The multilingual marketplace, proficiencies and employability in neoliberal Singapore - A sociolinguistic survey of NUS students

English is now the most commonly spoken language in Singapore homes. This shift is due to a combination of factors including Singapore’s language planning strategies and the global rise of English; however, this shift has... [ view full abstract ]

English is now the most commonly spoken language in Singapore homes. This shift is due to a combination of factors including Singapore’s language planning strategies and the global rise of English; however, this shift has been paralleled by a decrease in use of and proficiency in mother tongue languages. In this paper, I explore the linguistic ecology of Singaporean National University of Singapore (NUS) students and their beliefs about the economic value of their language proficiencies. A sociolinguistic survey and interviews were conducted, with 98 responses and 10 participants respectively. My results find a trend of pervasive use of English in all domains among students, 43% of whom only speak English at home and a total of 97% who use English as one of the languages they use at home. NUS students are also overwhelmingly likely to see English as the language relevant to their job search and their careers, and thus place more emphasis on it compared to mother tongue or foreign languages. These languages largely remain symbolic in value as evidenced by the language attitudes section of the survey, in which students recorded higher scores for mother tongue languages in personal rather than job-related qualities. Ethnicity was found to be a significant predictor in that Chinese students are more likely to view their English proficiency more favourably compared to Malay and Indian students, and their mother tongue proficiency less favourably compared to Malay and Indian students. The interviews supported the survey results in that students indicated that English is most relevant to their careers, and that among elite circles, poorer mother tongue proficiency is a norm that becomes validated through widespread belief that the language is not particularly relevant and that the proficiency among their friends is similarly low. The study suggests that English will continue to grow in use in all domains, and that it will continue to be the language of economic value. At the same time, mother tongue languages may only retain their symbolic value in the future as they become less relevant to the linguistic needs of university students.