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THEORETICAL ISSUES
To be published in: In Azlina Hashim and Low Ee Ling (Eds.) English in Southeast
Asia:
Features, Policy and Language in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Andy Kirkpatrick
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Introduction
This chapter begins with a brief introduction to the arrival of English in the
six countries under consideration in this volume, namely Brunei, Hong Kong1i,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. This includes a discussion of
the significance of five of these countries being ‘exploitation’ colonies upon the
development of local varieties of English (Mufwene 2001). The first section of the
chapter concludes with an analysis of the linguistic motivations which have led to
the development of the distinctive linguistic features in these new varieties of
English, along with a small number of illustrations of these features. The
significance of the role that English plays as a lingua franca across these countries
will also be considered.
The second part of the chapter focuses on the major issues associated with
the teaching and learning of different languages for different needs which confront
regional language policy makers. Typically these issues include the need for the
school curriculum to find space for English as the international lingua franca and
language of modernization, a local lingua franca as the national language for
national unity, and local languages as languages of identity and community.
Choices faced by policy makers include which languages to use as media of
instruction and when, and how to ensure that the languages complement, rather
than compete, with each other.
The Arrival of English
Of the six countries, Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore were
colonies of the British Empire and the Philippines was an American colony. Only
Thailand escaped this fate, which is significant when considering the roles and
development of English in each place.
English came to what is now known as Malaysia in the early nineteenth
century. In 1826, after several years of trading in the region, the British established
the colony of the Straits Settlements in three major trading posts, namely Penang,
1
Technically, of course, Hong Kong is not a country, but a Special Administrative Region of China.
1
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Malacca and Singapore. The first English medium schools in Penang and
Singapore had been established a few years earlier than this, and the school in
Malacca opened in 1826. The British gradually expanded their area of control to
Malaya itself, with the 1874 Treaty of Pangkor resulting in the installation of the
first ‘British Resident’, as the official advisor to the Sultan of Perak was rather
quaintly called. Despite the title, the real power lay in the hands of the Resident. In
1888, fourteen years after the Treaty of Pangkor, Brunei became a British
Protectorate.
The British had also been trading in Southern China since the beginning of
the nineteenth century (Bolton 2003). Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842,
as one of the spoils of victory of the Opium Wars. The missionaries established the
schools, the first of which was St Paul’s, which opened in 1851. As many of the
early missionaries had a great interest in Chinese languages and cultures, these
were taught as part of the curriculum (Bolton 2003) and, students were mainly
taught through Chinese (Boyle 1997).
At this time, the Philippines was a Spanish colony. Only after the SpanishAmerican war of 1898 did the Philippines become an American colony. It is an
irony of history that President McKinley felt that Cuba was mature enough to be
granted independence after the Americans had won the Spanish-American war, but
that the Philippines was not yet ready for this (Thompson 2003). The colonial
government, which saw English as crucial to the development of the Philippines,
introduced English as the medium of instruction and English teachers were duly
sent to the Philippines from the United States.
Thailand is the only country among the six which was never colonized.
English arrived in Thailand though the invitation of King Mongkut, Rama IV
(r.1851 and 1868). He encouraged Western learning in general and the learning of
English in particular, as he was keen to ensure that Thailand modernized itself
before having modernization thrust upon it (Luangthongkum 2007).
Colonial Status and the Development of English
These five colonies were ‘exploitation’ and ‘trade’ colonies (Mufwene
2001:8-9), as distinguished to ‘settler’ colonies, such as Australia and New Zealand
where populations of British people settled. Settler colonies were thus
characterised by relatively large numbers of settlers who came to the colonies in
order to stay and build new lives there. The local aboriginal people were in no
position to be able to offer much more than token resistance to the arrival of these
powerful invaders.
Linguistically speaking, the indigenous peoples of the settler colonies of
Australia and New Zealand had relatively little influence upon the language of the
colonizers and settlers. To be sure, English had to borrow aboriginal words for
2
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local flora and fauna, so that, for example, the most iconic words of Australian
English, kangaroo, koala and boomerang, are all words from Aboriginal languages,
of which there were some 250 at the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in Australia in
1770 (Dixon 1993). In terms of syntax and grammatical structure, Aboriginal
languages had little influence upon English. The influence of Australian Aboriginal
languages and Maori upon Englishes of Australia and New Zealand is mainly
reflected in Maori and Australian Aboriginal English (Harkins 2000, Eades 1991).
