All posts by Suzy Styles (Asst Prof)

About Suzy Styles (Asst Prof)

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Reading in two languages…

When I was little, I would pick out my favourite bedtime story to read every night, tucking the book under one arm and dragging my dad or my mum’s hand with my other arm to the reading corner. At first, I always wanted to read only English books. I don’t remember why – Maybe I thought the books were better? Or maybe I was more confident reading in English? But my mum started to get worried that I was not enjoying my Tamil language as much. My mum is a Tamil teacher, so to ensure that I would enjoy reading  in Tamil just as much as I did for English, she would compile newspaper clippings, buy storybooks, bring us to movies and stick up reading charts. This all helped to make sure my growing process in reading was balanced between my languages.

By making reading fun, my parents helped me to practice my language skills. Even now I enjoy reading in all my languages!

What is the most fun thing you do in each of your languages?

Eshwaaree is a Research Assistant in the BLIP Lab, working on the Singapore Talk-a-thon as part of the Language-Mixes Project

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Today, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.

  

 

 

 

How many languages for baby?

Hi, I’m Kathleen, and I have a 16 month old daughter. My husband is Italian and a psycholinguist, so discussing how our child will grow up linguistically is an interesting matter for us.

We want our daughter to be able to communicate with her grandparents, as one side speaks Italian and the other side speaks both Mandarin and Teochew. Growing up, my parents wanted my Mandarin to be good, so they did not speak to me in Teochew. Because of this I was not able to communicate smoothly with my Teochew-speaking grandparents, and I missed out on having a closer relationship with them. This is a common phenomenon in Singapore.

These days, many parents in Singapore are worried that hearing more than two languages might be too much for a baby. My parents fall into this category. Although they speak to each other in Teochew, they only speak in Mandarin to my daughter. But when we look at the science, we know that around the world, many babies grow up hearing many languages at the same time, and they do just fine! There is no scientific evidence that hearing more than two languages is bad for a baby. It is still an effort to convince my parents that it is alright to speak to my daughter in Teochew, but we are doing our best!

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At BLIP Lab we’re launching a series of investigations into how different families decide which of their languages they will speak around their babies, and how the different combinations influence language development. You can find out more about our Singapore talk-a-thon, or sign up and express an interest in joining our 500 families!

Speaking Singlish outside Singapore!

Did you know that alongside their other languages, Singaporeans speak a special kind of language called Singlish? Singlish is a ‘contact language’ that arose over hundreds of years of East/West trading through the free port of Singapore. Singlish combines words and phrases from English, Malay, Chinese Dialects and lots of languages, woven together in a unique grammar that has influences from Chinese. Although it is considered informal speech in Singapore, Singlish has its own unique structure, and can be very difficult for outsiders to learn! These days Singlish dictionaries can be found in local bookstores, and lots of Singaporeans feel a kind of Singlish pride – lah!

Preeti says: Speaking in English is common in my daily life in Singapore – I speak in English with my family, friends and even colleagues. But when I lived in Sydney for six years, I avoided the usage of ‘Singlish’ when I spoke to my professors and fellow classmates. It felt strange to speak in Singlish because it was not the norm in Australia, and I felt the need to blend in as well. 

Have you ever switched between different versions of English because of where you were or who you were speaking to? Linguists call this kind of switching ‘diglossia’ since a person speaks in two (di-) different codes (-glosses). It’s similar to bilingualism don’t you think?

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Today, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.

 

Singapore Snapshots: Sakinah’s story

Hello, I’m Sakinah!

I grew up studying three languages in school, namely English, Malay and Arabic (formal). My family and I converse in Malay and English languages at home. While in school, my friends and I used to speak three languages in one sentence, and we understood each other perfectly. It was a special experience for me as nowadays I am no longer using these languages in one sentence as there is no one around me who could speak in Arabic.

There was a hilarious incident when I was younger, I was discussing with my friend about a matter and referred her as “anti”.  Anti in Arabic is used when referring to someone as “you”.  However, before my friend had the chance to reply, a nearby Auntie (an elderly woman who we refer as Auntie in Singapore) turned and responded to me!  After which, we all laughed as I explained to her that I was actually talking to my friends in a different language.

Like many other skills, learning new language takes up a lot of time and hard-work. Some people struggled and some had it with ease. However, it is worthwhile when you get to grasp the language and see the beauty of it.

