In this list of references I have concentrated on books and collections of papers. Often authors will summarise their theories in later works. I therefore only list articles whose authors haven't done this, and those which have not been reprinted in one of the collections. You can find further references in the bibliographies.
For your first reading on Singapore English, after my website, I would recommend Brown (1999) for the general reader, Low & Brown (2005) for those with some basic knowledge of linguistics, or willingness to learn a bit, and Foley et al (1998) or Lim (ed., 2004) for those with some background in linguistics. Deterding (2007) is an excellent account of the phonology, and gives an idea of what ordinary conversation is like -- neither very formal nor the extreme informality of Singlish. Gartshore (2003) is an essential purchase for everyone with a sense of humour!
A word about Malaysian and Bruneian English.... The role of English in Singapore is different from the role of English in Malaysia and in Brunei. But the features of the English of these three counties are very similar indeed. Anyone working on any one of these Englishes should look at work on the English of the other two. Some of the references I've listed below refer to both Singapore and Malaysia (few of them mention Brunei), while others just deal with Singapore. I have not included works that deal expressly with just Malaysia or just Brunei, but there are plenty out there to read, and many of them have useful material to contribute to the study of Singapore English. And, incidentally, the English of these three countries is also having some influence on the English of their neighbours, especially Thailand and Indonesia.
References are listed under three headings:
This is an introductory bibliography of essential readings. For further references,
you should look at David Deterding's
annotated bibliography of writing on Singapore English. His bibliography
has many more references than mine, and is organised by topic. There is also
a full Bibliography of Singapore
Child Language maintained by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira.
A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English. 2004- (Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, ed.). The best scholarly dictionary of Singlish there is. Extensive, careful, and modelled on the Oxford English Dictionary. An outstanding resource.
David Deterding's pages. Gives access to his comprehensive bibliography. Also to various corpora of real spoken Singapore English that you can either just listen to or analyse.
MediaCorpRadio. Singapore radio stations for you to listen to.
The Speak Good English Movement. I don't endorse this page! This is the officially sponsored page of the campaign to promote Standard English and eliminate Singlish. Read this to see the attitude of the opposition. This one is not satirical.
Talkingcock. Long established satirical site. Remember it's meant to be funny: don't treat it as an academic source for 'authentic' Singlish. The Singlish used is a literary type, and is often making fun of people whose English is not supposed to be very good.
Brown, Adam. 1999. Singapore English in a nutshell. Singapore: Federal publications. [In effect, a second edition of Adam Brown. 1992. Making Sense of Singapore English]
This is probably the best introduction to SingE for most readers. Brown is a phonetician, British by origin, but lived in Singapore for many years, and has written this book for general readers with both Singaporean and non-Singaporean readers in mind. Especially useful for non-Singaporeans.
Gartshore & Associates Advertising Pte Ltd. 2003 (illustrations by Miel). An Essential Guide to Singlish. Singapore: Gartbooks.
This is a very attractive tiny book, with great cartoons (the cover shows that the Malay aristocracy spoke Standard English, and Stamford Raffles answered them in Singlish!). Gartshore has clearly read my work on Singlish too. An essential purchase.
Shelley, Rex. 1995. Sounds and Sins of English and Other Nonsense. Kuala Lumpur/Singapore: Times Books.
Shelley is one of Singapore's best novelists, who has used SingE to good effect in his fiction. This book jokes about SingE -- good fun, but it's really for those who are familiar with SingE. As with the on-line Coxford Singlish Dictionary at talkingcock.com, if you don't know Singlish, you won't always get the joke....
Crewe, William (ed.). 1977. The English Language in Singapore. Singapore:Eastern Universities Press.
The first collection of papers about SingE, includes some that have become classics (such as those by Chia, Kuo, Richards, Richards & Tay). State of the art in the 70s.
Brown, Adam, David Deterding & Low Ee Ling (eds). 2000. The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation. Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics.
This book might be hard for those outside Singapore to obtain, which is a great pity. The three editors (all from the National Institute of Education, Singapore) have themselves done a great deal of pioneering work on pronunciation of English in Singapore, and in this collection have brought together an exciting collection of papers which gives a picture of the theoretical and dialectological complexity of the issue. There's also a bibliography, which appears to be very full for 1981-1998 (some earlier works are included).
Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena. 2006. Three is a crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a trilingual environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
An unusual combination of languages for Singapore (Portuguese, Swedish and English), and the focus is on Portuguese, but the three siblings in this study (Cruz-Ferreira's own children) are part of cosmopolitan and multilingual Singapore.
Deterding, David, Low Ee Ling & Adam Brown (eds). 2003. English in Singapore: Research on Grammar. Singapore: McGraw Hill.