Exploitation colonies played a different role from settlement colonies. They
were colonized for the income and wealth they could provide for the colonizers.
‘Colonial possessions which drained the imperial purse were anathema’ (Kratoska
1983: 5). To take the example of Malaysia, tin and, later, rubber, were to prove the
major sources of wealth to the empire. The different role of exploitation colonies
also ensured that the languages of the local people had more contact with the
language of the colonizers for a number of reasons. First, there were relatively few
colonizers in comparison with the number of local people. Second, the colonizers
needed the local people to help administer the colony, so there was much more
contact between the coloniser and the local population. Third, the coloniser
imported labour from other countries to provide the workforce for colonial
enterprises. In Malaysia, for example, Chinese were brought in to work in tin
mining and Tamils from India to work in the rubber plantations (Hashim 2002:77).
Thus, the local language, Malay, varieties of Chinese and Tamil have all had a role
to play in the development of the varieties of Malaysian English.
The different roles English played in the home country, settler colonies and
trade and exploitation colonies, and other countries has been classified by Kachru
using a three circles model. He classified the Englishes of Britain, America,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa ‘inner circle’ varieties. The
Englishes of exploitation and trade colonies where English had developed an
institutional role, he called ‘outer circle’ varieties. In countries where English was
learned solely as a foreign language –Thailand was an example - he called
‘expanding circle’ countries. The Inner Circle refers to the traditional cultural and
linguistic bases of English. The Outer Circle represents the institutionalised nonnative varieties (ESL) in the regions that have passed through extended periods of
colonisation…..The Expanding Circle includes the regions ‘where the performance
varieties of the language are used essentially in EFL contexts’ (1992:366-7).
While this classification was very useful when it first appeared, historical
events have overtaken it, not least in the Southeast Asian region. For example,
English is now used as the official language of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN). Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are
all members of ASEAN, as are five other countries, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Myanmar and Vietnam. Of these five, four – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos and
3
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Vietnam – would have been classified as ‘expanding circle’ countries. However, as
will be illustrated below, the role and importance of English in expanding circle
countries has developed exponentially since Kachru’s classification.
Scholars have proposed a predictable sequence of stages through which
varieties of English proceed as they develop (Kachru 1992, Moag 1992, Gupta
1997). The most rigorous and complete of these theories has been presented by
Schneider (2003a, 2003b, 2007). In agreeing with Mufwene (2001) that,
‘postcolonial Englishes follow a fundamentally uniform developmental process’
(2003a:233) and that the differences are differences only of degree, Schneider has
identified five stages in the developmental cycle of ‘new’ Englishes. In summary,
these are:
The ‘Foundation’ Stage. This is when English first arrives and borrows names
of places, flora and fauna.
The Stage of ‘Exonormative Stabilisation’. This is when the English of the
colonial ruler provides the linguistic standard and norms. Thus Standard
British English provided the linguistic model in Brunei, Hong Kong,
Malaysia and Singapore, while Standard American English provided the
model for the Philippines. At the same time, lexical borrowing from local
languages continues.
The Stage of ‘Nativisation’. This occurs when ties with the colonial rulers
weaken and interethnic contacts increase. Bilingual and multilingual speakers
create a new variety of English, characterised by the transfer of phonological
and grammatical features from the local languages. Typically, at this stage,
the educated elite tend to look down on this new variety and consider it to be
an inferior or deficient variety of English.
The Stage of ‘Endonormative Stabilisation’. This occurs when the new
variety of English becomes socially accepted and is considered, for example,
an appropriate model for the classroom.
The Stage of ‘Differentiation’. This occurs when the new variety of English
itself develops new varieties. These can be based on specific speech
communities.
In identifying which stage of development each of these six countries has
reached, Thailand remains at the second stage, the stage of ‘exonormative
stabilisation’, as a local variety is still developing (see Trakulkasemuk, this volume)
4
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and an inner circle variety of English is considered the model. However, whether
British or American English is the preferred external standard remains an open
question. On the one hand, American English is associated with modern technology,
communication and, very importantly, popular culture. This makes it the preferred
choice for many Thais. On the other hand, Thailand is a monarchy and many Thais
have great respect for Britain’s political system of constitutional monarchy, and
thus lean towards British English.
