Title: Reconstructing Linguistic Ecology: Formal and Informal Sources
Date: 2:00 pm, November 22th, 2019
Location: Room 421, Building Wuwu, Sipailou Campus
Introduction: The study of contact language formation is full of obstacles, one of which is the paucity of data, especially language data, in early histories of such languages. Researchers look to historical evidence to reconstruct the language ecologies in which they emerge. Many students of Singapore English argue that Singapore English is not a typical pidgin or creole because it originated in the English-medium school system. In this paper, I use official materials and personal histories of individuals to sketch the social and political history of Singapore and show that, while the English-medium schools played a role, the local English vernacular has a much more complex origin. Linguistic ecology is a dynamic system, in which Singapore English, or any contact language, emerges through the interaction between formal language-related policies and informal individual and social responses to changes in the linguistic ecology.
Bao Zhiming is a Provost's Chair Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore. He is engaged in two main areas of research: formal linguistics and contact linguistics. Currently, his research focus in the linguistics of aging, especially the linguistic markers of dementia.