Companion volume to Brown et al (eds) 2000. 16 papers and a bibliography. A range of techniques and theoretical stances, and giving lots of pointers to what needs looking at in further research.
Deterding, David, Adam Brown & Low Ee Ling (eds). 2005. English in Singapore: Phonetic research on a corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia).
Another book from the Brown, Deterding & Low team. 2 background papers, 16 analytical papers (4 on consonants, 2 on vowels, 4 on suprasegmentals, 2 on conversation analysis, and 4 on intelligibility), and a bibliography. This collection is built around a corpus of interviews (supplied in a CD) with Singaporean and British students. Various researchers (including me) were given the corpus and asked to analyse it in whatever way they liked. The shared corpus gives a strong basis for sound analysis. Compare the findings here with the findings on much more informal data in Lim (ed) 2004.
Deterding, David. 2007. Singapore English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
This book is grounded in the analysis of a one-hour long interview with a representative Singaporean, a 34 year old female undergraduate, given the pseudonym, ‘Hui Min’. Hui Min was interviewed in a phonetics laboratory by a friend. As a result of the social context, there is a lot of monologue and a lot of narrative, and the speech is ‘not entirely natural or completely informal’ (p8). This is an outstanding account of the phonology of Singapore English, including an important discussion of stress and intonation. Given the nature of the data, there is less to say about grammar and lexis, which is mostly as it would be from anyone speaking in this situation: you won't read anything about Singlish here.
Foley, Joseph (ed.). 1988. New Englishes: The Case of Singapore . Singapore University Press: Singapore.
Variety of papers, some original and some reprints. Includes the editor's useful review article and a full bibliography up to the mid 80s. State of the art in the 80s.
Foley, J A, T Kandiah, Bao Zhiming, A F Gupta, L Alsagoff, Ho Chee Lick, L Wee, I S Talib, W Bokhorst-Heng. 1998. English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore Institute of Management/ Oxford University Press: Singapore.
This is the state of art in the late 90s and still a good buy. The authors have contributed one or more chapters, but there is more unity than you get in an edited book. Was written as a textbook for an Open University course. Alsagoff & Ho's paper on the grammar of Singapore English has an excellent critique of the competing lectal continuum and diglossia approaches.
Gopinathan, S, Anne Pakir, Ho Wah Kam, & Vanithamani Saravanan (eds). [2nd edn 1998]. Language, Society and Education in Singapore: Issues and Trends. Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Varied collection of new papers by various authors. State of the art in the 1990s. [a new edition was published in 1998, which has some new papers, but some of the old papers from the 1994 edition are reprinted unchanged.]
Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1994. The Step-Tongue: Children's English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Uses the diglossia approach to SingE. Acquisition of English as native language, English in education & speech therapy in Singapore. [Health Warning: You would expect me to think it was good! And by the way, many pre-print versions of my own recent papers on Singapore English can be downloaded from my personal webpages .]
Ho Mian-Lian & John T Platt. 1993. Dynamics of a Contact Continuum. Oxford: Clarendon.
Adapted Labovian methodology. Mostly syntactic variables concerning the verb in Singapore English.(especially BE occurrence/deletion; use of past tense; [punctual], [continuative], [completive], and [anterior] features). Dependent clauses.
Lim, Lisa (ed). 2004. Singapore English: a grammatical description. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Six chapters by five authors covering the major aspects of Singapore English grammar and phonology: despite the title there is a very good chapter on phonology (by Lim) and also an excellent introductory chapter by Lim & Joseph A Foley. Excellent accounts too of the verb (Vivienne Fong) and reduplication and discourse particles (Lionel Wee). Analysis has too much comparison with 'Standard English' for my personal taste. But based on excellent conversational data, so it has a real authority as description. Essential reading, requiring some background in linguistics. Compare the findings here with the findings on much more formal data in Deterding et al (ed) 2005.
Low Ee Ling & Adam Brown. 2005. English in Singapore: an introduction. Singapore: McGraw Hill Education (Asia).
This was actually published in the middle of 2004! A bigger and better version of An Introduction to Singapore English (2003) which was on limited sale. Written to support undergraduate coursework, it explains linguistic terms, and is a useful introduction to language study as well as to Singapore English. Includes a very good history of the theoretical approaches to Singapore English.
Ooi, Vincent B Y (ed). 2001. Evolving Identities: The English Language in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times Academic Press.
12 papers with a range of approaches. Some are linked to work on the Times-Chambers Essential English Dictionary (1997). Very rich in examples, some quite extended, and use of concordancing.
Pakir, Anne (ed.). 1993. The English Language in Singapore: Standards and Norms. Singapore: Unipress/Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics.
Issues of correctness and concepts of standards have been very important in the study of SingE. These are the papers from a 1992 conference where that was the topic.
