The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee: Chapter 5

This chapter focuses on the commodification of Singlish.

The word "commodification" comes from "commodity", which refers to something desirable or useful.

Traditionally, we think of commodities as physical goods that can be transferred from one party to another, like gold, silver, wheat, and milk.

But increasingly, people recognise that intangible things can also be commodities. For example, skills are considered commodities even though they cannot be passed from one person to another the same way that physical goods can, because they do meet the basic definition of a commodity: they are useful.

Language is like a skill. It's something you acquire by learning, and you can develop it and become progressively better at it.

In this way, we can think of language as a sort of commodity. This implies that it is useful and/or desirable.

So when we talk about the commodification of language, we're actually referring to the process of making a language useful.

When it comes to Singlish, commodification is especially important to understand because the Singapore government often argues that Singlish is useless.

Is it really so?

Books, films, and plays: Showing off to the world

The Singapore government's claim that outsiders cannot understand and appreciate Singlish has proven to be false.

Many works by Singaporean writers have found global success. For example, The Coxford Singlish Dictionary, a lighthearted repository of Singlish expressions resembling an actual dictionary, was praised as "invaluable" by the Times of London. "Humorous, with lots of cross-cultural wordplay" was the opinion of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Note that these are media outlets in Britain, which is where Singapore often looks to determine what "standard" English is.

Singapore Dreaming was a movie that also attracted critical acclaim. Audiences around the world loved the use of Singlish dialogue. Taiwanese youth started repeating some of their favourite Singlish expressions from the film and were envious that Singapore has its own version of English. American and Spanish viewers could identify with how languages mix together the way they do in Singlish. One reviewer wrote that the use of Singlish in the film allowed him to "understand just how ‘globalized’ Singaporeans really are AND because of its use in the film, the story and characters seemed more familiar" to him.

Online, Singlish has spread quickly thanks to YouTube videos such as Sinful English.

And even universities are getting in on the act, with the University of York putting Singapore You Are Not My Country by Alfian Sa'at on its reading list for literature courses, and lion heart by Amanda Chong being on the syllabus for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations. These works contain Singlish expressions which literature students are expected to analyse for their deeper meanings.

At home

Numerous works targeted at a more local audience have also been created. For example, Mee Pok Man, Army Daze, and 12 Storeys were films that enjoyed success at the local box office. Because the films were set in Singapore, it was crucial to use Singlish for the dialogue to ensure authenticity.

A book titled Singaporelang - What the Singlish? was published in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of Singapore's independence, supported by a government grant. This shows the "schizophrenic attitude towards Singlish on the part of the government", especially in contrast with the banning of Singapore Dreaming from local television because it contained what the government felt was excessive Singlish dialogue.

When the government thinks there is an opportunity for Singlish to be commodified, it is happy to lend its support. The clearest example of this is how the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), an arm of the government, readily promotes Singlish as a unique selling point of Singapore. Its website contains a guide to Singlish and entices visitors to come and hear it for themselves. In this case, Singlish is commodified for economic gain through attracting tourist spending.

Foreigners promoting Singlish

Not only Singaporeans produce works with Singlish. Foreigners are increasingly taking an interest in Singlish as the wealthy city-state attracts more and more expatriates. Some of them are writing about their experiences with Singlish.

For example, a blogger going by the moniker "Aussie Pete" wrote:

As time goes by, and one spends much time living and interracting with the locals (especially outside of the tourist areas), it soon becomes apparent that English alone is not enough to fully converse on local topics. The intent of this post is to offer a guide to non-Singlish speaking people to perhaps better understand what is going on around them.

Another writer Cullen Hartley wrote:

If you’re a soon-to-be expatriate planning a move to Singapore, you have undoubtedly heard of Singlish, the peculiar creole English spoken by most native Singaporeans. It is a mix of Malay, Chinese dialects, and English. Most people who bother to write about Singlish know it well, and they produce in-depth dictionaries cataloging the dialect’s nuances. These books are an ever-present facet of every Singaporean bookstore, and if you want to learn more the material is definitely out there. However, I feel the end result for most foreigners that pick up Singlish dictionaries is terminal information overload. People just don’t learn much from picking up a dictionary. Even-tempered expats become overwhelmed and give up and the more adventurous look silly as they misuse and mispronounce words. (Excuse me, did you see that ang kat makaning char siew cheem bye? Lah-lor.) I don’t claim to be an expert on Singlish, but I will share ten words that I guarantee that you’ll hear in Singapore.