The benefits of speaking or understanding multiple languages are apparent.  Personally for me, it has helped  me to widen up my outlook on life. As such I am more open and understanding of others’ different cultures. It also helped me to strengthen family bonding, and gave me the opportunity to connect with people from vastly different backgrounds. As an example, I am using Malay language to communicate with my grandparents as they feel more comfortable speaking in Malay than in English.

Sakinah is a Research Assistant in the BLIP Lab, working on the Singapore Talk-a-thon as part of the Language-Mixes Project

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This week, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.

Learning how to hear

Young infants are amazing! When they are first born they can hear a wide range of sounds. Since their ears don’t know what language they will go on to learn, they are born with the capacity to learn any of them! For the first 6 months all babies have essentially the same hearing – they find some sounds easier to hear than others. For example, the ‘ee’ sound in ‘cheese’ and the ‘oo’ sound in ‘soup’ are easier to hear than the ‘a’ sound in ‘cat’. By around 6 months of age, babies’ hearing begins to change in line with the sounds they hear around them. For some sounds, babies become better at hearing differences that were originally hard to tell apart – an example of this is that American English hearing babies become better at hearing the difference between ‘r’ and ‘l’, since the language they hear around them contains lots of these sounds [1]. For other sounds, babies become worse at hearing differences between sounds that were originally easy to tell apart – an example of this is that American English hearing babies become worse at picking out the difference between two sounds in Tamil, even though the differences were initially easy to hear [2]. In this case it’s because the American babies are only hearing one of the two sounds.

This means that babies’ hearing becomes ‘tuned’ to the sensory structure of the languages spoken around them. Most of what we know about this process comes from babies hearing only one language. For these kiddies, tuning is in place by the end of the first year of life.

What about kids hearing more than one language? Surely that’s a harder process? Well guess what? Bilinguals get extra-time before the end of the language learning game – recent studies have shown that bilingual babies have an extended sensitive period compared to children hearing only one languages [3].

Image by mengyan wang from Pixabay

  1. Kuhl, Stevens, Hayashi, Deguchi, Kiritani & Iverson, 2006
  2. Werker, Gilbert, Humphrey & Tees (1981)
  3. Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés (2003)

When languages are neighbours they ‘borrow’ each others’ words!

In the process of acquiring my languages, I have noticed a few similarities between them – even though English, Malay, and Arabic are not closely related! This matter sparks curiosity in me to figure why do languages sometimes share a word that sounds the same? And what is the term for it?

Apparently, these are known as loanwords! It is a term to describe words that we adopted from other languages.

For instance, there are words from Malay that have been adopted into the English language such as “Orang Utan”, and “Satay,” and the names of local fruits, like “Rambutan”, and “Durian”! We can also see this in words like “Kopi” which means “Coffee” in Malay. This means English has borrowed Malay words, and Malay has borrowed English words too!

Similarly, the Malay language has also taken a few words from Arabic such as “kerusi” in Malay, which sounds very similar to “kursiyun” in Arabic. They both carry the same meaning: “chair”. English has also borrowed from Arabic over the centuries, with words like “algebra”.

So you can see, where all of these languages come together in multilingual communities, they behave like good neighbours loaning their words like linguistic cups of gula melaka*!

*gula melaka: palm sugar (Malay)

Singapore Snapshots: Preeti’s story

My name is Preeti. I am a Singaporean who has lived in Singapore and Australia. I come from the Telugu community, which is small in Singapore, and the language is not widely spoken. There are many Singaporean families who speak various Indian languages such as Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Kannada. However, not all these languages were available to study at school in the past. English is the main language of the school system, and I also learnt how to speak Tamil in my primary and secondary schools years. Tamil has always been my second language since then, and  I enjoy speaking in Tamil with my friends and family. I regularly watch Tamil programs as they are shown daily on the Vasantham channel. One can also watch Tamil movies in the cinema, where English words and concepts also feature. Nowadays, there are more educational institutions to support diverse languages like Telugu.

Recently, I enrolled for a basic conversational Mandarin course at the Serangoon Community Centre for beginners. Learning Mandarin was challenging. Learning a new language was easier for me when I was young.  When I am speaking in Tamil, my voice can go up and down without changing the meaning of a word, but this is different for Mandarin! The tones of Mandarin mean that if my voice goes up when it is meant to go down, I might accidentally say a completely different word! This means it was difficult to remember the exact sounds of the Chinese words.

