Doctoral Dissertation Research: The semiotics and social practices of constructing a "proper" Singaporean identity

这项拟议的论文研究调查了“适当的”语言身份是如何在新加坡实施的，这一讨论位于关于全球公民身份和当地存在方式的更广泛的社会政治话语中。这项研究将“适当”身份的实践视为符号学一揽子或曲目的组成部分--一套流动的符号资源，人们必须对这些资源进行平衡，才能在新加坡制定出适当水平的“全球性”和“地方性”。语言实践通过新加坡英语变异(SGE)和标准新加坡英语(SSE)进行研究。新加坡英语是一种复杂的语言体系，包括新加坡英语，最本地化和口语化的英语，以及标准新加坡英语(SSE)，通常表示受过高等教育，具有非本地化特征。20名新加坡人将被招募进行人种学参与者观察，并在从正式采访到非正式社交聚会的各种对话环境中进行记录。随意设置会导致新加坡式英语的使用，而新加坡式英语最根本的不同于上级英语，因为它加入了汉语语篇助词和句法。相比之下，SSE用于正式场合。在不同的会话语境中，SGE的不同使用不仅揭示了说话人内部的差异，也揭示了说话人对语言及其应该如何使用的潜在信念。这个研究项目的社会语音学方面的重点是语音起始时间(Vot)的变化，这是一种用来对停顿辅音进行分类的声学指标，比如/p/和/b/之间的差异。50名新加坡人将参加一系列语音感知任务，测试如何明确感知SGE停顿。本研究采用定性和定量相结合的研究方法，通过定性和定量相结合的方法，识别社会性别认同的产生和感知的变异模式，关注变量和实践与全球流动性或局部根性相关的过程。这项研究还将有助于现有的SGE文献提供对VOT的社会语音学解释。最后，探讨SGE的微观和宏观变异有助于揭示全球化、后殖民社会语言学和新英语中更广泛的语言问题。

The proposed dissertation research investigates how "proper" language identities are enacted in Singapore, a discussion situated within broader sociopolitical discourse of global citizenship and local ways of being. This study treats the practices of a "proper" identity as constitutive of a semiotic package or repertoire - a fluid set of semiotic resources which people must balance to enact appropriate levels of "globalness" and "localness" in Singapore. Linguistic practices are investigated through variation in Singapore English (SgE), a complex linguistic repertoire encompassing Singlish, the most local and colloquial English, and Standard Singapore English (SSE), which typically indicates higher education and being extra-local. Twenty Singaporeans will be recruited for ethnographic participant observation and recorded in various conversational contexts ranging from formal interviews to casual social gatherings. Casual settings will elicit the use of Singlish, which most basically differs from SSE via the incorporation of Chinese discourse particles and syntax. Contrastively, SSE is used in formal settings. The varied use of SgE across conversational contexts reveals not only intra-speaker variation but also a speaker's underlying beliefs about language and how it should be used. The sociophonetic aspect of this research project focuses on variation in voice onset time (VOT), an acoustic measure used to categorize stop consonants, like the difference between /p/ and /b/. Fifty Singaporeans will participate in a series of speech perception tasks testing how SgE stops are categorically perceived. These tasks will provide a sociophonetic profile of VOT in SgE as well as investigating whether VOT contributes to the perception of a speaker's social identity as an acoustic cue.By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this work identifies patterns of variation in the production and perception of SgE, paying attention to processes through which variables and practices come to be associated with global mobility or local rootedness. This study will also contribute to existing SgE documentation in providing a sociophonetic account of VOT. Finally, exploring micro- and macro-variation in SgE sheds light on broader issues of language in globalization, post-colonial sociolinguistics, and New Englishes.