In these examples, we can see non-Singaporeans trying to pass on their understanding of Singlish to other non-Singaporeans. Singlish has become more than a marker of Singaporean identity. It can be actively used and exchanged by non-Singaporeans too, taking on a more commodity-like character.

We will explore the impact of non-Singaporeans on Singlish further in the next chapter.

The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee: Chapter 4

This chapter addresses the "who" in the Singlish debate: Who are the debaters? Who is left out?

In any debate, there will be more than one party. Each party has a voice. This isn't the literal sound that comes out from your throat. Voice in this context refers to the characteristics attached to a certain group of people when it speaks.

For example, academics such as professors and researchers are stereotyped as having their heads in the clouds, only capable of talking about theories but unable to apply them in the real world. This causes academics to have a reputation for being "ivory tower thinkers". That's their voice.

Another example: men are thought of as more rational while women are thought of as more emotional. In matters of the head, men tend to have a stronger voice and their opinions carry more weight. In matters of the heart, women have the stronger voice and people are more likely to listen to them.

Sometimes, people who have a stake in the debate don't have a voice. This means that they don't get to air their views. Obviously this is not fair because their interests are not represented. The term for this category of people is subaltern.

In the Singlish debate, the subaltern consists of people who can only speak Singlish because they didn't have access to adequate education in "standard" English.

Why is this so? The Singlish debate usually takes place in the media. For example, letters are written to the Forum page of The Straits Times stating arguments for and against Singlish. In recent years, the debate has gone online, with blog articles, forum posts, and Facebook pages popping up to attack and defend the local variety.

The common thread running through all these platforms is that they require contributions to be in more or less "standard" English. Even Facebook comments have to be written coherently, otherwise they won't be read by others.

In this way, people who cannot use "standard" English are precluded from participating in these discussions, even though they are also involved in everyday life in Singapore and should have a say.

Their views are instead represented by other parties, namely those with a command of "standard" English who actively participate in the debate. These parties speak on behalf of the subaltern. But this is problematic because they are not themselves the subaltern, and so can never truly understand and appreciate the subaltern's point of view.

We'll come back to the subaltern later, after we look at who are these active participants in the Singlish debate.

Who's talking?

The three parties in the Singlish debate are government officials, academics, and personalities from the creative and media industries such as DJs, filmmakers, authors, and bloggers.

What links all three is that they are highly educated. But they don't always have to take the same stand. For example, it doesn't mean that just because one is an academic, one is automatically pro-Singlish. Indeed, Koh Tai Ann was a professor of English literature at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and chairman of the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) in 2005 when she said:

Singaporeans are perhaps too comfortable in their Singlish clothes. Even though T-shirts or housecoats might be improper attire for formal occasions, they still wear the linguistic equivalent when they meet visitors and at such occasions.

But in 2011, she became sympathetic towards the Singlish cause, saying:

Singlish should not be regarded as deviant and not ‘proper’ English, but as a spoken variety that has developed alongside the standard ‘proper’ English learnt in schools. Otherwise, we do ourselves a disservice by giving Singlish an odour of inferiority and shame.

A 2016 newspaper report on the inclusion of Singlish words in the updated Oxford English Dictionary (OED) contained quotes from: a poet, literary critic, and literature professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS); an author and columnist; a schoolteacher; an account manager; two students; a pair of filmmakers and authors; the then-chairman of SGEM; and the World English editor at OED who explained that the Singlish terms had been added because there was evidence that they were being widely used in published works such as books and plays.

