The Use of the Zero-Indefinite Article in Singapore English (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: Singapore is a country with a remarkable linguistic diversity. This is due to the heterogeneous population and numerous ethnic groups which inhabit it. Over the years, the different languages in Singapore, dominated by Chinese dialects like Mandarin, Hokkien or Cantonese, had to compete with another input variety as a result of permanent British settlement in 1819, namely British English. Nowadays, it is the language of government, business, law courts, science and also education. English is taught in school as the First Language, whereas the people's mother tongue stands behind.

Finally, a variety called "Singapore English" (SgE), which had a significant input from both, the prevalent Chinese variety Mandarin and British English, evolved and is constantly positioned between influences of these two. In contact varieties of English, like SgE is one, various features which distinguish the language emerged. Often, they are even pervasive or obligatory, although they do not occur in Standard English (StE). One of them is the zero-indefinite article where StE requires one. This seminar paper will investigate the usage of the zero-indefinite article in SgE. It is supposed to reveal how often speakers of SgE actually realize the indefinite article in a communication, either spoken or written, and if they do not make use of it, in which contexts the omission occurs.

This aspect is of particular interest for the whole topic of World Englishes, because speakers of StE often tend to consider features of a variety as a mistake. But they are not only learner-errors, there is an underlying pattern and a reason for the occurrence of such features and this term paper aspires to provide an impulse in reference to approach the structure of indefinite article omission in SgE.