Platt, John & Heidi Weber. 1980. English In Singapore and Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: OUP.
Probably still the major reference for Singapore English. The Platt school use modified Labovian methodology to analyse the speech of large numbers of informants quantitatively. Historical background. Phonology, lexis, syntax. Compulsory reading still, but some things have changed since it was written both in the language and in the Platt school's approach to its study. Remember that it is a quarter of a century out of date.
Tongue, R K. 1974 (1st edn.), 1979 (2nd. edn.). The English of Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
A classic. The first book on Singapore English. Since it was first written much has changed in both the discipline and in Singapore English itself, but at the time it was trailblazing and revolutionary, and still has many insights to offer. Must be read historically.
Afendras, Evangelos A & Eddie C Y Kuo. 1980. Language and Society in Singapore. Singapore. Singapore University Press.
Several relevant papers, especially Kuo's on language profile. Another of the very early works. If you use it -- remember the date!
Bell, Roger & Larry Peng Quee Ser. 1983. `Today la?' `Tomorrow lah!'; the LA particle in Singapore English. RELC Journal 14:2, 1-18.
One of several papers that clarified understanding of the pragmatic particles.
Benjamin, Geoffrey. 1976. The cultural logic of Singapore's `multiracialism'. In Riaz Hassan (ed), Singapore: a Society in Transition. Kuala Lumpur: OUP, 115-133.
This paper has contributed considerably to many later papers' understanding of the language planning policy of Singapore.
Bloom, David. 1986. The English language and Singapore: a critical survey. In Basant K Kapur (ed) Singapore Studies. Singapore:SUP, 337-458.
Very long and full paper. Contains a detailed history of English-medium education in Singapore, with a focus on colonial policy. And a full review of everything that was published on Singapore English by 1982. Bloom's analysis of the stages of analysis of SingE has become the standard one. Foley brings it up to date and summarises it in the introduction to Foley (ed). Also summarised in Low & Brown 2005 and in Lim (ed) 2004.
Chen Ee San. 2004. Language convergence and bilingual acquisition: The case of conditional constructions. In Annual Review of Language Acquisition (edited by Lynn Santelmann, Maaike Verrips, Frank Wijnen & Claartje Levelt). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 89–137
Looks at conditional constructions in varieties of English and Chinese used in Singapore. Unusual approach which integrates theory from the fields of bilingualism, creolistics, and semantics.
Deterding, David. 1994. The intonation of Singapore English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 24:2, 61-72.
Title is self explanatory. First thorough work on intonation in Singapore English.
Deterding, D, A Brown & E L Low (eds). English in Singapore: Phonetic research on a corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia)
The contributors were given recordings and transcripts of a set of interviews with socially matched British and Singaporean interviewees. They analyses the data and experimented with it in different ways. Several studies of intelligibility.
Elliott, Annie B. 1983. Errors in English. Singapore: SUP.
A study in the normative tradition. Analysis of the English of science graduates in the 1970s.
Johnson, Lawrence (ed.). 1984. Mini-Dictionaries of Southeast Asian Englishes . Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Lang. Centre, Occasional Papers 35.
Includes two Singapore English Mini-Dictionaries, one by Manee Lugg and one by Tan Geck Eng.
Kachru, Braj B (ed.). 1982. The Other Tongue. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Includes article on Singapore English by Jack Richards. The whole collection is one of the classics of World Englishes, that established the way the subject was studied.
Khoo, Rosemary, Ursula Kreher & Ruth Wong (eds). Towards Global Multilingualism: European Models and Asian Realities. Clevedon/ Philadelphia/Adelaide: Multilingual Matters.
Papers from a conference held in Singapore. Four of the papers are of direct reference to Singapore.
Kwan-Terry, Anna (ed). 1991. Child Language Development in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Many very relevant papers.
Kwan-Terry, Anna. 1978. The meaning and the source of the `la' and the `what' particles in Singapore English. RELC Journal 9:2, 22-36.
Another of the contributions to understanding of the pragmatic particles.
Kwan-Terry, Anna. 1986a. The acquisition of word order in English and Cantonese interrogative sentences: a Singapore case study. RELC Journal 17:1, 14-39
Case study of acquisition.
Low Ee Ling & Esther Grabe. 1999. A contrastive study of prosody and lexical stress placement in Singapore English and British English. Language and Speech 42:1, 39-56.
A systematic and scientifically based study of stress in Singapore English that questions some of the assertions of earlier studies.
McCarthy, Brian (ed.). 1988. Asian-Pacific Papers. Applied Linguistics Association of Australia, Occasional Papers 10. Wollongong.
Includes several papers relating to Singapore, especially those by Loke & Low, Pakir, Soh, Tay.