Excluding the remarks by the chairman of SGEM which reiterated the government's anti-Singlish stance, the comments were largely welcoming of the move by OED. The strongest supporters were the poet and authors Gwee Li Sui, Colin Goh, and Sylvia Toh. They are part of the so-called Singlitterati, an exclusive group of practitioners in the artistic and literary fields who enjoy playing around with and promoting the use of Singlish.

This is noteworthy because the Singlitterati has been instrumental in the progress that Singlish has made in terms of acceptance by both locals and foreigners. Members of the Singlitterati produce books, poems, and scripts that make ample use of Singlish, and it was these books, poems, and scripts that convinced OED to include Singlish words.

Seizing on this, the government points out that pro-Singlish debaters, especially the Singlitterati, are being irresponsible towards their fellow Singaporeans who don't have as good a command of English as they do. In the wake of OED's announcement, Gwee Li Sui laid out the arguments in favour of Singlish in a commentary in the New York Times. It provoked a prickly retort from Li Lin Chang, press secretary to the prime minister, published in the same newspaper:

Standard English is vital for Singaporeans to earn a living and be understood not just by other Singaporeans but also English speakers everywhere. But English is not the mother tongue of most Singaporeans. For them, mastering the language requires extra effort. Using Singlish will make it harder for Singaporeans to learn and use standard English. Not everyone has a PhD in English Literature like Mr Gwee, who can code-switch effortlessly between Singlish and standard English, and extol the virtues of Singlish in an op-ed written in polished standard English.

In this line of reasoning, the government is concerned about the group of Singaporeans who don't use "standard" English not because they don't want to, but because they simply cannot. This is the subaltern mentioned earlier. By creating an environment where Singlish is widely used and even condoned, Singlitterati members are depriving such Singaporeans of the chance to learn and practise "standard" English.

Spoken for and spoken about, but never heard

The subaltern is spoken for and spoken about, but it is almost never heard from directly. This is the very definition of a subaltern. It is of such low status that it is seen as incapable of speaking for itself.

In the case of the Singlish debate, the subaltern is talked about by both sides. Of course, the two sides have opposite agendas so they speak of the subaltern differently, but there is one striking similarity: the subaltern is almost always presented as consisting of working-class people such as hawkers. Such workers are regarded as poorly educated and less wealthy because the jobs that they do require few qualifications and pay rather badly. This places them on a lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder. And because they lack much education, they can't speak "standard" English.

Three examples illustrate this point. On the anti-Singlish side, we have then-Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang whose speech in 2003 contained the following:

It is not uncommon to hear some Singaporeans speak impeccable English when they are at work, or with their friends. But when they are speaking to a hawker at the hawker center or to a sales person in a shopping mall, they lapse into broken, ungrammatical English. It would appear that they do this so that people will not think that they are arrogant or that they are ‘westernized’. This in itself is not a bad attitude. It reflects consideration for the other person’s feelings. However, this practice, despite having a well-meant face saving reason, may inadvertently be perpetuating bad English. We should make an effort to arrest this trend. We must make speaking good English acceptable at all levels. Those who already speak good English should not be shy about doing so. In the same way you would not speak broken English to a child learning to speak, you would not want to pass on bad speaking habits to those whose command of the English language is not so good. If you can speak good English, please speak out at all times. This way those who do not speak English well can learn from those who do – not the other way around. In fact, I believe that the fastest way to speak good English is to have lots of opportunities to hear good English spoken around us.

Besides noting how the figures of a hawker and salesperson are used to portray situations in which Singlish is used, note also the infantilisation of the subaltern in the sentence: "In the same way you would not speak broken English to a child learning to speak, you would not want to pass on bad speaking habits to those whose command of the English language is not so good." Effectively, the Minister was saying that people with a poorer command of English are like children. This comes across as being quite offensive and insulting.

On the pro-Singlish side, we have the food blogger KF Seetoh who in 2014 waxed lyrical about the joys of learning Singapore hawker culture from a "Singlish-spewing, Chinese-educated, local Ah Pek (old uncle) trying his level best in his brand of English to ensure you get your food and seat fast and comfortably".

