Code-switching in Singapore Mandarin

Abstract

Singapore is a multi-racial and multilingual society with three-quarters of ethnic Chinese whose ancestors came from Southern China in the 19th century. These early Chinese spoke the southern Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. The lingua franca among the Chinese was Hokkien dialect while the inter-racial lingua franca was Malay. When Singapore became independent, the importance of English increased as the main working language and later as the main medium of instruction. Spoken Mandarin was taught in schools as a high form compared to the southern dialects, which has strong influences on the pronunciation and syntax of colloquial Mandarin in Singapore. Given that English was the main working language, Singapore Mandarin is predominantly a code-switched language with English, Malay and dialect elements. This chapter discusses this phenomenon, its theoretical issues and the motivations of code-switching in Singapore Mandarin.