LANGUAGE SHIFT AMONG CHINESE SINGAPOREANS

Abstract

This study consists of two main parts. The first part is a review on the language use among the Chinese population in Singapore based on the 1990 census of population report. The emphasis is on language shift from the use of varieties of Chinese (for example, Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien) in the older generations to the more frequent use of School Languages (English and Mandarin) in the younger generations. The second part illustrates the societal patterns reflected in the census with an ethnographic study of the communication patterns in a multilingual three-tier family. There is a significant shift in language use from the members of the first generation who use only Cantonese, to the members of the second generation who are bilingual in Cantonese and at least one School Language and finally to the members of the third generation who use mainly School languages, in some cases to the total exclusion of Cantonese. This part of the study aims to investigate how members in this family who have undergone language shift cope with the discrepancies in language repertoires. The focus is on the communication patterns between members of the first and third generation as some members of the third generation do not share a common language (that is, Cantonese) with the member of the first generation. Family members adopt various methods in order to communicate with each other, and the members of the second generation have a crucial role in aiding communication between the first and third generations.