Finally, a relatively neutral perspective from a foreign blogger using the pen name Limpeh, a Hokkien phrase now adopted into Singlish meaning "your father":

Whether or not you need to speak standard English (as opposed to Singlish) depends on your personal circumstances. If you were representing your company internationally, attending major sales meetings in New York, London and Sydney, then you need to be able to communicate clearly in a way that best represents your company – if you are in this position, then hell no, you can’t speak Singlish to foreigners who will not understand you. But if you are selling laksa in a hawker center in Ang Mo Kio, then Singlish will serve you just fine – the odds of an American, British or Australian tourist finding their way to a hawker center on Ang Mo Kio street 61 is extremely slim, so why the hell would that laksa hawker need to speak proper English (or even any English at all)?

All three examples show people with higher education and a command of English, referring to the stereotypical image of a Singlish-speaking hawker as a member of the subaltern.

The Singlish debate is rife with further examples showing how the course of the discussions over the years has been heavily influenced by people in privileged positions such as those in the government and Singlitterati.

The Singlitterati portrays Singlish as humorous, fun, and informal through creative works like the book The Coxford Singlish Dictionary and the play Army Daze. But they are capable of doing so because of their better command of language. It's not likely that the subaltern uses Singlish in a similarly humorous and fun way.

On the other hand, the government portrays Singlish as undesirable because it hurts the subaltern's ability to learn "standard" English. But the subaltern itself never made that claim. Additionally, the claim assumes that "standard" English is something that must be learned formally and in a rigorous way such as through classroom instruction and conscientious practice in public, unlike Singlish which is made out to be very easy to pick up naturally through everyday interactions. Speakers who can code-switch are portrayed as doing a disservice to those who can't by removing opportunities for code-switching practice. But this begs the question: How did the code-switchers learn the skill in the first place? Presumably, they grew up in Singapore and were exposed to the same environment that tolerates Singlish, so what is it that enabled them to code-switch where others can't? Discovering the answer might allow us to craft language and education policies that accommodate both Singlish as well as "standard" English.

What to do?

Now that we're aware of the existence of the subaltern, it's natural to ask what we should do about it.

We can't solve the problem by simply asking the subaltern members for their opinions. As mentioned earlier, the Singlish debate is conducted in "standard" English, not Singlish. And subaltern members are subaltern members precisely because they can't use "standard" English. Using Singlish to give their views is not a good option either. Singlish is now associated with humour and being uncouth, thanks to the way Singlish speakers are portrayed in popular media including works produced by the Singlitterati. If subaltern members attempt to represent themselves using Singlish, they won't be taken seriously.

Subaltern members also can't first learn "standard" English beforehand and then go on to represent the subaltern in the debate, because the very act of learning "standard" English would render them no longer members of the subaltern and no longer representative of the subaltern's point of view.

For example, the government claims that people with both "standard" English and Singlish in their repertoires who choose to code-switch into Singlish are being irresponsible towards their fellow Singaporeans who can only speak Singlish, because these Singlish-only speakers won't be able to learn "standard" English and will be economically disadvantaged because they won't be able to do high-paying jobs.

If a subaltern member goes out and learns "standard" English, it will only serve to validate the government's claim that Singlish was previously holding that person back from learning "standard" English. The only type of subaltern member that could possibly falsify the government's claim that Singlish leads to low socioeconomic performance is someone who is rich and speaks nothing but Singlish. Happily enough, there are such people around. Some famous hawkers earn plenty of money from the roaring business they do each day, and they don't even need "good" English, or any English at all if they transact entirely in other languages. But these people are few and far between. The typical subaltern member stays true to the image of the subaltern: someone who can speak only Singlish and is from a humble background.

Unfortunately, there's no way to effectively deal with the subaltern. We just have to keep it in mind in future as the debate rages on, constantly subjecting the various points raised to careful scrutiny to see if they are missing the point of view of these "voiceless people".

The next chapter deals with the commodification of Singlish: how it has been turned from something with seemingly no value to something valuable in more ways than one.

The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee: Chapter 3

This chapter is fun for casual readers because it has more stories.

