Gamsia hor : the value of Singlish as a language of politeness amongst Singaporeans in informal contexts

Abstract

Singlish is a language which has traditionally faced stigmatization in Singapore. Often felt to be “crass, poorly educated, and unintelligent” (SGSM, 2010), it is little surprise that perceptions of Singlish being “inappropriate, wrong and at times, rude” have also formed (Yoong, 2010, p. 14), resulting in Singlish becoming associated with impoliteness. However, contrary to popular belief, politeness research on Singlish has uncovered that Singlish does, in fact, serve crucial sociopragmatic functions contributing to the negotiation of politeness between speakers. This is mainly by virtue of how it is a language of solidarity between Singaporeans, which allows it to establish “common ground” (Koh, 2009, p. 86; Stadler, 2018, p. 310) between speakers. To investigate the exact means via which Singaporeans use Singlish as a language of politeness, this paper focuses on Singlish pragmatic particles, one of Singlish’s most defining features, and how they negotiate politeness in daily interactions. Qualitative analysis of conversational data drawn from IMDA’s National Speech Corpus (NSC) was conducted, to examine the speech acts which occurred, and the politeness strategies that have surfaced within these speech acts. Particles used by speakers were analysed, in full consideration of their contexts, for whether they exert any effects on the conversation’s politeness, and if they do, whether they affect negative or positive face, and how. Analyses revealed that Singlish particles are used for politeness in two main ways – firstly, to overtly attenuate positive and negative face threats in directives and assertions, and secondly, to boost positive face by highlighting the close solidarity between interactants. Overall, the results elucidate that Singlish does play a significant role in negotiating politeness between speakers, and is a crucial language of politeness for Singaporeans.