ES1102 Reader Response Draft 4

Can English be a Singaporean mother tongue?

Lu (2013) discussed the increasing prevalence of English being recognised as their mother tongue in Singaporeans over the years. He also observed that there were efforts to encourage Mandarin, Melayu or Tamil learning but Singaporeans still regard English as their sense of core identity. Sadly, he noted that such identification of the English language by Singaporeans did not gain consensus from the local government and the international crowd. He then mentioned that the divide between older generation Singaporeans and younger generation Singaporeans was also the cause of the current linguistic and ideological segregation. He stated that with such divide, conflicts amongst different linguistic and ideologies groups would slump progressively. He then went on to highlight that Singaporeans proved to be of a better caliber by outdoing most nations in international tests in English proficiency and literacy. To conclude, he asserted that the acceptance of English language as our mother tongue would only be feasible with the government’s recognition of the English language and the alteration of the language policies and stances to match the linguistics context. 

English should be recognized as the rightful mother tongue language in Singapore but due to the nature of Singapore being cosmopolitan with different racial groups co-existing together over the years which resulted in a pool of distinctive languages, it is hard to determine this stance. 

I recollected asking my friends over leisure talk which language was representative of Singapore and the answers I got were obvious. I had answers like Singlish and Chinese. Making up 75% of the population, Chinese is the largest population in Singapore followed by Malays, Indians and other racial groups. It is therefore reasonable to claim that Mandarin can be our Mother Tongue given the racial composition but however, we have to consider that not many are fluent in Mandarin. This is in fact what makes it tough to establish English as the rightful mother tongue language of Singapore - the competition of the Mandarin language. Mother tongue, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is the language that an individual speaks while growing up. Although many had always been speaking Mandarin since their childhood days, there has been a visible shift in the "mother language" spoken at home by many new young generation Singaporeans. The advocation of English as their mother tongue by these young generation Singaporeans would show increasing trends as more choose to identify themselves as a "English speaker" than "Mandarin speaker". 

I also observed that with this gradual shift, many Singaporeans had also shifted away from their Chinese roots. As these Singaporeans move away from Mandarin to English, they no longer value the importance of Mandarin anymore. I have friends who feel that Mandarin is totally useless for their future and are not even bothered to spend time reading anything written in Chinese. It is saddening that such scene is common across the young generation nowadays. 

As Singapore develops and flourishes with the effects of globalization, she has well integrated into the diverse social practices, cultures and linguistic influences different countries bring about. However, I feel that she is ambiguous in the eyes of the foreigners. Many still have the perception that Singaporeans are not skillful in written and spoken English and that we converse mainly in Singlish. In resonance with Lu (2013), I agree that Singapore should quickly establish a firm stand on our sociolinguistic reality and make English our mother tongue in order to make known our local English standards and to gain recognition for it across the globe. It would also be an excellent opportunity for the locals to rethink about their roots and origin instead of going along with the globalization wave. 

Reference:

Lu, L. (2013, July 15) Can English be a Singaporean mother tongue? Today Online. Retrieved from
http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/can-english-be-singaporean-mother-tongue?singlepage=true

Oxford Dictionary, (n.d), Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/mother-tongue