Undergrad’s Take on the Recession

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew shared that Singapore’s economy could grow at 3 per cent next year after what currently looks like a “healthy” fourth quarter. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

Singapore went through one of the worst economic downturns it has ever faced. GDP dropped drastically last year and inflation averaged 6.5% because of the world wide shoot up of food and fuel prices. Low employment, recession and loss of jobs are some of the main woes of those affected.

But, enough of the statistics and what the official reports say. What do we see around us? How has the recession affected our daily lives and of those around us?

Our Student Reporter, N. Naganandhini shares her opinion:

“Maybe I just mix around with the well-to-do crowd but nobody seems more stressed out about their finances than they are about assignments (oh wait, isn’t that perpetual in an undergrad’s life?) or their social problems. And, well, on a larger and depersonalized scale, there wasn’t a lack of suffocating crowd at the Comex 2009. Nobody seemed to pull themselves away from indulging in the latest models of technological items (every other person I encounter having an iPhone shall not be considered a totally different story).

So it just gets me thinking whether the recession is really one only to those who were directly affected by it in the sense of losing their jobs and properties. Many Singaporeans, I personally know, have faced very little change in lifestyle.

As I read some blogs and articles, there seems to be some antagonism against foreigners who are being blamed for accepting jobs at much lower pay, putting Singaporeans out of demand. Well, it’s a globalized world, harping about the influx of foreigners wouldn’t reflect well on Singaporeans. Efforts should instead be focused on upgrading and making oneself valuable to employers.”- N. Naganandhini, Linguistics & Multilingual Studies (LMS)

Is Singlish Bad English?

 And the debate fires up again. Bad English and Singlish among Singaporeans. The young people are the target group for this year’s Speak Good English Movement because many of them are not too motivated to improve their English. The campaign will reach out to these young people by engaging them on their own turf – social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. The drive will also carry the key message that good communication skills go beyond using correct grammar and vocabulary. Its tagline this year: ‘Impress. Inspire. Intoxicate.’

While Singlish is a bane to teachers and politicians, it is music to the ears of linguists. Here’s what our student reporter (who is also a linguistic student), Nandini have to say about Singlish:

“ Dr K. K. Seet points out ‘instance(s) of being unduly superfluous in addition to misleading coinages’, sympathizes with ‘whimsical attempts at alliteration’, and extensively explains ‘a direct transliteration from a language whose nouns and verbs are not ‘inflected’ or modified for tense and number. Ok, so not everyone is well-versed in morphological and syntactic analysis of their language. Give the common Singaporean a break, I say!

  And there have been raging comments online about the need to raise the standards of our ‘substandard’ English. Some disturbing comments called singlish speakers ‘language killers’ while others placed ‘amazing’ and ‘extraordinary’ English on a throne.

 But what are singlish and English?

They are tools of communication (note I’m not calling them languages as I know I will be touching many a nerve here and there by even referring to singlish as a language). English is a tool of communication that many countries adapted from the English people. And each of these countries has tailored this tool of communication to suit its own culture and lifestyle. Be it in terms of pronunciation, lexicon or sentence structure, these varieties are different from one another. American English doesn’t sound much like British English; neither does Australian English or New Zealand English. Same goes for Indian English and the like. Have any of these varieties been deemed as ‘substandard’?  

Ok so singlish doesn’t have a 100 or more years of heritage, but is that a reason to try and stomp it out from Singaporeans even before it reaches that stage?

Of course it’s asking for too much to make singlish usage prevalent in formal settings like courts and parliament (though this was possible in the case of Papua New Guinea’s creole, Tok Pisin).  But many are not able to understand why the use of singlish in informal casual settings, like among friends or during a jovial lunch hour should be problematic.

Competency in so-called ‘standard’ Singaporean English is to be taken care of by the education system. Are we finding an excuse for our, perhaps, inefficient English syllabus in schools and thrusting the blame on Singlish?” – N. Naganandhini, Linguistics & Multilingual Studies (LMS)

Read the bestselling book, English As It Is Broken, and its sequel, English As It Is Broken 2 compiled by the Speak English Movement. Click here to read our review and check the availability of the two books in our library.

Library Closure

All NTU Libraries will be closed on
17^th October 2009 (Deepavali) and
19^th October 2009 (University Holiday)