Choreographies of Multilingualism: Writing and Language Ideology in Singapore

by Tong King Lee

Overview

Singapore boasts a complex mix of languages and is therefore a rich site for the study of multilingualism and multilingual society. In particular, writing is a key medium in the production of the nation's multilingual order - one that is often used to organize language relations for public consumption.

In Choreographies of Multilingualism, Tong King Lee examines the linguistic landscape of written language in Singapore - from street signage and advertisements, to institutional anthologies and text-based memorabilia, to language primers and social media-based poetry - to reveal the underpinning language ideologies and how those ideologies figure in political tensions. The book analyzes the competing official and grassroots narratives around multilingualism and takes a nuanced approach to discuss the marginalization, celebration, or appropriation of Singlish. Bringing together theoretical perspectives from sociolinguistics, multimodal semiotics, translation, and cultural studies, Lee demonstrates that multilingualism in Singapore is an emergent and evolving construct through which identities and ideologies are negotiated and articulated.

Broad-ranging and cross-disciplinary, this book offers a significant contribution to our understanding of language in Singapore, and more broadly to our understanding of multilingualism and the sociolinguistics of writing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197644652
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/15/2022
Series:	OXFORD STUDIES SOCIOLINGUISTICS SERIES
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	9.24(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Tong King Lee is Associate Professor of Translation at the University of Hong Kong. He was Luce-East Asia Fellow at the U.S. National Humanities Center (2020-2021) and holds several professional qualifications and appointments, including NAATI-Certified Translator (Australia), Chartered Linguist (UK), and Specialist at the Hong Kong Council for the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications. He is the author of Translation and Translanguaging (2019), Applied Translation Studies (2018), and Experimental Chinese Literature (2015), and the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and the City (2021).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Spectacles of Multilingualism: Reading the Semiotic Landscape
Chapter Three: Quadrilingualism as Method: Literary Anthologies and other Cultural Literacy Events
Chapter Four: Ludifying English: Singlish as Ideological Critique
Chapter Five: Multicultural Fantasies from Below: SingPoWriMo and Citizen Poetry
Chapter Six: Beyond the Divide: Towards a Postmultilingual Singapore

Index

Editorial Reviews

"An uplifting and inspirational look at the power and provocation of multilingualism. Through a deeply engaged investigation of written public language in Singapore, Lee shows how multilingualism can simultaneously function as a tool to undergird institutional initiatives, a resource for spirited resistance, and a lively performance, emergent across time and around the globe, to help us all simultaneously reaffirm and reinvent our world. Read this book and contemplate, in fascination, how we speak, write, and read multiple languages to both make that world and make our way through it." — Professor Betsy R. Rymes, University of Pennsylvania

"This book is a rich description of the multilingual ecology and economy in the Singapore context. It considers not just the duality of establishment and anti-establishment, but also shows a deep, contemporary appreciation for complexity, tension and creativity in how it traces the evolution of performances of multilingualism by multiple players involved in the complex interweaving of multilingual performance in the Singapore context... this book provides rich, innovative and current insights into the dynamic interplays of multilingualism as linguistic performance in the Singapore context." — Marissa K. L. E, Journal of Pragmatics

"This book investigates the institutional and grassroots writing in multilingual Singapore to reveal the complex ways in which multilingualism is imagined and performed...The author concludes the book by proposing a postmultilingual future for multilingualism in Singapore, which leaves readers with an alternative perspective to ponder." — Zi Wang, Department of Applied Linguistics & Student Opportunity, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

TK Lee's new book breaks new grounds in the sociolinguistic study of writing, urban multilingualism, translation and semiotic landscapes." — Jaspal Naveel Singh, Sociolinguistics Studies

From the Publisher