Negotiating gender identity through the use of Singlish.

Abstract

Language plays an important part in signaling the speaker’s gender identity and reinforcing his/her identity as male or female, therefore individuals use language to express gender (Trudgill, 2000). However, existing literatures of Singlish confine our understanding of this phenomenon to national identity thus we need a broader perspective to understand this phenomenon – My research seeks to highlight the possibility of gender dimension behind the prevalent use of Singlish among Singaporeans by drawing the link between Singlish and prevailing ideologies; particularly, crude Singlish and masculinity, and then examines how National Service men use crude Singlish as a means for negotiation in situations when their gender identity is challenged. The contextual use of crude Singlish can be extended beyond microanalysis and be understood in broader terms of how such use relates to the social structure of gender; i.e. linking interactional processes of micro-level language usage to the larger social structure of gender.