Recent Changes in the Chinese-Speaking Environment of Singapore

Abstract

Language issues are one of the most important and sensitive social subjects in Singapore. Many Singaporeans rarely disclosed their true opinions on whether the government policy for the use of more English deserved to exclude Chinese language as an instruction medium from public schools. Officially we can hardly hear how the Chinese-educated have recently suffered from the radical changes in education systems of Singapore. This paper discusses why and how they had to be put in the present situation where Chinese language virtually functions as a minor tongue. It was caused by Singapore's new nation-building programs which aim at industrialization and racial integration. As the programs went on further, it became clearer that the nation's cultural pluralism gave birth of a hierarchical order of the official languages in which English predominates over Asian tongues even in many private sectors, for it has the highest economic values among the four official languages. The small scale of Singapore's economy affects many activities to be dependent on the external conditions. Reforming her official languages, for instance, is largely conditional upon social changes of foreign countries from which they originally came. The localization of those imported languages is not welcome by Singapore elites. According to them, first or common language of Singapore should have an internationally passable function and must be neutral in terms of the nation's ethnic composition. Thus, English became the de facto national language and Chinese has completely lost its past influential power on the ethnic Chinese in spite of its biggest population. Such a language environment reflects the nation's pragmatic policies to meet the objectives of rapid economic development as well as racial integration. In the future, three Asian official languages will be placed far behind English in public affairs, and will survive only as study subjects in schools, though they will be continually spoken among the related ethnic groups. © 1985, The Association of Japanese Geographers. All rights reserved.