org\/view\/book\/9781557754639\/ch006.xml<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:10005\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-2024-09-21-at-6.06.58-PM.png\")
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