Identifying the developmental stages for the other five countries presents an
intriguing challenge. There is great debate among scholars of Hong Kong English
over whether it has become an established variety of English. Some scholars
(Kirkpatrick 2007a, Bolton and Lim 2000, Hung 2000) argue that Hong Kong
English has developed distinctive and systematic linguistic features to be classified
as a variety in its own right. Others (Li 2000) argue that Hong Kong remains firmly
at Schneider’s second stage of development, not least because the relative
linguistic homogeneity of the people of Hong Kong and the role of Cantonese as
the language of identity means that Hong Kong people routinely use Cantonese.
The relative linguistic homogeneity of Hong Kong can be contrasted with the
multilingual environments of Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, where
English is often used as a lingua franca among the local population, especially
among the more educated. Linguistically, there is evidence that the varieties of
English in these countries have reached Schneider’s final stage of differentiation.
For example, the linguistic features of Malaysian English may differ depending on
whether the speaker is a Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Indian. There is also a
‘dialect’ continuum of English varieties in these countries, typically ranging from
an informal colloquial variety (often called ‘Manglish’, ‘Singlish’ or ‘Taglish’, a
blend of Tagalog and English) to a formal, educated variety. It is also common for
educated users of these varieties to be able to use different dialects from the
continuum in the same text. Nevertheless, the extent to which the local educated
variety is accepted as the classroom model remains the topic of much debate. It
would appear, therefore, that, in linguistic terms, varieties of English can reach
Schneider’s final stage of ‘differentiation’ linguistically, but sociolinguistically
they remain somewhere between stage two and stage three, as the idealised
classroom model remains provided by an inner circle variety.
Local Languages and the Development of Englishes
I now turn to considering some of the motivations that account for the development
of new linguistic features in new varieties of English. It is important to stress at the
outset, however, that the motivations which will be considered below are not new.
For example, contact with other languages has always been a major cause of
5
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linguistic change in English. English has never been ‘untouched’ by other
languages. It is far more a mongrel than a thoroughbred, as indeed are most
languages. As Crystal has pointed out, ‘The notion of purity was as mythical then
as it is now’ (2004:19). Languages that have left their mark on English include
Classical Greek, Latin, French, Scandinavian languages and many others. The
French influence, evident in phonology, lexis and syntax, left an indelible mark on
Anglo-Saxon by ‘drastically simplifying its…syntax, modifying its spelling and
vastly enlarging and enriching its vocabulary’ (Murison 1979:6).
Thus the examples of influence from other languages which will be
described below and in other chapters in this volume merely further exemplify
long-standing and natural causes of language change. And while the languages
influencing new varieties of English may be different, the language contact process
remains the same.
Simplification is one change that takes place over time, as illustrated in the
simplification of the inflectional system of English. Speakers of standard British
English use far fewer inflections than their ancestors. This simplification was often
due to language contact. As a consequence of contact with French and
Scandinavian languages (Fisher 1992), the highly inflected English of Old English
has become, over time, a modern English with only a few inflections (Blake 1996).
Simplification is joined by a second motivation for change, namely,
regularization. There is a tendency for past tense endings of English verbs to
become regular over time. Thus for example, ‘worked’ is now accepted as the
standard past tense form of ‘work’, while at one time the irregular form ‘wrought’
was used. ‘Raught’ was common for the past tense for ‘reach’ until about 1650
(Lass 1999: 174), and ‘teached’ and ‘catched’ were both possible alternatives for
‘taught’ and caught’ until well into the eighteenth century (Lass 1999:194). The
successful survival of ‘taught’ and ‘caught’ provide exceptions to the rule, of which
there are several, especially in verbs that are in common use. The scholar
Lieberman and colleagues have actually worked out a mathematical formula which
calculates how long and in what circumstances an irregular past tense form will
become a regular past-tense form. On the basis of this, they predict that ‘wed’ will
be the next irregular form to be replaced by the regular form ‘wedded’ (Lieberman
et al. 2007). When considering the linguistic features of new varieties of English,
it is important, therefore, to consider whether they may be the result of
simplification or regularization, especially with the unmarking of tense and the
non-use of other inflectional items.
Scholars are also currently debating whether variety type or geography – and
thus the influence of the contact languages – is the better predictor of distinctive
syntactic features. While showing that many new varieties of English share
distinctive linguistic features, Mesthrie and Bhatt argue that some varieties prefer
6
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to delete certain features while other varieties prefer to retain them. They give
Singaporean English with its allowance of subject deletion as an example of a
‘deleter’ and African languages as good examples of ‘retainers’ (2008:108).
