In this top-down approach, the government influences the acquisition of languages and their respective functions within the speech community through the education system.
[4] Officially, its ethnic composition is approximately 76.8% Chinese, 13.9% Malay, 7.9% Indian, while the remaining 1.4% are mainly Others, a miscellaneous category.
Additionally, the English language represents the idea of 'modernity' and its association with progress, science, technology and capitalism.
[7] The Bilingual Policy encourages Singaporeans to be proficient in both the English language, and in their respective ethnic mother tongues, which include Chinese Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
The Bilingual Policy also aims to promote better understanding amongst the three ethnic groups in line with the effort of nation building.
Additionally, there was also the growing concern that Singapore was facing increasing Western influences, effecting a potential threat of the de-Asianisation or de-culturalisation of the people.
Alongside English, the Singapore Government aims to promote Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil so as to prevent the erosion of culture and heritage of the three ethnic groups[7] Racial harmony is a stated policy of the Singaporean government, and a racial harmony day is even celebrated.
[10] While the Singaporean government promotes Standard Singapore English as a lingua franca, it heavily discourages the usage of Singlish, a Chinese- and Malay-influenced, English-based creole language,[11][12] widely spoken by Singaporeans, but virtually unintelligible to foreign speakers of English.
Governments including those of Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew, and Goh Chok Tong have campaigned against the usage of Singlish,[13] declaring it an obstacle to communication with the rest of the English-speaking world, and a substandard, "broken English",[14] that ought not be part of Singapore's identity.
One of the most distinct changes in the linguistic landscape of Singapore after independence was promoting the status of the English language.
Despite the government's attempt to maintain symbolic and cultural capital in the Mother tongues, English has been deeply integrated into the local linguistic landscape of Singapore.
The latter is prized as a linguistic resource in a world of global economic competition, and the government fears that the presence of Singlish might actually undermine English language proficiency.
[28] On 15 August 1999, The Sunday Times reported Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister, commented on Singlish as a 'handicap': Those Singaporeans who can speak good English should help to create a good environment for speaking English, rather than advocate, as some do, the use of Singlish… Singlish is a handicap we must not wish on Singaporeans.
[31] To answer its contradictory stance, the Singapore government provided a rationale that "Singlish was considered necessary in order to communicate with less-educated Singaporeans".
[28] Singapore Day is a cultural-cum-cuisine-based event organised by the Prime Minister's Office Overseas Singaporean Unit.
According to a report by The Sunday Times on 26 April 2009, the event made occasional use of Singlish, such as the lexical item 'chope', which is used to indicate the reservation of a seat.
[28] The intended audience there is not the 'less-educated', since most of the overseas Singaporeans are working professionals or university students pursuing a degree abroad.
The government aims to influence aspects of the language, status, distribution and literacy through the education system.
The institute had the sole task of producing teaching packages under the syllabuses prepared by the Curriculum Planning Division.
Report on the Ministry of Education, 1978: Assessment of Bilingual Policy: Formed in April 1978 and led by Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Goh Keng Swee, the Goh Report assessed the bilingual education programme in Singapore.
[36] Although the Bilingual policy resulted in a rise in overall literacy rate,[39] statistics reveal that less than 40% of the School-going Students had the minimum competency level in two languages at a time.
[36] Under the review of Singapore's education system: An increasing number of Singaporeans are speaking and using English at home, leading to declining standards in the command of Mother Tongue.
In recognition of this, the Ministry of Education revised the Bilingual Policy in 1989 to allow Indian Students to choose between Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu as their Mother Tongue.
The campaign seeks to encourage the use of Mandarin and to discourage the use of non-Mandarin Chinese varieties, characterising the latter as 'burdens,' as summarized in Goh Chok Tong's (then First Deputy Prime Minister) speech marking the 1986 Speak Mandarin Campaign: Parents know that our bilingual education system is here to stay, when they drop dialects in conversation with their children they are recognising that the continued use of dialects will add to the learning burden of their children.
[47] Although the campaign is successful in reducing the number of non-Mandarin Chinese varieties speakers in Singapore, it is not always received positively.
Excerpted from a speech made by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong during the 1991 Speak Mandarin Campaign: Although Chinese literature, idioms and proverb can be translated into English, their full meaning may be lost in the process.
Language Policy and implementations need to consider bottom up processes (Individuals and Unofficial Institutions), and not just designed from the top (Government and Official Agencies).
While the bilingual policy aims to educate its population in enhancing communication in the international market, it is also able to protect the cultural identities of the indigenous groups by embracing multiculturalism.
However, the processes of globalisation exert increasing pressure on the population to assimilate towards English at the expense of their mother tongues.