HG2020 Language in Society

tutorial 1

Tutorial 1 – HG2020

1. Exercise 4, C1

I’m Vaish.

I was born in south India, lived there until I was five before moving to Singapore. I speak a
dialect of Telugu commonly spoken in the major city of Hyderabad, where my parents are from,
known as Telangana Telugu.

My parents have a far more colorful background in language – my father lived in the state of
Maharashtra growing up and speaks it fluently. They also moved to Chennai, Tamil Nadu in
their first years of marriage – as a result, they speak a smattering of Tamil, enough to get by.
They are also proficient in Kannada, helped by its linguistic similarities to Telugu and because
they moved to Bangalore, Karnataka. After which, we immigrated to Singapore. They also
speak Hindi and English, which are major national languages in India.

My parents’ comprehension of Tamil could inform you about my rudimentary understanding of it

which is mostly crutched on by movies and from a year of study in primary school. 13 years of
Hindi schooling later, I’m somewhat fluent in that too. Though, it is far more casual in
conversation with my family than in my learning.

I’d say I lack a strong Singaporean accent, but I’d be hard-pressed to admit that it hasn’t had me
feeling slightly embarrassed in public situations – occasionally even needing a “translator”. I
jest. I’ve picked up a lot of the linguistic practices of the media I consume, mostly British and
American and subconsciously emulate those traits in my own speech. Around my friends I
indulge in the “lahs”, but rarely ever on my own/when I think. I’m still too new in the field to state
a concrete research interest but I’m curious about the evolution of language wrt the internet in
the current generation as well as how language informs/influences us of our identities. That, and
some anthropological related interests.

 multilingual backgrounds that coalesce, language policies aid in this amalgam

2. Discussion Question 1, C1

I feel unqualified to comment too deeply on Singlish, because I barely use it myself. Women
often are expected to speak in superpolite forms in English – “Is it okay if …” for example. In
emails, women often end with “I hope this is not too much trouble”, in contrast to male
counterparts who expect the work to be done, regardless of whether they are in a power
imbalance in positions and reflect such in their speech. Different from corporate niceties, an
overtly formal manner of expressions. A young person might ascribe to the rising intonation at
the end of utterances/sentences, almost like a question as well as incorporating an
everchanging list of fad words into vocabulary.
 HG2020 Language in Society
tutorial 1

 gendered: NS men; OCS

 social class: rhoticity in Uni vs Poly

 ethnic features: discourse particles (“lah”, “leh”) is common, but Chinese use more “hor”,
Malays “siol”. Contributes to linguistic reservoirs.

3. Exercise 3, C2

It seems that African languages have more hits, likely due to the vast size of the continent?
Villages/tribes are distinct – seen in Xhosa, Zulu etc. It’s also interesting to consider how for
example, the continent’s many parts have been colonized multiple times by different colonizers,
including the German and the French, such that many languages itself are spoken on the
continent and influence the regional varieties spoken there. Morocco for example, has had
languages ‘wiped’ by Saudi forces as a part of ‘Arabicization’, which speaks toward the
imperialistic impressions left on languages as a part of policies – Berber/Amazigh peoples, who
are native to Morocco.

 perceived prestige – using power, resources, political backing, the articles written by perhaps
the West