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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 681

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Language Use Patterns in Home Domains in Singapore

Authors: CURDT-CHRISTIANSEN, Xiaolan; SUN, Baoqi
Submitted by: SUN, Baoqi (National Institute of Education, Singapore, Singapore)

Singapore, a multilingual multicultural island country with 76% of its population being Chinese, has adopted compulsory bilingual education since the 1970s.  For ethnic Chinese children, English is essential for success in education and career development, while Chinese is required as a school subject and deemed to preserve cultural traits and Asian values.  However, how these two languages are used at home is far from clear due to the diversified language environment.  Based on the language profile survey collected among 565 Singapore English-Chinese bilingual children (aged 8 to 9) who receive concurrent formal instruction in both languages within a bilingual context, this paper explores trends and socioeconomic differentials in language usage among their family members.  The results suggest that family language use patterns are closely related to social-political and economical factors.  Multilingualism seemed to shift towards bilingualism: English and Mandarin are the two dominant languages used among family members, while the loss of other Chinese varieties (dialects) is prominent as these languages are only spoken by elder family members.  Moreover, educated parents and well-off families were more likely to balance the use of English and Mandarin.  Finally, a number of social implications are discussed.