Kortmann, on the other hand, while allowing that geography plays an important
role, argues that it is variety type – whether the variety is an L1or an indigenised
non-native L2 or a creole, for example –which better predicts the morphosyntactic
features of the variety (forthcoming).
As later chapters will be providing examples of the distinctive linguistic
features of specific varieties of English, here I shall provide only a few. In line with
Schneider’s developmental model, the earliest and most common features of a new
variety of English will be the borrowings into English of lexical items that describe
local phenomena. The following illustrations represent just a handful of the
hundreds of terms that Malaysian English has borrowed from Bahasa Melayu:
makan (food); durian (a type of fruit); adat (traditional law); kampong
(village); and bomoh ( a traditional Malay medicine man)
It is also common for lexical items from an established variety of English to
undergo some form of semantic shift when used in newer varieties of English. An
example of this from Filipino English is colgate, (cf. Bautista 1997b: 49-72) which
has expanded its semantic range from referring to a single brand of toothpaste to
the general term for it (following the same path as ‘hoover’ or ‘xerox’ in British
English). An example of semantic shift in Malaysian English is the shift of
meaning of the word ‘bring’ to mean something like the ‘take’ of British English,
as illustrated in this recent Shell advertisement in the Malaysian Star newspaper on
Sunday Feb 8th 2009.
‘Thank you Shell! I’ll use the money to bring my family for a holiday in
Melaka’.
To give just one example of a syntactic feature, perhaps the most iconic
feature of Bruneian, Malaysian and Singaporean Englishes is their distinctive use
of particles. The opening sentence of an article by Patrick Teoh in the February
2009 edition of the Malaysian news magazine ‘Off the Edge’ uses two such
particles, along with a colloquial Malaysian English representation of ‘fellows’.
‘As a Malaysian citizen, I’ve been having a recurring debate of late la. Am I
really a stupid fler ah?
The frequent use of particles in Bruneian, Malaysian and Singaporean
7
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English is well-documented (and see this volume). It is clear that these particles
have been borrowed into these varieties of English from local languages spoken in
Malaysian and Singapore. What is less clear is which languages have provided
which particles. There is, for example, some debate over whether the particle ‘la’
comes from one of the Chinese languages, Hokien or Cantonese, or whether it
comes from Malay, as all these languages use a similar particle.
Research into new varieties of English also needs to take into account the
role of the transfer of pragmatic and cultural norms has in shaping varieties of
English. For example, the Australian partiality to informality is linguistically
realised in what is called ‘clipping’, the shortening of certain words and making
them end with vowel sounds. Examples in colloquial Australian English include
‘pollie’ (a politician), ‘journo’ (a journalist), ‘reffo’ ( refugee) and ‘garbo’ (a
garbage man).
In the context of Asian languages, Scollon and Scollon (1991) pointed out
that speakers prefer to preface the main information or main point of the argument
with subsidiary information or the justification / reasons for the argument. Thus a
common unmarked schema for Chinese discourse is justifications – argument and
reasons – request (Kirkpatrick 1995). We might then predict that this might become
a common schema in the English of Chinese speakers. And, as this schema is also
common in other Asian languages, including, for example Japanese, Malay and
Indonesian, we might predict that this will become a common schema and
discourse pattern in Asian varieties of English.
More research on how local cultural values and pragmatic norms are realized
in the local variety of English is therefore needed. This is important for a number
of reasons. First it will provide evidence of how new varieties of English adapt to
reflect the cultural norms and values of their speakers. Second, as speakers are less
aware of their use of pragmatic norms than their use of localised lexical items, they
may be more inclined to use these subconsciously when speaking English in lingua
franca settings. Their use of these pragmatic norms may then cause cross-cultural
misunderstanding.
English as a Lingua Franca
English is used as the major working lingua franca for speakers from these
six countries. Indeed, as mentioned above, English is the sole working language of
ASEAN, a fact now enshrined in the recently signed ASEAN charter, where Article
34 states ‘The working language of ASEAN shall be English’. The very term
‘English as a lingua franca’ (ELF) has become a contested topic with some
scholars arguing that it is misleading to describe this as a variety as, by definition,
it will be used by speakers from quite different linguistic backgrounds (Prodromou
2007). Canagarajah argues that ELF does not exist as a system, but is ‘constantly
8
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brought into being in each context of communication’ (2007:91). Nevertheless,
while it is clear that ELF is a functional term in that it describes how English is
used, recent research into ELF has demonstrated a surprising number of linguistic
features that are shared by speakers of different language backgrounds (Seidlhofer
2004, Jenkins 2000). In the context of SE Asia, Deterding and Kirkpatrick (2006)
identified a number of shared linguistic features, a small sample of which are
illustrated below.
