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• Singapore English derives from 146 years of British Colonial Rule
• Singapore has 4 official languages, with English as the most dominant (used in business, law, education and government)
• young people code-switch standard English → formal, and Singlish → informal </aside>

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• Singlish is a representative of singapore cultural identity, because singapore is so global it lacks another symbol of identity
• Blends malay, tamal, mandarin, cantonese, english and more
• some variation such as reduplication of verbs and nouns for emphasis </aside>

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Speak Good English Campaign

• launched in 1999. The prime minister described Singlish as “English corrupted by Singaporeans”
• Aims to improve standards of English by encouraging pride in speaking English ‘well’. Modelled off the British standard.
• Prescriptivist language policy which privileges British and US English as high prestige and discourages Singlish which is regarded as having low prestige and being slang or ‘broken’ English which could harm Singapore’s position as a centre of international trade, finance, tech etc
• They need English to maintain this status and make it easy for people to communicate
• Government view language as their resource to maintain their status and raise living standards </aside>