Letter of the week: Those who champion Singlish are harming spoken English standards here
I refer to the article,
- by autobot
- Jan. 13, 2023
- Source article
Publisher object (23)
I refer to the article, (Jan 8), and Mr Jonathan Wong’s letter, (Jan 10). Over the years, the champions of Singlish as a uniquely Singaporean cultural asset have done us a great disservice. They have helped to blur the line between jarringly bad spoken English and the otherwise harmless use of common Singlish words and expressions. The Singaporeans who can express themselves fluently and clearly during everyday conversations are now seemingly a minority. An alarmingly large number of working Singaporeans appear to struggle with sentence formation, grammar and pronunciation in this global business language. The Singlish that Singaporeans take pride in is no substitute for proper English, and may well turn into a glass ceiling that our young working adults hit during their careers, as they compete for managerial and senior positions in multinational corporations with English-speaking workers from around the world.