Perhaps the most noteworthy common phonological feature is that all these
varieties have a tendency towards syllable timing, probably caused by the syllabletimed nature of the various L1s.This is realized by the speakers not reducing vowel
sounds in contexts where a schwa would be found in many stress-timed varieties of
English. Scholars have argued that this tendency towards syllable-timing may be
helpful for the international intelligibility of these varieties, precisely because their
speakers do not reduce vowels. This has potentially important implications for
English language teaching.
A phonological feature which is unique to Hong Kong speakers is their
representation of the TH sound. Rather than using some form of T or D sound as is
common among speakers from the other five countries (and elsewhere), Hong
Kong speakers typically use a /f/ sound. This is nicely illustrated by a slogan used
in a chain of local tea houses, which asks RU34T (Are you free for tea?), where
‘three’ and ‘free’ are considered homophones. It should be added that while Hong
Kong speakers may be unique in the SE Asian context in this, they are not alone in
the international context. This use of /f/ in these contexts is also common among so
called native speakers of the variety of British English spoken in and around
London known as ‘estuary’ English. David Beckham, the well-known English
soccer player, is a famous example.
Among the most common grammatical features found in many new varieties
of English and ELF are the different marking of countable and uncountable nouns,
the non-marking of past tense forms in specific contexts and the use of an
invariable tag question form. As the non-marking of tense forms also occurs in
varieties of English that have developed in contact with L1s which do mark for
tense, this is some evidence that the processes of regularization and simplification
are at work. As Crane (1994:358) has suggested, a ‘pan-linguistic grammatical
simplification process’ to account for this. This is itself is reason enough to study
the use of English as a lingua franca.
Research into the communicative strategies adopted by ELF speakers is also
important. Research to date (Meierkord 2004, Seidlhofer 2004) does indicate that
speakers tend not to use certain lexical items and idioms which describe culturally
specific phenomena and which therefore may not be understood by people from
outside their own speech communities. For example, in data of ASEAN speakers in
9
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conversation (Kirkpatrick 2007b:132), occurrences of the use of localised lexical
items and code-switching is extremely rare. The following example represents the
sole instance of this in the entire data. A Singaporean (S), Indonesian (I) and
Cambodian (C) are in conversation. The Singaporean is a Singaporean Malay and a
fluent speaker of Malay. Rojak is a Malay word and refers to a type of mixed salad
S: in school in the class I will try to speak good English in fact we are supposed
to speak good English {I: ehm} so I will switch you know ehm {ehm} in the
class I’m I am a teacher I see myself as a teacher we have to {C: yes} show good
example {I: eh hm} so ehm there’s no way that I will speak Singlish to my kids
{I: eh hm} not in class yeah er not in class not in school {I: eh hm eh hm} but
ehm like what you said just now when we go back to our friends {I: (laugh) ok}
and all that (I: laugh) all the English (I: laugh) and Singlish are all (I: laugh)
mixed together {I: all right} like rojak
I: oh like rojak right like that
S: yes you know rojak right
I: yes it’s fruits mi[xed
S: all] mixed up together
I: all right all right {S: yeah} ok oh all right
As examples presented later in this volume will show, when speakers from a
shared speech community use the local variety of English, this is characterised by
code mixing and code-switching. Thus, had the Singaporean and Indonesian been
in conversation alone, their conversation would have been marked by a great deal
of code-mixing. The presence of the non-Malay speaking Cambodian, however,
along with the desire of the group to ensure communication, obviates against the
use of code mixing here. This strongly suggests that, perhaps not surprisingly,
speakers engaged in lingua franca communication are more focused on achieving
cross-cultural communication than on presenting their own identities (Firth 1996).
I now turn to the second part of the chapter which entails a discussion of
issues connected with language policy.
English and Local Languages
The increased use and need for English has led to governments in the region
prioritize the teaching and learning of English in schools. How they have gone
about this has differed, but the overall aim – for their citizens to be able to use
English in international domains – is the same. The perceived need for the people
to learn English, however, lies alongside their need to learn other languages. At
the very least, a child will need to learn a local language (for identity), a national
lingua franca (for national unity), and English, the international lingua franca. It is
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also possible that the child will need to learn a regional lingua franca, such as
Putonghua (Mandarin).
