Singapore Snapshots: Sakinah’s story

March 29, 2019UncategorizedNewsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

March 28, 2019UncategorizedNewsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

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

March 28, 2019UncategorizedNewsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

March 27, 2019UncategorizedNews, singapore snapshotsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

March 27, 2019UncategorizedNews, singapore snapshotsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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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Singapore Snapshots: Wai Tung’s Story

March 27, 2019UncategorizedNews, singapore snapshotsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

March 27, 2019UncategorizedNews, singapore snapshotsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

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

International day of multilingualism

March 27, 2019UncategorizedNewsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

I am a language scientist, and I investigate how babies discover the sensory structure of the languages they hear around them, and how this translates into language learning. I started the Brain, Language and Intersensory Perception Lab (BLIP Lab) at NTU in Singapore so we could find out more about how this happens for kids hearing multiple languages at the same time.

Here in Singapore, it is completely normal to grow up multilingual, and to speak different languages throughout your life. In our lab, we look at the way different families use their different languages when they speak with their babies, and how this influences language development. It’s a fantastic opportunity to investigate the emergence of multilingualism in a context where it’s the norm!

Starting 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.

I hope you’ll join us in our discoveries!

Dr Suzy J Styles is Director of the BLIP Lab

New publication: Pitch & Pointiness

December 19, 2017BLIP Bitesbilingualism, Chinese, crossmodal perception, linguistics, Singapore, sound symbolism, tonesSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

BLIP Lab research published last week shows that the language a person grows up hearing changes their sensory experience of the world. And it’s not just the sense of hearing – connections between the senses are also affected: When people who speak Mandarin Chinese listen to vowels “ee” and “oo” in the different tones of Chinese, they make different decisions about which sound should go with which shape – and some of their decisions are exactly the opposite to the decisions made by people who don’t speak any tone languages! You can find out more about this effect, and why we think it occurs in our our BLIP Bites – plain language mini research reports: The Point of Pitch.

Original Research article: Shang, N. and S. J. Styles (2017). “Is a high tone pointy? Degree of pitch-change in lexical tone predicts of sound-to-shape correspondences in Chinese bilinguals.” Frontiers 8(2139): 1. Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02139

A New Project & Job Openings

October 17, 2017UncategorizedNewsSuzy Styles (Asst Prof)

We are proud to announce that the NRF has funded our newest project ‘How do language mixes contribute to the development of effective bilingualism and biliteracy in Singapore,’ for a 5-year-long programme of research. We will be working with families in Singapore to find out more about how parents communicate with their children in their different languages, what this means for the way that children’s sensory systems develop, and how this sets them up to be strong readers in the early school years.

We are hiring: 2 Post-docs, 2 Research associates, 4 Research assistants, and a partridge in a pear tree (just kidding about that last one!). The job details are right here.