Language Variety in Singapore

Explain what you understand by the term 'Language variety in Singapore context' and provide examples to substantiate your answer.

There are 3 main branches of language variation
1) Regional variation
-regional variation happens due to geographical location and other physical barriers such as mountains and seas.
Eg:
-> In England, modern dialects are different in the north and the south.
-> British English and American english are 2 varieties of English. Not only do they differ a little in spelling, the way words pronounce are also different. British English tend to adopt the Received Pronunciation accent which is non-rhotic, while the Americans display the rhotic accent

2) Social variation
social variation is a result of social factors like age, ethnic, social-economic-status and gender.
Eg:
-> As seen in the NYC case study done by Labov, the salespeople in the Sak's department ( rich ppl) adopt the use of postvocalic /r/ more oftern than the Kleins
-> As seen in Trudgill's study of norwich, it is seen that women tend to converge a better style of English, while men prefer the working-class language which was more manly.

3) Individual variation
-everyone has his own idiosyncratic use of language and comes out with their own unique characteristics of the language. This is known as idolect.
Eg:
-> besides social factors, a person's idiolect can also be determined by his pitch, voice and emotional state.

In Singapore context,

1) Platt characterised Singapore English as in terms of a speech continuum.
Pakir constructs the expanding triangle with the cline of proficiency and formality.

Lowest Variety
cannot move up and down the cline of formality as their command of language is limitied.
-speaks mainly SCE (singapore colloquial english) and mainly only receive primary education

Middle Variety
- can move slightly up and down the cline of formality.
-mainly people who received their A/ O education, mesolects

Highest Variety - Acrolects ( mostly people who receive tertiary education and higher)
-able to move up and down the cline of formality while possessing the the greatest triangle of expression. Speaks mainly SSE.

2) Deterding talks about ethnic variation in multiethnic and multicultural Singapore
- ethnic features are more shown and reflected in informal speech

3) Gupta employs the concept of diglossia ( H variety and L variety)

H Variety - Singapore Standard English
-used in formal and administrative situations
-similar to the standard english around the world
-mainly used the acrolects.
-used in classrooms , courtrooms and in writing

L Variety - Singapore Colloquial English
-used in casual, informal situations or at home
-mainly used by basilects
-singlish. not encouraged to be used in classrooms.