The Philippines illustrates the linguistic challenges facing school children. It
is a multilingual society, with more than 100 local languages. After many years of
debate and linguistic tinkering, a local language ‘Filipino’ has been adopted as the
national language. Filipino is, in effect, a very close cousin of Tagalog, the
language spoken around Manila, which, in order to justify calling it Filipino, has
been doctored to include aspects of some of the other languages of the Philippines.
While most people realize that Filipino is really ‘Tagalog with extras’, they have
also come to accept its place as the national language. However, the Bilingual
Education Policy (BEP), which was introduced in 1974, has been controversial
(Galang 2000, Gonzalez 1996) as it requires that all Filipino children to learn
maths and science through English from primary one, and other subjects through
Filipino. As Benton has pointed out, the BEP is actually two quite different systems:
in Manila, children learn through the standardized form of their mother tongue and
English; elsewhere, in the non-Tagalog speaking areas, they learn through two
official languages, Filipino and English, but their mother tongue plays no role
(1996: 309). Despite suggestions that children be allowed to learn through their
mother tongues, especially during the early years of primary school, this policy has
not been universally adopted (Gonzalez 2007, 1996). The situation is even more
linguistically complex, as the recent rise of China as an international economic
power has increased the demand for the study of Putonghua. The linguistic
demands which this can place on children are considerable. A child whose mother
tongue was not Tagalog would need to learn Filipino (as the national language), a
regional lingua franca such as Cebuano (if this was not the child’s mother tongue),
English (as an international language) and possibly Putonghua (as an international
language) while retaining the mother tongue. The difficult questions associated
with this aim to develop multilingual citizens include when and how best to
introduce the languages, and how to accommodate them in a complementary way
within an already crowded curriculum (Maminto 2005).
A similar situation can be seen in Malaysia, but with two critical differences.
The first is that the national language is Malay, Behasa Meleyu. This is the
language of the original people and its position as the national language is nonnegotiable. The second, which is related to the first, is that for long standing
political reasons, the other major ethnic groups, the Chinese and the Indians, have
been allowed to establish schools that teach in Putonghua and Tamil. These are
distinguished from the Malay medium ‘National Schools, by being called
‘National-type’ schools. This means, of course, that schooling is, by and large,
racially segregated, a potentially divisive fact in a country that strives so
desperately to present a united and harmonious multilingual and multicultural face.
11
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The place of English in the school curriculum has also been subject of constant
debate over many decades (Rappa and Wee 2006). The serious racial riots of 1969
resulted in the new Economic Policy (NEP), which was aimed at bolstering the
economic status and role of the Malays. Other measures were also adopted,
including, in 1970, the ruling that all primary one classes where English had been
the medium of instruction had to switch to Malay medium (Lee 2007). This was
followed by an amendment in 1971 to the Sedition Act which made it an offence to
question the status of Malay as the sole official language (Lee 2007: 131). By 1983,
all schools were entirely Malay medium, as were the universities. Worried,
however, by the feeling that Malaysia was being left behind in the globalizing and
modernizing world, the government has allowed government universities to teach
science and technology subjects through English since the mid 1990s. In 2002, it
was decided to re-introduce English into primary schools as the medium of
instruction for maths and science from primary one. There was also further
relaxation with the creation of a number of private universities, who had the
freedom to choose their MoI. Most naturally chose English.
In Brunei, Maths and science subjects are also taught through English from
the early stages of primary school. In contrast, Singapore adopted English as the
medium of instruction for all subjects, the implications of which will be further
discussed below. These decisions to use English as a medium of instruction in
primary school have been extremely controversial. UNESCO has long argued that
the child should be taught though the mother tongue. Most research argues that a
person needs to have at least five years learning English as a second language
before they can successfully learn content subjects through English (Cummins
2008). With specific reference to the teaching and learning of mathematics, the
Filipino scholar, Bernardo has argued that, ‘there are clear and consistent
advantages in using the students’ first language (whatever they may be) at the stage
of learning where the student is acquiring the basic understanding of the various
mathematical concepts and procedures (2000 :313) and that, ‘there seems to be no
theoretical or empirical basis so far to obligate the use of English in teaching
mathematics’ (2000 :311) . There are also important practical issues such as the
availability of maths and science teachers who are competent to teach the subjects
through English. So why do education ministries continue to implement these EMI
policies? Because they see English as the language of science, technology and
modernization, while, at the same time believing that the earlier a second language
is learned, the better and that learning a subject through a second language aids
second language learning. Below I shall argue that these beliefs need to be
seriously questioned.
