By Lee Siew Hua, Senior Writer
More crucial is the need to ensure reliable and effective communication
Professor Koh Tai Ann has a bit of irreverent advice for anyone agitated over Mr Lee Kuan Yew's remarks that schools may have to teach American English.
'We needn't get our knickers in a twist,' says the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) literature don, using the quirky British expression for being unduly upset.
She flips playfully to the American equivalent: 'Or get our panties all in a bunch.'
Background story
SHE CHAIRED SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH MOVEMENT
Professor Koh Tai Ann is a senior associate at the Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
She began her academic career at the Department of English at the former University of Singapore in 1971.
In 1994, she joined NTU as dean of its new School of Arts at the National Institute of Education (NIE), and this was the first of three deanships. She was appointed NIE's Dean (Academic) in 2000, and NTU's first Dean of Students in 2003.
She completed her BA Hons and PhD in English at the former University of Singapore.
Active in public service, she chaired the Speak Good English Movement from 2005 to 2008. She has served on the advisory committees or boards of the National Arts Council, National Book Development Council of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, Institute of Policy Studies, Media Development Authority, and the Government Parliamentary Committee for education.
She was also a founding member of the Fulbright Association of Singapore.
She is married with two children.
Background story
Q&A
Are there qualities of American English that are appealing or distinctive?
Americans are less rule-bound and that's why they seem to be creating new words all the time. There is a certain egalitarianism and an exuberant individual creativity in American culture. Thus, anyone can coin neologisms or deviations which rapidly become fashionable, for example, 'megastars', 'irregardless', even a non-word, '24/7'.
Cultural factors such as political correctness or American media contribute to this, too - so when they say 'hello guys' it includes girls. What I'm concerned about in American English is a lazy tendency to flatten out meanings, for example, 'eaterie'. English has a range of differentiating words for that - restaurant, cafe, bistro, and we have food courts, hawker centres and, in Singlish, 'zi char'.
Can we tell if English standards are declining?
All over the world, people talk about a decline, even the British. It depends on which standards we measure this decline against. More Singaporeans are using English, and those born after 1960 are English-educated, but not all were well-taught or learnt the language well.
We also live in one of the most linguistically diverse societies in the world, compounded by demanding official language policies.
In 1979, at the then University of Singapore, we English Literature lecturers noticed that the standard of English had started to decline among students and worsened that year.
It was only recently while researching for a paper on English and identity in Singapore that it hit me that the 1978-79 cohorts were among the first who had started school in 1966, when bilingualism was officially introduced throughout the school system. Linguists can tell you, few people acquire high proficiency in two or more languages.
What was your language learning journey like as a child?
English was taught as a second language and very thoroughly by our British-trained teachers. We sang English songs, read English literature, listened to lots of stories in English and had 'reading periods'.
We started learning phonetics from Primary 4. It was great fun to look into small mirrors, make perfect 'Os' and roll our tongues.
It was only after establishing a secure proficiency in English that we started learning our mother tongues from Primary4.
Incidentally, I don't know why Mr Lee Kuan Yew and policymakers think that if you speak a Chinese dialect, you will find it difficult to speak or learn good Mandarin, or that Chinese culture is best accessed only through Mandarin and the Chinese written language.
In fact, I found it easier to learn Mandarin as a child because I spoke Chinese dialects and was thus familiar with Chinese syntax, idioms, proverbs and even literary allusions, as the Chinese have a common written language.
Certainly, nobody should be kiasu enough, in Singaporean parlance, to switch quickly to American English just because the former prime minister expressed a personal view that American English is prevailing globally and may have to be taught in schools, she says.
There is little cause to 'strictly delineate American and British English' as Mr Lee seemed to suggest recently when he launched the English Language Institute of Singapore, she tells The Sunday Times.
'Americanisms have been creeping into British English for as long as these two varieties have existed', although the pace has intensified and thus become more noticeable in recent years, she says.
She points to research done in the late 1980s which showed that the speech of Singaporean children was even then being influenced willy-nilly by American pronunciation - especially in the rolling of R's after vowels.
With language varieties seeping easily across borders like colours running together in laundry, as she sees it, there is little to gain from setting up American English classes.
'Language is often caught rather than taught, and learning American English might not be much different,' she reasons.
What is most vital is to communicate in Standard English. This is governed by largely shared rules and conventions - most basically, grammar.
'The important thing to keep in mind is that whether it is British, American or Singaporean, each variety of English in its written form, and in formal contexts when spoken, should be recognisably Standard English,' says Prof Koh, a senior associate at NTU's Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
'Otherwise, reliable and effective communication would be impossible across nations and among peoples who use English.'
