day 24

Warning: linguisticy stuff ahead.

Dia duit (Hello).

Today was an interesting day, and I was having many nerdy thoughts about my encounters.

I had my first Irish class. It was an informal, student-led thing. I don't think there's going to be a follow-up lesson.

Anyway, there I met a localised Nigerian girl who had to double-check that I was Singaporean because I didn't sound the part. A third generation Japanese-Hawaiian guy then asked me where I learnt a "regular" accent. He meant American.

Afterward I went for another gathering to try to make more friends. I met this English guy who grew up in France. During the event he spoke British, which I thought that was rather deliberate because a local student kept teasing him for not sounding "French".

Turns out I was right. On our way out of ucd, I spoke with him a bit more and his English twang gently wore off into a natural-sounding French accent.

So what I learnt today was that people expect your accent should correspond to your geographic origin, hence represent your heritage/ upbringing. That I did not sound "Asian" to Nigerian girl and Hawaiian boy somehow made me a less authentic Singaporean. Similarly for English-French guy.

Underlying this expectation is the idea that one person should speak with only one (stable) accent. The reality is accents are a cumulative linguistic resource, so people sufficiently exposed to multiple/ hybrid cultures may develop more than one accent. Which accent to use, is then a choice.

So I realised I had chosen to speak in an Americanish accent, because I believed it would be more easily understood, because the American accent approximates European ones more than Singaporean.

I think other Singaporean subconsciously do this too. Particularly my own age group. I've noticed we not only attempt to sound more American when interacting with (European) foreigners, but also in some public-speaking contexts, such as at presentations.

At the heart of that lies a belief that an American(ised) accent is globally intelligible, approachable and friendly. This means we think that the American accent is prestigious because it is mobile and universal, not so much that we admire or want to stake claims to the American culture per se. (That is evident from comparing the American and British accents. British prestige seems eclectic.)

This association probably surfaces though the prevalence of American pop and media culture in Singapore, making their sound system less marked to our ears.

Hence in using an American accent, we attempt to identify ourselves as conscientious global citizens who are able to adapt our manner of speech to the given social context.

The main indicator for this system of code-switching is the retention of a Singaporean accent. Singaporeans who wish to adopt a foreign identity tend to calcify their angmoh accents and abandon the one they were brought up speaking.

This means Singaporeans reserve their local accent for local use. It allows them to use the accent (not necessarily Singlish) to build solidarity with fellow countrymen.

The accentual division of labour thus reflects how we also divide up the world strongly through the lenses of the "local" verses the "global". We are very conscious that the two are different 'places' that may require us to use different communicative strategies.

Or at least that's what I think lah.