In the first part of the chapter, Professor Wee shows the relationship the Singapore government has with academic experts.

It's fair to call it a relationship based on convenience.

Lee Kwan Yew was Singapore's first Prime Minister and many credit him for being the architect of Singapore's rapid development into a first-world economy. As such, his views are highly respected and taken very seriously.

Shortly after coming to power in the 1960s, Mr Lee realised that "the Chinese, Indians, Ceylonese and Eurasians progress at a faster rate" and there was a risk that the Malay community would be left behind. He worried that if he didn't do anything to correct the problem, he would "have a Harlem", in the sense that the Malays would become a marginalised community which would fall into bad habits such as rampant drug abuse and gang violence.

What did he do? He was aware that as a politician, he couldn't possibly have all the answers, so he read up extensively on sociology and anthropology to try to find a solution. Stumbling upon the works of Judith Djamour and Bryan Parkinson, who pointed out the cultural differences between the Malay and Chinese communities, it dawned upon Mr Lee that he had to ensure that the various ethnicities in Singapore had ample opportunities to interact with one another. This was the way to prevent the formation of racial enclaves.

This is the behind-the-scenes story of how some Singapore schemes that have to do with racial harmony came to be. Perhaps the most famous example is the ethnic integration policy in public housing. In every block of flats, there cannot be too many residents from any particular ethnic group, as there are strict quotas enforced by the Housing and Development Board (HDB). This prevents people from one ethnic group from predominating in an area.

Another example is the use of English as an official language and a compulsory first language in schools. Being neutral, it was not the native language of any of the ethnic groups, so it served as a bridge to bring them all together. Using English, people from different ethnic groups can communicate with one another. This allows them to interact and gain mutual understanding and respect for one another's culture.

In this case, Mr Lee was happy to use the expertise of academics. His English language policy was a result of this. But in other cases, he has notoriously shot down the advice given to him by academics, due to his stubborn streak and refusal to believe anyone other than himself.

For example, a linguist from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2009 called for the government to relax a ban on Chinese dialects that had been introduced many years prior. The reason for the ban was because Mr Lee wanted Chinese Singaporeans to be fluent in Mandarin and not dialects, so that they could communicate with the Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese and reap the economic rewards from a rapidly booming China market.

Mr Lee was not amused by the linguist's suggestion. He felt that if people spoke dialects, they will have less time to speak Mandarin, and their Mandarin proficiency will suffer. So he directed his secretary to write this response: "Using one language more frequently means less time for other languages. Hence, the more languages a person learns, the greater the difficulties of retaining them at a high level of fluency... It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin." In his memoirs, he said he "thought it was a daft call" for the linguist to make.

He was less resistant to expert advice when the expert doing the advising was his daughter, though. Dr Lee Wei Ling is a neurologist. One day, she revealed to her father that it is not possible for a human brain to be equally good at two languages. Previously, he had thought that it was possible for a human brain to learn two languages at the same level, but not more, which was why he banned dialects for fear that people's brains will be overcrowded. He even went as far as to tell a group of parents at an event in 1978: "But let me reassure all parents: your child has a brain bigger than the biggest computer man has ever built. Whilst the world’s biggest computer cannot handle two languages, most human beings can, especially if they are taught when young... the fact is that your child has a brain which can use two languages, whilst the computer as yet cannot."

But in later years, he went on record to admit his mistake, saying in 2004: "But now I believe it’s only possible for the exceptionally able and the very determined... If you spend half-and-half of your capacity on two languages, it’s likely you won’t master either."

In 2009, he credited his daughter with enlightening him: "Nobody can master two languages at the same level. If (you think) you can, you’re deceiving yourself. My daughter is a neurologist, and late in my life she told me language ability and intelligence are two different things."

Coming back to Singlish, let's include a story by Goh Chok Tong, Mr Lee's successor as Prime Minister. The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was started during his reign.