Other features - accent, spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, idioms, slang - have to do with the local, the historical, the cultural or the merely fashionable and idiosyncratic, she says. These elements are 'not so onerous' that they cannot be picked up or looked up.
For example, people have picked up many Americanisms such as 'touch base', which is derived from baseball.
Alongside Standard English, which is used in formal realms such as education and government administration, colloquial varieties have developed in different countries. These spoken forms, such as Singlish, are more casual, and have their own rules and conventions. 'Linguists and native users will know, for instance, that the usage of lah, leh, hor, meh in Singlish is not random.'
While it is the job of schools to teach Standard English, she feels Singaporeans should be wary of turning into 'grammar terrorists' to such a point that those who speak primarily Singlish feel ashamed and silenced. Then Singlish would become an undesirable class marker.
'Singlish should not be regarded as broken or deviant and not 'proper' English, but as a spoken variety that has developed alongside the standard 'proper' English learnt in schools,' she maintains.
'Otherwise, we do ourselves a disservice by giving Singlish an odour of inferiority and shame.'
Bosses can send Singlish-speaking shop assistants or front-line staff to classes in English for Specific Purposes, which zero in on the language they need to use in their work environments.
Outside work, if shop assistants speak Singlish with friends, 'you don't want to be a grammar terrorist', she counsels.
She does not want anyone to be so wary of speaking improperly in some contexts that they clam up - as Shakespeare once lamented, 'art made tongue-tied by authority' is a sorry thing.
So Singlish is here to stay. The reality is that Singlish, which is really a local dialect and indigenous to the nation, plays communicative and sociocultural roles.
'Singaporeans of any educational level can and do speak Singlish when it is appropriate, and it is thus part of their unique identity,' says Prof Koh, who chaired the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) from 2005 to 2008.
Politicians have waged constant war against Singlish, and indeed, the SGEM formed part of the arsenal when it was launched by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 2000.
Since Prof Koh is keenly cognisant of the fact that Singlish is one living component of Singapore's national identity - albeit not the only or even principal identifier - it is worth noting that she reconciled her SGEM leadership with the official disdain for Singlish.
What she did as chair was to re-commend that the ability to code- switch between Standard English and Singlish be acquired, and that Singlish, which might be the true mother tongue of many children, not be demonised.
'The SGEM focuses only on the speaking of English, hence its opposition to the colloquial variety, Singlish. The issue should really be which form of English is appropriate for which occasion and for what purpose, and the ability to code-switch accordingly and not code-mix,' she says.
Code-switching is the ability to move back and forth between two registers of the same language, say, Singapore Standard English and Singlish. Code-mixing occurs when these are mixed indiscriminately in speech.
'If English is well-taught and well-learnt at school and reinforced by writing and reading both at and after school, and recreationally, then all Singaporeans who've been through the Singapore school system should not need the SGEM,' she says, adding: 'Its tagline is Speak Good English, and we could well ask: 'Good enough for what?' '
To answer that question, she notes: 'The ability to write good English is as, if not more, important. Language is an instrument of thought. It's an instrument of critical thinking. It's an instrument of intellectual analysis. It is an instrument through which you obtain knowledge and articulate a culture.
'If you don't have enough of the resources of language at your disposal, then you cannot perform these functions well. If your language is not up to performing these functions, it is not good enough.'
As SGEM chair, she also consciously sought the partnership of schools to raise each child's English competence to the highest level possible. This is still part of the SGEM strategy.
'A command of Standard English is still achievable for the young, for every child in Singapore who has to go to school. As English is the sole medium of instruction, there is no reason and no excuse why they cannot learn to code-switch from Singlish to the Standard English they learn in school whenever the occasion warrants.'
In the quest for world-class English, Singapore should not be distracted by any American-or-British debate either. She says: 'The real problem is why so many of the wholly English-educated are still not able to speak and write effectively in Standard English when necessary.'
It is timely for Singapore to look afresh at what has happened to English language teaching in primary and secondary schools that has caused so many students to leave school still inarticulate, she indicates.
She wonders why students leave school and tertiary institutions still speaking ungrammatical, truly 'broken' English - not to be confused with Singlish - and with a limited vocabulary and range of expression.
'More seriously, why do they still write with careless unconcern or in blissful ignorance of the meanings and import of the words they use?' she continues. 'Many still write error-ridden minutes, reports, notices and essays.'
Her observation is that the English language might not have been well-taught for decades because of competing curricular demands - especially the arduous learning of mother tongues - and the decline in time spent on the humanities.
Nevertheless, American English cannot come to the rescue.
She says: 'American English is after all still English, and not that basically different a variety.'
siewhua@sph.com.sg
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