Presentation handout for RhythmTools.pl writeup.

This experiment, and other experiments that target speech rhythm, produce a large number of files that need to be measured in a consistent manner. Although the script is not equipped to make automatic measurements of utterance and vowel boundaries, it is still able to automate a significant portion of the calculations in a consistent man- ner, thereby reducing the amount of human labor and human error. In particular, the script automatically calculates syllable duration based on vowel length, formants for each vowel, and the PVI for each utterance. The script works in conjunction with information from Praat and rewrites the information along with the output of each calculation into comma-separated value (CSV) files that can be read into other programs for further analysis.

Singapore is one of a number of different countries that have postcolonially adopted English as an official language and that continues to use English in a significant portion of its daily life. As such, English in Singapore, through constant use, has become its own linguistically distinct variety with a number of stabilized features that are different from Inner Circle varieties of English, such as Standard Southern British English (SSBE) or General American English (GA).

This paper will focus primarily on describing key features of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), otherwise known as “Singlish”; I will also briefly touch upon the sociohistorical background of Singlish as well as the current social atmosphere surrounding the variety.

I approached my field research, then, with an exploratory perspective: Are the opinions as seen in the press representative of the opinions of the average Singaporean? How aware is the average Singaporean of the SGEM? What is the average Singaporean’s views towards the roles of English and Singlish in Singapore, and do these correspond with the government’s views on language? Is the debate about English and Singlish as fiery as it seems from the academic and media perspectives?

My interviews showed that the typical Singaporean (a term which is in itself very vague, and which I will discuss in my demographics section) is not as aware of the SGEM as previous research has assumed, but that, regardless, their opinion of the importance of Standard English in Singapore aligns closely to that of the government’s. The typical Singaporean also sees Singlish as important to Singaporean identity, in that it is a phe- nomenon unique to Singapore and therefore important for differentiating Singaporeans from other nations. I will then discuss these responses and locate Singlish in more detail in the Singaporean identity, as well as discuss current and potentially future shifts within the ideology of the SGEM as well as the government’s approach to English and Singlish.

English in Singapore, once seen as a neutral, foreign language with no connection to Singaporean identity, has been gradually transformed over the last two hundred years to become a nativized variety with its own unique lexicon and unique grammar. The origin of certain phonological pro- cesses unique to Singapore English is in particular difficult to trace and break down because of the influence of the multitude of other languages spoken in the area, as well as the interaction between these substrates, particularly as it was shaped through the school system. Further, Singapore English can be roughly broken down into Standard Singapore English (SSE)—an acrolectal form of Singapore English that is fairly similar to Received Pronunciation, with the exception of some phonological processes—and Colloquial Singapore English (CSE)—a mesolectal/basilectal form of Singapore English that can be unintelligible to those who speak other varieties of English.

Prior analyses of the phonology of Colloquial Singapore English (which will be the focus of this paper as well) have focused on providing documentation of the variety, in particular through rule- based formalisms. However, rule-based phonology has increasingly been disfavored in our current formal system of generative phonology. Instead, how can we represent phonological processes of CSE in an optimality theory (OT) framework, as opposed to a rule-based, purely descriptive framework? In particular, I will draw from a number of previously-attested OT constraints to describe three phonological phenomena in CSE: (1) vowel monophthongization, (2) de-syllabifying syllabic consonants, and (3) deletion of word-final obstruents. In this paper, I will be proposing a number of constraints that will be ranked accordingly in order to produce the desired outputs from our given inputs.