THE LANGUAGE

SINGAPORE
POLICY AND
FORMULATION IN
SINGAPORE
 TEAM PRESENTORS:

SINGAPORE
MINANDANG, MISSION, MONASTERIO,
PRINCE ABDUNIS EDDIEVON LEE RICHARD

MONTALES, NARIO, CARLA

VEVERLIE
PRE – DISCUSSION:
What is the Language policy in the Singapore?

What are the four main ideas, three cases and two
factors that influence and affect the Language policy and
formulation in Singapore?

How does the Language policy in Singapore formulated?

OBJECTIVES:
Discuss the ideas about the Language Policy and formulation in
Singapore;

Determine the four main ideas, three cases and two factors that
influence and affects the Language policy and formulation in
Singapore; and

Recognize the important details and information’s related to the

formulation of the Language policy in Singapore.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
InRELIGION
1965, when Singapore obtained full independence, there
was a need for a lingua franca to facilitate communication
among the different races and dialect-speaking groups.
English was considered a convenient means by which
Singaporeans could express their common national identity. The
government named English, along with Mandarin, Malay, and
Tamil- the languages of the major ethnic groups- to be the four
official languages of Singapore.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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The Bilingual Education Policy was one of
the first policies of the newly formed
independent government. The policy was
implemented as a way of unifying the different
ethnic groups while providing an anchor for
pupils to their ethnic and cultural heritage.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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SHAPED BY FOUR MAIN IDEAS:
1. The first idea is the belief that linguistic diversity is an obstacle
to nation-building.
As noted by Blornmaert and Verschueren, this falls under a
dogma of "homogenism: a view of society in which differences
are seen as dangerous and centrifugal and in which the 'best'
society is suggested to be one without intergroup differences".
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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2. The second idea is that in order to maintain harmony
among Singapore's ethnically diverse population, there must
be respect and equal treatment accorded to each ethnic group.
This is sometimes referred to as 'multiculturalism' or
'multiracialism. Multiculturalism refers to the peaceful
integrative effects of cultural communities rather than races or
individual persons.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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3. The third idea acknowledges the important role
played by English in the world economy.
A crucial part of this strategy is the recognition that
English language proficiency is necessary for economic
development and for access to scientific and
technological know-how.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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4. The fourth idea is an 'ideology of survival‘ or 'ideology of
pragmatism' .
Accordingly, Pennycook says that this pragmatism tends to
"define everything in terms of economic-technical rationality,
rendering antithetical all arguments based on moral or
ethical grounds. Thus all decisions are defined, initiated,
defended or evaluated in terms of economic gain."
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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The Republic of Singapore Independence Act (1965):
(1) Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English shall be the four official languages
in Singapore.
(2) The national language shall be the Malay language and shall be in the
Roman script: Provided that –
(i) no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using or from teaching
or learning any other language; and
(ii) nothing in this section shall prejudice the right of the Government to
preserve and sustain the use and study of the language or any other
community in Singapore.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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As the official policy makes clear, there are four official
languages in Singapore. But Malay, in addition to being an
official language, is also the national language. Aside from
English, there is a very specific reason why there are exactly
three official languages, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Malay
is the mother tongue for the Malay community, Mandarin
for the Chinese community, and Tamil for the Indian
community.
 LANGUAGE POLICY IN SINGAPORE
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Three Cases where interesting problems may arise:
1. The first is when the child is of mixed parentage, for example,
where the father is Malay and the mother Chinese.
 
2. The second case is when the child comes from a community whose
mother tongue is Malay, Mandarin, nor Tamil.
 
3. The third case comes from the fact that an increasing number of
Singaporeans come from households where English is spoken.
 LANGUAGE FORMULATION IN SINGAPORE
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need to appreciate the various factors that have influenced the
formulation of Singapore's language policy. Possibly the most important
factor in this regard is that of multiracialism or multiculturalism.
As pointed out by Benjamin (1976) and discussed above, Singapore's
ejection from Malaysia was essentially over issues concerning the
management of ethnic relations. While the Malaysian government
favored a policy that guaranteed special privileges to ethnic Malays (the
Bumiputera policy), the Singapore government wanted to make sure
that no specific ethnic group received special treatment.
 LANGUAGE FORMULATION IN SINGAPORE
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The government's extreme sensitivity to issues of ethnicity
led, in the years following Singapore's independence, to the
adoption of ethnic grouping as the primary means of classifying
the population based on classification system, and to an
assignation of official mother tongues for the three major ethnic
groups, this has served to act as an important constraint on the
government's belief that linguistic diversity is an obstacle to
nation-building.
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Factors that motivated the choice of English:
1. One factor was simply that the language for inter-ethnic
communication should not be any of the three mother tongues
since this could be seen as unduly privileging the language of
a particular ethnic group.
2. The other factor was the presence of English due to the
country's colonial history as well as its value to providing
access to science, technology and business.
REFERENCES:
Benjamin, G., 1976, The cultural logic of Singapore's "Multiracialism", in: R. Hassan, ed., Singapore:
RELIGION
Society in Transition, Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, pp. 1 15-133.
Chan H. C., 1971, Singapore: The Politics of Survival, Oxford University Press, Singapore.
Goh C. T., 1991. Mandarin is more than a language, Speeches, Ministry of Information and the Arts,
Singapore.
Han, F. K., Fernandez, W., and Tan, S., 1998, Lee Kuan Yew: The man and his ideas, Times Editions,
Singapore.
Hill, M. and Lian, K. F., 1995, The politics of nation-building and citizenship in Singapore,
Routledge, London.
Pakir, A., 1993, Two tongued tied: Bilingualism in Singapore, Journal of Multilingual and
Multicultural Development 14:73-90.
Pendley, C., 1983, Language policy and social transformation in contemporary Singapore, Southeast
Asian Journal of Social Science, 11:46-58.
Pennycook, A., 1994, The cultural politics of English as an international language, Longman, London .