Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Differentiation and Categorization: Postcolonial Transformation of Linguistic Lives of Chinese Singaporeans

在祖父母、父母和子女具有不同语言背景的家庭中，我们可以期望发现什么样的互动和语言行为？发言者会选择使用国家制定的官方母语而不是他们的母语吗？他们所选择的语言将如何影响他们的族群认同建构？本论文的研究项目将探讨跨代语言使用的华人新加坡人的语言经验，因为在后殖民新加坡的快速变化，彼此不同。除了研究语言转变对说话者如何解释他们社区中的语言和语言变体的影响外，它还试图研究语言与民族身份构建之间的关系。通过对语言行为的参与性观察、自然言语的录音和录像以及对三个多代新加坡华人家庭成员的访谈，本研究运用了象似性、分形递归性和擦除性的概念（Irvine& Gal 2000）为识别和分析国家语言所产生的语言意识形态的符号过程提供一个复杂而分层的框架施政纲要而布迪厄（1991）的概念，文化和符号资本在语言市场[语言市场？？]这项研究的更广泛的影响在于它质疑政府政策所假设的语言和种族认同之间的联系。该项目突出了发言者的经验，引起了人们对新加坡社会语言实践规范化进程的关注，从而使决策者能够更好地评估本质化[本质化？？这是英语单词吗？标准的社会语言学术语？为各民族分配语言。

In households where the grandparents, parents and children have different linguistic backgrounds, what kind of interactions and linguistic behaviors can we expect to find? Will speakers choose to use a state-instituted official mother tongue over their native language? How will the language they choose to speak affect their ethnic identity construction? This dissertation research project will examine intergenerational language use among Chinese Singaporeans whose linguistic experiences differ from one another because of rapid language shift in postcolonial Singapore. In addition to examining the effects of language shift on how speakers interpret the languages and varieties spoken in their community, it also seeks to investigate the relationship between language and ethnic identity construction. Through participant observation of linguistic behaviors, audio and video recording of naturally occurring speech, and interviews with members in three multigenerational Chinese Singaporean households, this study utilizes the concepts of iconicity, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gal 2000) to provide a complex and layered framework for identifying and analyzing the semiotic processes of language ideologies that have resulted from State language policies. Bourdieu's (1991) notions of cultural and symbolic capital in linguistic markets [the linguistic market??] add an important politico-economic dimension to the investigation.The broader impacts of this study are found in the way that it questions the link between language and ethnic identity that government policies assume. This project foregrounds the experiences of speakers, bringing attention to normalization processes of linguistic practices in Singaporean society, thereby permitting policymakers to better assess the consequences of the essentializing [essentializing?? Is this a word of English? Standard sociolinguistic jargon?] assignment of languages to ethnic groups.