Explaining the need for SGEM, Mr Goh told of a golfing trip he had taken to Zimbabwe some years earlier. His native caddy, according to him, spoke "excellent English". When his strokes were going off target, the caddy asked: "Would you permit me to test your putter?" In Singapore, Mr Goh quipped, a caddy would have said: "Can try your putter or not?" After the game, the Zimbabwean caddy asked: "Would you have some used balls to spare me?" Mr Goh was so impressed with the caddy's English that he gave the caddy many balls, including some brand-new ones. According to Mr Goh, a Singaporean caddy making the same request would have produced a less impressive version of the question and said: "Got old balls give me can or not?"

Mr Goh added that the Zimbabwean caddy had not completed his education and the English he learned was picked up from working with white Zimbabwean golfers.

There's a problem with Mr Goh's justification. He failed to take into account the phenomenon of style-shifting. Most people can speak more than one variety of language. We choose which variety to use in a particular setting based on context. This is known as style-shifting.

For example, the Zimbabwean caddy may have used "excellent English" with Mr Goh, but he probably used a different kind of English when out with friends. It would likely have been some mixture of English and African language influences, and Mr Goh would've found it difficult to comprehend.

Similarly, a Singaporean caddy would be highly unlikely to say "Got old balls give me can or not?" on the job, contrary to Mr Goh's belief, because he would know that that's not an appropriate manner of speech to use on a golf course where the clientele consists of high-class people.

Style-shifting is a sociolinguistic concept and it would require a sociolinguistics expert to point it out to the government. But even though SGEM has consulted with linguists in the past, including Professor Wee, the people running SGEM are not government ministers. They don't make decisions, only execute them. So the people who really need to hear from the experts, namely government ministers who decide that "Singlish is bad", don't get direct input from these experts. On their part, the experts have no open channel through which to explain concepts like style-shifting to the ministers. So they don't get to put their touch on policies, and policies may end up being theoretically unsound.

That's not to say that experts are infallible. A few are bad eggs who may spout nonsense just because they want to be famous. And all are humans who are part of the society they live in. This means they will never truly be neutral or objective. They probably favour one position or another due to personal reasons.

The way to work with and make use of experts is to take their views into serious consideration when making decisions. Don't take their words as gospel, but don't discard them either. And don't only listen to expert opinions that validate your pre-existing notions. That defeats the purpose of bringing in third-party advice.

The second half of the chapter is dedicated to the concept of linguistic chutzpah.

Linguistic chutzpah

Chutzpah means "supreme self-confidence, nerve, gall, audacity or even insolence", according to Professor Wee. He explains that applied to language, linguistic chutzpah means being confident in the way we use language and being able to explain why we use language the way we do.

For example, Singaporean radio announcers tend to adopt American accents on air. If they have linguistic chutzpah, they will be able to tell us why they adopt American accents on air.

Linguistic chutzpah is an important concept in the context of English use in Singapore because there seems to be a lot of anxiety among Singaporeans as to what constitutes "acceptable" English. This shows that linguistic chutzpah is lacking in Singapore.

Two stories illustrate this.

The first revolves around the Singapore town of Woodleigh. A new train station was about to be opened in the town when the Land Transport Authority (LTA) suddenly became insecure about the way "Woodleigh" should be pronounced: "wood-lay" or "wood-lee". It needed to choose the "correct" one because a minister was going to officially open the station and was going to have to refer to the name.

LTA wanted Professor Wee to tell them which of the two pronunciations was the right one. He didn't. He said it should be up to the residents in the area to decide, maybe through a survey.

The second incident is quite similar. The state broadcaster Mediacorp had a television show called We Are Singaporeans in which contestants were quizzed on their knowledge of all things related to Singapore. After a contestant had given their answer to a question, the host would ask them to "double confirm" their answer, which would lock the answer in. Mediacorp fretted that "double confirm" was a Singlish expression and asked Professor Wee if it was acceptable in "standard" English.

Professor Wee pointed out that in the Singapore context, "double confirm" is totally acceptable and given that the show was about Singapore and Singapore culture, there's no reason why it should be deemed inappropriate. But in the end, Mediacorp decided to change "double confirm" to "confirm confirm", which isn't actually any better.

