After
political independence in 1959, the Singapore Government officially accepted Malay as the
national Language of Singapore. However, its importance gradually declined as a result of the social, political and economic developments that had taken place. When vernacular schools were closed in 1987, the Ministry of Education implemented the National System of Education. The Bilingual Policy encourages Singaporeans to be proficient in both the English language, and in their respective ethnic
mother tongues, which include Chinese
Mandarin,
Malay, and
Tamil.
Bilingual education is provided by the
Ministry of Education in Singapore. The Bilingual Policy also aims to promote better understanding amongst the three ethnic groups in line with the effort of
nation building. Additionally, there was also the growing concern that Singapore was facing increasing Western influences, effecting a potential threat of the de-Asianisation or de-culturalisation of the people. Due to the increasing importance of English as an international language, many Singaporeans have started to pay more attention to the learning of the English language and focus less on the learning of their own mother tongue. The Bilingual Policy was then enacted to safeguard Asian identities and values. Alongside English, the
Singapore Government aims to promote Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil so as to prevent the erosion of culture and heritage of the three ethnic groups Usage of four official languages is an element of policy designed to promote racial harmony, as is
bilingualism in accordance with the belief that the ethnic language is the "carrier of culture" while English is the "language of commerce", a choice motivated by the fact that English had historically been the language of the colonial administration, while being the native language of few Singaporeans at the time of the policy's implementation. With English as the
lingua franca, no one ethnicity is favored, but the cultures are preserved. The idea behind this policy is that treating all languages as standard and thus equally prestigious will result in the speakers of each language being treated equally. While the Singaporean government promotes
Standard Singapore English as a
lingua franca, it heavily discourages the usage of
Singlish, a Chinese- and Malay-influenced,
English-based creole language, widely spoken by Singaporeans, but virtually unintelligible to foreign speakers of English. Governments including those of
Lee Hsien Loong,
Lee Kuan Yew, and
Goh Chok Tong have campaigned against the usage of Singlish, declaring it an obstacle to communication with the rest of the English-speaking world, and a substandard, "broken English", A
Speak Good English campaign aims "to encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood", while urging citizens to purge Singlish from their speech. In line with government policy, schools emphasize standard English, and try to minimise the usage of Singlish in the classroom, holding that Singlish hinders the learning of "proper" English. The
Media Development Authority, a statutory board of the government, urges Singaporean mass media to use as little Singlish as possible, declaring it appropriate only for "interviews, where the interviewee speaks only Singlish". Despite these policies, however, the usage of Singlish outside formal, institutional contexts remains widespread. The Singaporean government also promotes a single, standardised form of Chinese, discouraging the usage of other
Chinese varieties. While the
Chinese community of Singapore historically spoke several
varieties of Chinese, most of them
mutually unintelligible, such as
Cantonese,
Teochew, and
Hokkien, the government has promoted
Standard Mandarin, both as a means of unifying Chinese Singaporeans under a common language, and to facilitate communication with Chinese people from outside Singapore. Since 1979, the
Speak Mandarin Campaign has promoted use of Mandarin.
Language Ideology There were two prominent
language ideologies that the Singapore government adopted: •
Internationalisation • It entails the adoption of a non-
indigenous language as an
official language. The Singapore government adopted a non-indigenous language, English, to exist alongside the indigenous languages of Singapore. •
Linguistic Pluralism • It entails a recognition and support of the co-existence of multiple languages within society. • Some believe it to be in contrast with the language ideology of
linguistic assimilation, where every member of the
speech community, regardless of his
first language, must learn the dominant language of the society where he lives in. After independence, the Singapore government gave English Language, Mandarin Chinese, Malay Language and Tamil Language shared official status. The Singapore government attempts to shun away from linguistic assimilation, as it believes it must acknowledge the need to embrace the co-existence of the four official languages in the context of a
multi-racial Singapore. ==Status Planning==