That line from local playwright Haresh Sharma’s latest play, Model Citizens, hit home when I attended the play earlier this year. The context of that line in the play occurred when a trilingual Singaporean, who speaks English, Mandarin and Malay was confronted by a Mandarin-speaking monolingual as to why she chose to speak English to her knowing she didn’t understand. The trilingual character replied curtly, “I speak English because I can”. This seems to epitomize a new language situation in Singapore in face of an expanding migrant population – English is synonymous with power.
In the past year, Singaporeans have been increasingly vocal on the linguistic poverty of migrant workers, particularly those in the service and retail industry. The main grievance pertains to service staff not knowing enough, or in fact, any English. Anecdotally, a friend of a friend went to an up market retail store in Ion Orchard where jeans are sold at 300 dollars a pop. He asked the sales staff if she knew there were other colours, she replied asking if he knew Mandarin. Perhaps it was a case of bad luck that he had to approach the Mandarin-speaking sale staff who was presumably employed primarily to serve Mainland Chinese shoppers, but isn’t it a little jarring that one can’t buy a pair of expensive jeans in Orchard Road without having to know the Mandarin equivalent for “stone-washed” and “cigarette fit”?
The language problem may be just one of the factors for our seeming rejection of the migrant population, but it’s a crucial one. We are told we should embrace the migrant population and help them adjust to the Singapore culture. Yet how are we supposed to achieve those without a common language? Yes, one can argue that our Asian mother tongues serve as common languages for the new residents from China, parts of India and the Malay Peninsula. But therein lies a blindspot – are we polarizing races by language? For the past 45 years of nation building we’ve pride ourselves on establishing English not only as a language of commerce and access to economic goods but also a common language to bind the four (or more) races together. Now, if we can only converse to new residents using non-English languages, it appears that will mark the end of inter-racial mixing, and the start of the breakdown of the cohesive social fabric we’ve tried so hard to weave in the past 45 years.
It is undeniable that English is a language of power. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of linguistic capital and economic system, English can be considered a language of high value in Singapore. With English in one’s repertoire, one can exchange it for social goods such as job advancements and (perceived) higher social status. Contrastingly, Mandarin and the other Asian languages do not have the same value in this economy. Our Asian languages are meant to ground us to our Asian roots and be harbinger of values and culture – not the same kind of social goods English can give us. So we’ve come to equate English to a certain desired lifestyle, and regard English as a language of power. Knowing that with English under our belts we can achieve more in this country, surreptitiously creeps in the stereotypes – English speakers lead a certain lifestyle (read: richer), are more educated, are more culturally refine… et cetera. Regardless if those have any truth in them, English nonetheless has a good name in this country. Brought up in such a system, I find it hard to fault those Singaporeans who regard English as their first language and the default language to be used in this country. Yet the complication arises – if English is default, is it still an active choice to use English and reject the other languages? Should we be apologizing for assuming people around us speak English?
