British Journal of English Linguistics (BJEL)

EA Journals

Multilingualism in Singapore: The Ethnolinguistic Vitality of Its Majority and Minority Languages

Abstract

The purpose for this paper is to assess the ethnolinguistic vitality of language usage in the Republic of Singapore. For our purposes here, ethnolinguistic vitality refers to language sustainability, strength and vitality. Sustainability is the language’s ability to continue existing as a language. Strength refers to a language’s durability in terms of economics, culture, demographics and institutions.  Vitality refers to the language’s ability to act as a collective entity; that is, to protect the language from external variables impacting upon it – it is a function of the shared perspective of all of those members of that particular language group (Meyerhoff, 2006, pp.107-108). In our investigation, we have used data taken from various sources: (Singapore Dept. of Statistics, 2000), Li et al. (1997, pp. 366), Liang (1999), Singaporean Census (2010), for the period (2000 to 2010). The data discussions showed that English possessed a wide range in economics and trade although it has combined with other aspects of life in Singapore. Furthermore, the Chinese has aroused to be used. English has interfered with Chinese that represents the majority community language; the Ethnolinguistic vitality has been moved from Chinese to English that has legalised the cultural, social, and symbolic capitals represented by English.

Keywords: Chinese, English, Ethnolinguistic, Majority, Minority

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This work by European American Journals is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported License

 

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Email ID: editor.bjel@ea-journals.org
Impact Factor: 7.79
Print ISSN: 2055-6063
Online ISSN: 2055-6071
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37745/bjel.2013

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