The Hong Kong government’s aim is to create citizens who are trilingual in
Cantonese, Putonghua, and English and biliterate in Chinese and English. The
12
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policy and language in use, that it is under copyright, and that the publisher should be contacted
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three languages here perform the different functions of identity, national unity and
internationalisation respectively. The government sensibly insists on Cantonese as
the medium of instruction in primary schools. However, stakeholder pressure – not
least from parents – has recently forced the government to relax its medium of
instruction policy in secondary schools. Before the handover to China 1997, the
colonial government had adopted a laissez- faire policy in this regard and allowed
secondary school principals to decide on their school’s medium of instruction. As
all but one of the seven universities of Hong Kong use English as a medium of
instruction (the Chinese University of Hong Kong is the exception, but even there
an increasing number of courses are taught through English, as it tries to increase
its international profile by attracting international students), and as people feel
Hong Kong’s position as a financial and services sector hinges on the ability of its
people to use English proficiently, it is not surprising that the great majority of
school principals chose English. Simply speaking, choosing Chinese as the
medium of instruction would have led parents to remove their children from the
school.
Most of these schools were, however, EMI in name only. As has been welldocumented, the teaching took place in a form of mixed code, with Cantonese
dominating (Luke and Richards 1982). In the late 1970s, I personally observed
history classes in an EMI school which consisted of the teacher translating selected
excerpts from the English textbook into Cantonese which the students laboriously
copied down.
The policy changed in 1998. Secondary schools which wanted to teach
through EMI had to fulfil strict criteria based on students’ academic ability,
teachers’ proficiency in English and resources. As a result only about one quarter
of secondary schools were successful in becoming EMI schools. This has led,
however to two major complaints: first that the division into EMI and CMI schools
has had a negative labeling effect, with the CMI schools being perceived as
academically weaker; and second that the division into CMI and EMI schools has
reduced the overall proficiency in English of Hong Kong’s students. These
complaints eventually forced the government to propose a ‘fine-tuning’ of the
medium of instruction policy to allow secondary schools the flexibility to choose
which classes to teach through English. Schools will still need to satisfy the
students-teachers-resources criteria. These new proposals are currently being
debated, but it is likely that the government will need to undertake further finetuning if the proposals are to be successful, as critics have pointed out likely
unwanted outcomes. For example, one inevitable result of the new policy will be
for secondary schools to try and increase the number of EMI classes they offer
(parents will demand this). This in turn may lead to the unfortunate situation
whereby maths, which has been so successfully taught through Chinese that Hong
13
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policy and language in use, that it is under copyright, and that the publisher should be contacted
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Kong students are routinely classified as being among the top students
internationally, will now be taught in English in order to satisfy the demand for
EMI classes.
Singapore has taken the prioritization of English to the extreme and made it
the medium of instruction in government schools. The ‘indigenous’ languages,
Mandarin (referred to in Singapore as Han Yu or the Chinese (Han) Language),
Malay and Tamil, are taught only as subjects. The aim is for Singaporeans to
emerge bilingual in English plus their ethnic language. I have placed ‘indigenous’
in scare quotes for two reasons: first, Singaporeans are all migrants rather than
indigenous; second, especially in the case with Chinese, but also to a lesser extent
with the languages of the sub-continent, Putonghua and Tamil have been promoted
at the expense of other Chinese and Indian languages. Thus for example, the
number of Hokien speakers – traditionally the largest Chinese ethnic group – is
dropping as Mandarin increases its spread. This policy of creating English knowing
bilinguals (Pakir 2004) has been successful in that it has created citizens with high
proficiency in English, constant government complaints about the use of ‘Singlish’
notwithstanding. It has been a failure in that the level of bilingualism in the ‘ethnic’
language has been disappointing. Chinese educationalists, for example, point to
ethnically Chinese Singaporean secondary students graduating with poor levels of
Chinese literacy (Tan 2007). This is a particular problem given China’s recent
emergence as an economic powerhouse. It also raises an interesting question of
how the success of language policies is judged. Internationally, Singapore is
considered to have a successful policy, as it is citizens have excellent English skills.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, constantly despairs about the declining level of
English among its citizens (a decline that is more perceived than real). Yet Hong
Kong produces citizens who are highly literate in Chinese, while Singapore does
not.