Even so, Mandarin is very useful in Singapore. Once, an older auntie approached me at the MRT station – she needed help updating her travel card, but she only spoke Chinese. Luckily, I was able to help her, since I could speak some Mandarin. Even though it is hard to pick up another language as an adult, it is a nice feeling when my efforts allow me to help another person!

Preeti is a Research Associate in the BLIP Lab, working on the Singapore Talk-a-thon as part of the Language-Mixes Project

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Today, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.

Singapore Snapshots: Eshwaaree’s story

Hello! I’m Eshwaaree. I come from a Singaporean English-Tamil speaking background at home and have always enjoyed learning and reading languages. When I was little, my parents’ focus was on me acquiring a good grasp of English and Tamil. However both my parents are also fluent in Malay! My dad was born in Malacca and had to learn Malay in school while he spoke Tamil at home. My mum picked up conversational Malay from her parents and neighbours in Singapore in accordance with true kampung* spirit, a sense of community and living style that Singaporeans shared, especially in the past.

As for me, as fluent as I am in English and Tamil, I mixed around so much with friends of other backgrounds such as Chinese and Malay, which is impossible not to do as a Singaporean with our wonderful mixing pot of people coming from at least four different ethnicities. As a result, I have come to be able to recognize and understand and even sometimes speak simple Chinese and Malay words.

It is truly fascinating when I think about it, that regardless of age, the surroundings one is in allows you to pick up different languages even at a basic conversational level. I see Singaporeans of all backgrounds, all ages and all walks of life recognizing and using words of varying languages be it conversations between friends, or daily activities like ordering food. It indeed seems like in Singapore every day is a Multilingualism Day!

*kampung: ‘village’ – When we imagine a traditional kampung we think of clusters of small timber houses with palm-leaved or corrugated zinc roofs.

Eshwaaree is a Research Assistant in the BLIP Lab, working on the Singapore Talk-a-thon as part of the Language-Mixes Project

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Today, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.

Singapore Snapshots: Wai Tung’s Story

The main languages I speak at home with my five-year-old boy are English and Mandarin. In Chinese-speaking households, language mixes in Singapore homes might include different Chinese dialects, for example, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese. For example, from time to time, my child hears Cantonese from my Cantonese-speaking mum, and hears Hainanese from my Hainanese-speaking in-laws. He can speak a few phrases in both dialects, usually revolving around greetings and food.

Official language data in Singapore tends to collect people’s usage of English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, which are the official languages in Singapore. This means that we do not know much about the use of Chinese dialects in Singapore households. However, the diverse language context that my boy hears at home is probably just one of many examples! This means that studies on multilingualism in Singapore might be missing out information about “unofficial” languages.

One way to collect rich information about the languages spoken at home would be to use audio recording of children’s interactions with their caregivers. This is something really exciting that BLIP lab is working on right now…

In our new talk-a-thon 500 families will be invited to help us develop a new kind of baby monitor – one that can figure out which language is which! With more information about how different families speak their different languages to their kids, we can understand more about multilingual learning. BLIP lab wants to bring this information together to help Singaporean children with their language learning. You can find out more or or sign up for children below the age of five.

Wai Tung is a Masters Student in BLIP Lab working on phonological systems and reading in Singapore.

Singapore Snapshots: Kathleen’s story

Hi, I’m Kathleen. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Singapore. One of the things I really enjoy about growing up and living in Singapore is the multicultural and in turn, multilingual environment we are exposed to. I lived in a Mandarin-speaking household, with parents and relatives who also speak to each other in English and Teochew (a Chinese dialect). My grandmother on my mother’s side spoke Hokkien (another Chinese dialect). My neighbours spoke Malay, and I had classmates who spoke Tamil.

With all these diverse experiences, I found I adapted very easily to new cultures. I have lived and worked in Australia, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. As you live and work alongside people from different cultures, it is easy to pick up languages from them. I find that when I use a person’s language to communicate with them, I can build a better rapport. So now, I can order food in German, know the word for “funnel” in Spanish (!), swear (just a little) in Polish (!@#^!), encourage a child in Japanese (^__^), and sing baby songs in Italian (👶🎶).

What skills do you have in your different languages?

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Kathleen one of BLIP Lab’s longest established team members – she’s supporting research on the Singapore Talk-a-thon as part of the Language-Mixes Project

Today, for the International Day of Multilingualism we’ll be sharing lots of stories about multilingualism in Singapore – what it’s like to grow up in such a multilingual place, how different people feel about their different languages, and some of the core research questions we are working on as a team.