In both cases, the organisations that asked for Professor Wee's input demonstrated great anxiety about matters pertaining to English, suggesting that they lacked linguistic chutzpah. They could have shown linguistic chutzpah if, after making their respective decisions and irrespective of what these decisions were, they had come out publicly to explain why they had done what they did. For example, Mediacorp could have issued a statement with the announcement that they would use "confirm confirm" instead of "double confirm" and the rationale behind the move. Whatever the decision, some people would have complained anyway, but at least Mediacorp would have had the opportunity to explain itself rather than remaining silent.

We shall round up this chapter with a look at the "evil twin" to SGEM, the Speak Good Singlish Movement (SGSM).

Speak Good Singlish Movement

SGSM appeared in 2010 just after SGEM underwent a rejuvenation and revival. It directly opposes SGEM, actively promoting the use of Singlish by giving tips on how to speak it, and debunking claims made by the government and SGEM about why Singlish is bad.

The people behind SGSM are anonymous, but it's likely that they are highly educated, with knowledge of linguistic, literary, and cultural matters.

SGSM has adopted a rather combative tone. For example, when SGEM started encouraging people to paste stickers with the "correct" versions of everyday expressions on signs in public places that contained Singlish, the banner of SGSM's Facebook page showed a sticker with "It's not proper English" cancelled out and "Go and die lah!" written over it. "Go and die lah!" is a strong Singlish expression that is roughly equivalent to "Get lost!" or "Go away!"

This combativeness is a demonstration of linguistic chutzpah on the part of SGSM's founders. They are supremely confident in their pro-Singlish position. But notably, this confidence is backed up by an ability to articulate arguments against the government's anti-Singlish rhetoric. Let's now take a look at how SGSM counters the government's claims against Singlish.

First, the government claims that if Singaporeans use Singlish outside the school setting, they will be confused about what is "good" and "bad" English even if they are taught "standard" English in school. This is known as the interference argument: when a person learns more than one language at the same time, there is a danger of the languages mixing together in the person's mind, leading to the person becoming confused and speaking "bad" versions of the languages. In the case of Singlish and "standard" English, Singlish features might seep into and contaminate Singaporeans' knowledge of "standard" English, resulting in them speaking "bad" English.

But SGSM points out that the government's use of the interference argument runs contrary to the bilingual education policy in which Singapore students must learn English and a mother tongue. If the government truly believes the interference argument, they should be concerned that it would apply to English and mother tongue languages too. In other words, assuming the interference argument holds true, the government should not enact the bilingual education policy because it will result in Singaporeans speaking "bad" English and "bad" mother tongues.

Empirically, the interference argument has been falsified by multiple studies.

Second, the government tends to use the term "Singlish" to refer to "bad" English, but SGSM insists there's a difference between "bad" English and Singlish. It says the government can't distinguish the two because there are "no individuals with language expertise" such as linguists, writers, novelists, or poets in the government. It adds that because of this, the government is unable to recognise the merits of Singlish such as its value as a marker of Singaporean culture and identity, and has decided to bulldoze ahead with efforts to eradicate the local variety. But grassroots support for Singlish remains strong and these efforts are doomed to fail.

Third, the government warns that Singlish may ghettoise those who speak it. This means that Singlish speakers may be regarded by outsiders as low-class, poorly educated, unintelligent, and uncouth. Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise, however. The film Singapore Dreaming was banned from local airwaves due to excessive use of Singlish but won awards at international film festivals, suggesting that outsiders know how to appreciate Singlish. SGSM observes that Singlish "is spoken by professionals and other successful individuals, who are capable of switching between Singlish and standard English, as and when the situation demands it, or to frame particular interactions as humorous".

In this chapter, we have seen that many people are involved in the Singlish debate, from linguistics experts to authority figures, people working in the media industry, and even laypersons with the passion to start a movement for the cause they believe in.

The next chapter continues the discussion with an examination of the topic of voice. We will see who exactly are the people talking about Singlish, and whether or not there are people whose perspectives and interests are not being represented in the debate.