Murray, Douglas. 1971. Multilanguage Education and Bilingualism: The Formation of Social Brokers in Singapore. PhD , Stanford University.
A classic, unfortunately still (as far as I know) only available in its original PhD form. Documents the extraordinary multilinguality of the generation who were teenagers in the late 60s.
Newbrook, Mark (with others). 1987. Aspects of The Syntax of Educated Singaporean English: Attitudes, Beliefs and Usage. PeterLang: Frankfurt am Main.
A collection of articles on various topics, mostly by Newbrook in collaboration with former students.
Ooi, Vincent B Y, Peter K W Tan & Andy K L Chiang. 2007. Analyzing personal weblogs in Singapore English: the Wmatrix approach. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 2: Towards Multimedia in Corpus Studies (Eds. Päivi Pahta, Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen and Jukka Tyrkkö). <www.helsinki.fi/varieng/>
Application of corpus linguistic methods to blogs by Singporeans, teasing out some interesting comparisons. Wahahax!
Pakir, Anne (ed). 1992. Words in a Cultural Context: Proceedings of The Lexicography Workshop. Singapore: Unipress.
The workshop discussed the considerations in making a dictionary of Singapore English. Papers and edited discussion.
Pakir, Anne. 1991. The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore. World Englishes 10:2, 167-179.
Presents an overview of the range of Englishes in Singapore.
Pennycook, Alastair. 1994. The Cultural Politics of English. London / New York: Longman.
Important discussion about the political situation of English with special reference to Singapore and Malaysia.
Platt, John, Heidi Weber & Mian Lian Ho. 1983. Singapore and Malaysia, Varieties of English around the world T4. John Benjamins.
One in a series. Includes some interesting texts.
Platt, John. 1975. The Singapore English speech continuum and its basilect `Singlish' as a creoloid. Anthrop. Lings. 17:7, 363-374.
The first work to use the terms of the creole continuum for Singapore. An influence on nearly everything written later.
Platt, John. 1987. Communicative functions of particles in Singapore English. In R Steele & T Threadgold (eds.) Language topics:1 JB:Amst'm, 391-401.
One of the last things Platt published before his death. This paper shows a departure from the way he had treated the particles in his earlier writing,.
PuruShotam, Nirmala Srirekam. 1998. Negotiating language, contructing race: Disciplining Differences in Singapore. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
PuruShotam is a sociologist, who in this important book explores the ways in which the minority 'Indian' community in Singapore work with the politics of language. Lots of case studies.
Richards, Jack C. 1983. Singapore English: rhetorical and communicative styles. In Braj B Kachru (ed). 1983. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Oxford: Pergamon Press., 154-167.
The article that introduced the concepts of diglossia to the study of Singapore English.
Schiffman, Harold F. 1995. Language Loss and Public Policy, I , Garland Bills (ed.), Southwest Journal of Linguistics , Volume 14, Nos. 1-2.
About language shift and language politics in the Tamil community. Also available on web (as 'Language Shift in the Tamil Communities of Malaysia and Singapore: the Paradox of Egalitarian Language Policy').
Shepherd, Janet. 2005. Striking a balance: The management of Language in Singapore . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Language planning in Singapore, including discussion of the Speak Mandarin Camplaign and the Speak Good English campaign. Full bibliography and includes reproductions of lots of useful documents, and transcripts of interviews.
Smith, Ian. 1985. Multilingualism and diffusion: a case study from Singapore English. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics XI:2, 105-128.
Mostly about the pragmatic particle "what".
Tay, Mary W J 1983. Trends in language, literacy and education in Singapore. Census Monograph No. 2. Singapore: Department of Statistics.
Critical summary of the language data from the 1980 census.
Tay, Mary W J. 1982. The phonology of educated Singapore English. English World-Wide 3:2.
One of the papers that seeks to establish a prestige pronunciation for SingE.
Tay, Mary Wan Joo. 1993. The English Language in Singapore: Issues and Development. Singapore: Unipress.
Collection of most of Tay's papers published from 1969-1989. Tay was one of the first linguists to address Singapore English from a non-normative perspective.
Teng Su Ching & Ho Mian Lian (eds) 1995. The English Language in Singapore: Implications for teaching. Singapore . Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics/ Singapore Teachers Union.
Proceedings of a 1994 conference. Most of the papers deal with pedagogical issues.
Wong, Jock. 2004. The Particles of Singapore English: A Semantic and Cultural Interpretation. Journal of Pragmatics. 36, 739-793
Wong, Jock. 2005. "Why you so Singlish one?" A semantic and cultural interpretation of the Singapore English particle one. Language in Society 34:239-275.
Wong has written several papers in which he uses the the Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework to analyse the pragmatic particles. The most recent includes a list of the earlier (and forthcoming ones).
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