Language Planning in Singapore: On Pragmatism, Communitarianism and Personal Names

Abstract

Singapore's annual Speak Mandarin Campaign has been largely successful in shifting the language patterns of its Chinese citizens from Chinese dialects to Mandarin in all sectors. However, there has been a notable exception: the effort to have Chinese Singaporeans give their children Mandarin names, rather than dialect ones. In this paper, we analyse this ‘blip’ in government policy implementation, arguing that it provides important insights into (1) what Singaporeans consider to be acceptable limits of the campaign's parameters, and (2) how Singaporeans manage the seeming contradiction between accepting Mandarin as a mother tongue, but not having Mandarin (Pinyinised) names. The discourses of pragmatism and communitarianism employed by the government in rationalising its language policies provide a basis for this analysis.

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