Beliefs or Myths
The need of the importance of English for national development and
modernization has made governments place a high priority on the teaching and
learning of English. In their desire for their peoples to master English, officials
from the various Ministries of Education have accepted three tenets deemed crucial
for mastering English. These three tenets are:
(i) ‘the best way to learn a second language is to use it as a medium of
instruction’;
(ii) ‘to learn a second language you must start as early as possible’;
(iii)‘the home language gets in the way of learning a second language’.
14
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Benson (2008:2) calls these three tenets ‘myths’, acceptance of which
routinely bedevils language learning and the maintenance of the mother tongue.
The acceptance of (i) and (ii) explains why governments are keen for
children to start learning English as early as possible and explains why several
governments have implemented policies to teach subjects – most commonly maths
and science subjects – through English from the early stages of primary school,
despite research findings indicating that people need at least five years of
instruction in a second language before they can successfully use it to learn
concepts in other subjects. The belief that the earlier one starts to learn a language
the better also needs to be questioned. All things being equal, this may well be true.
But the fact is that things very seldom are all equal in the majority of contexts. For
example, there is world of difference between a private resource-rich primary
school in one of the more privileged parts of metro Manila and a primary school in
a remote rural region of the Philippines, where there may not even be any desks, let
alone electricity (Martin 2005). It is not only resources that are unequal, of course.
It is a sombre fact that the English language proficiency of rural primary school
teachers is likely to be poor and significantly worse than that of their counterparts
in the major cities. While it may therefore be sensible and advisable to introduce
English as a subject in well–equipped urban primary schools with trained and
highly proficient teachers, it is counter-productive to do so in poorly equipped rural
primary schools where the teachers’ own proficiency levels in English are low.
English language learning will result in failure and disillusioned students and
teachers. Yet, politicians naturally find it hard to deny parents the opportunity to
send their children to schools where they can learn English, such is the universal
demand for it. Nevertheless, the policy of introducing English – even as a subject –
under such conditions also needs to be queried, as it often takes curriculum time
away from the learning of the children’s first language, in particular mastering
literacy in the language. Far from interfering with second language learning, the
mother tongue acts as a bridge to other languages (Benson 2008, Haddad 2008)
and children should be encouraged and allowed to develop literacy in their mother
tongue before embarking on the learning of other languages. This means that the
child’s mother tongue should be the medium of instruction where possible for at
least the early years of primary school. This is UNESCO’s official position. In this,
the Hong Kong government has got its policy right in insisting that Cantonese be
the medium of instruction in Hong Kong’s primary schools. This is all the more
important where the mother tongue is a language like Chinese with an ideographic
script and in which literacy takes some two years longer to learn than in alphabetic
languages such as English (Chen Ping 1999).
Finally, in a region where many different varieties of English have
developed and where English is commonly used as a lingua franca, the privileged
15
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position of the native speaker and the native speaker model of English needs to be
challenged. Acquiring native-like proficiency assumes less importance where other
varieties of English exist and where lingua franca communication is the norm. The
great majority of English users in the region are multilinguals who have learned
English as a second or foreign language. None need to sound like a British or
American native speaker of English. Their multilingual variety of English allows
them to communicate perfectly successfully in international contexts on the one
hand, while preserving their identities as, for example, multilingual Malaysians or
Filipinos.
Summary
By way of summary and conclusion, I suggest a number of potential areas of
research, based upon the two sections of this chapter:
Linguistic Research
(i)
further linguistic descriptions of local varieties of English and the use
of English as a lingua franca to identify any shared and distinctive
features and to investigate the likely motivations of these including:
language contact; the influence of ‘universals’ and/or variety type;
regularization; simplification.
(ii) studies into the communicative strategies of users of English as a
lingua franca
(iii) studies into the influence of pragmatic norms and cultural values upon
the local varieties of English, and the extent to which their realization
in local varieties of English may cause cross-cultural
misunderstanding
Language Policy Research
(i)
detailed accounts of how the language policies of the region are
influencing the learning of languages in schools to include:
a) detailed accounts of how much curriculum time is being provided for
local and regional languages (including Mandarin) and English in the
school curriculum and whether the teaching of English is displacing
the teaching of local languages.
b) detailed accounts on how language policies are actualised in school
settings
c) detailed accounts on the relative language proficiencies of students
(mother tongue, regional lingua francas, national language,
international languages)
16
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7007 words
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