Singlish? A good essay topic or not?
I decided I’d take Professor’s advice and throw my intended topic up on the blog. I had originally thought I wanted to do something on leveling and the possibility of a pidgin in the Danelaw, but that seems like it would be too difficult given that modern, cutting edge scholars of Old English still don’t really know that much about the subject. So, I decided I’d like to look at a modern pidgin, and since I’m already somewhat familiar with chinese grammar Singaporean English seemed like it might be a good option. That along with the fact that a few of my friends are familiar with it seems like good reason to choose this topic. I’m wondering if I ought to focus on a specific part of the pidgin (or actually it’s probably more of a creole now that I think about it) or if it would be ok to focus on it as a whole?
Also, I’m writing this so that no one has a chance to take my topic out from under me : P
Happy César Chávez weekend!
K_eng wrote:
I think it would be really interesting to see how English has been altered in a non-European country, especially in Asia where the grammar system is so different. I’m assuming that the language of major influence on English in Singapore is Chinese, since you mentioned something about that in your post? Considering the sheer differences between the two, I imagine you would find some pretty intriguing research. In that case, I would definitely say you should focus on the creole part of it, if you can find enough information since that seems specific yet a broad enough to be significant.
Posted 28 Mar 2008 at 1:33 pm ¶
sean wrote:
I agree with K_eng on this one. The first topic is very cool, but almost enough for a dissertation in Historical Linguistics (i.e. identifying texts written in the Danelaw between 900-1150 would be hard enough as the first step). The second is more manageable. As you note you could gather some of your own data to augment your reading on English in Singapore. Post-Colonial British English may have some continuities across South Asia, Africa, but of course each one will be unique. English has been in Singapore so long that it seems unlikely to be a pidgin at this point. In 5-7 pages, you may want to focus on a specific aspect: lexical features, grammar or syntax, etc. .
Posted 28 Mar 2008 at 2:58 pm ¶