Reflections on Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign

NG Chin Leong Patrick

Language planning is timely and society-specific activity; any inquiry into the practices of language planning requires an awareness of the peculiar and historical context in which language-planning measures emerged and were implemented. The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain a language planning initiative undertaken by the Singapore government, the Speak Mandarin Campaign. An overview of the Speak Mandarin Campaign will first be provided, followed by a discussion of the rationale for the implementation of the campaign and its impact within the Chinese society in Singapore. There will also be a discussion on the critiques of the campaign by different scholars. In addition, the importance of the Speak Mandarin Campaign in the context of nation building of Singapore will also be discussed. In conclusion, the paper will discuss the challenges for the Speak Mandarin Campaign in its efforts to persuade dialect speakers to switch to speaking Mandarin.

Reflections on Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign

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