Pragmatism, Mandarin and political culture in Singapore: recent reprises of an ideology

Abstract

Mandarin in Singapore has recently undergone the process of linguistic commodification, thus generating fundamental cracks in the ideological premises of the country's much-touted bilingual policy: the pragmatic function is now ascribed to both English and Mandarin, and no longer exclusively to English only. This article argues that the complications wrought by the commodification of Mandarin on the bilingual policy have been shaped almost single-handedly by the ideology of pragmatism. Thus, the article seeks to answer this question: What does the commodification of Mandarin tell us about Singapore and Singaporeans' recent (re)articulations and (re)enactments of the ideology of pragmatism? It transcends issues of language and permeates the very core of Singaporean political culture. It is not a simple case of commodifying a language; it is more a case of reinscribing government in the political culture of the country.