LANGUAGE CHOICE OF CHINESE MIGRANTS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the number of Mainland Chinese immigrants in Singapore. In this study, I explore how Mainland Chinese in Singapore perceive their language choices compared to Singapore Chinese, focussing on how the participants perceive the politeness of their language choices during service encounters and on identifying the factors that affect the participants’ language choices more generally. Through a questionnaire and interviews with 50 participants, I found that overall, both groups perceive their language choices similarly in terms of politeness during service encounters and that a common language, language proficiency and a desire to improve their English are factors that influence Mainland Chinese participants’ language choices towards Singapore Chinese. Among the linguistic models that seek to explain/predict language choice, I show that Myers-Scotton’s (1998) “markedness model as a rational actor model” is best able to explain some of the findings of this study.