5 - The Multilingual State in Search of the Nation: The Language Policy and Discourse in Singapore's Nation-Building

Summary

Around the world, especially in Asia, languages are dying out from assimilation policies as well as from oppression of minorities. Even languages which hitherto had not been under threat now have to grapple with the realities of the dynamic and variable nature of language shifts. Language issues have also featured prominently in manifestations of ethnic conflict in Asia. In Singapore, there is no real fear of the languages of the three racial groups, viz Chinese (Mandarin), Malay, and Tamil, becoming extinct or obsolete. Rather, the feeling of the intellectual and cultural elites from the Chinese, Malay and Indian communities is that more could be done to promote their respective languages and cultures. What is clear is the pivotal role of language in Singapore's socio-economic development and nation-building. Arising from the language policies, there are ramifications for politics, economics, culture and education. Thus, national language policy will retain its saliency in many societies and language planning an integral part of maintaining ethnic stability in many multilingual societies.

The link between language and identity has not had much analysis in scholarly discussion. Similarly, the role of language in nation-building in Singapore has not been examined in any significant way. This is not surprising as race has been the dominant prism in the study of ethnic relations in Singapore. Yet language is a proxy by which issues of race and culture are often discussed in Singapore. Indeed, language is construed as a less contentious context with which to deal with the tricky issues of ethnicity, broadly conceived. Language discourse is also less susceptible towards a class-based explanation of difference.

This chapter examines the role of language in nation-building in multilingual Singapore. The first part discusses Singapore's language regime and an overview of language development in Singapore since its independence in 1965.