Language in Singaporians’ defence of national identity in the context of digitalization

Abstract

The article discusses contradictory tendencies as observed in Singapore English: first, the trend to language standardization caused by linguistic globalization, which is opposed to the drive to express local identity and which is implemented via the form of Singapore Spoken English, aka Singlish that reveals notable deviations from Standardized Written English; second, the linguistic strive to stockpile huge data bases as language corpora that may include rather laconic speech forms, such as SMS. The subject matter of this research is SMS written in Singapore English and maintained in the NUS (National University of Singapore) Corpus. The object of the research is focused on the dynamics of the SMS language compared in two cross-sections — of 2004 and 2012 periods. The first section revealed Singaporean’s drive to use Singlish that expresses Singaporean identity; the second cross-section made it more noticeable the results of the government campaign for standardizing Singapore English. The research employed comparative, corpus-based, and frequency analysis methodologies. The findings revealed lexical items originating from indigenous languages (Chinese, Malay, and Tamil) spoken by Singapore’s population; the preservation of such terms within English-language discourse proves to be a crucial aspect for local inhabitants in articulating their national identity and self-consciousness.

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