In Singaporean English, the get- and have-causatives - referred to in the paper as causative-resultative expressions - are often being substituted in informal use by a single-clause construction. An example of this substitution would be: You cut your hair!, rather than the causative-resultative: You got your hair cut!
The research aims were:
- To provide a full and comprehensive overview of the use of causative expressions in Singaporean and Malaysian English;
- To determine the frequency of use;
- To find out how widely they are used;
- To find out whether or not another construction was being used in their place.
Both Singaporean and Malaysian English show clear variations from their grammatical counterparts - speakers of L1 English. Malaysian English closely parallels Singaporean English, but the research predicted that its grammatical structures were likely to be less grammaticalised.
In Singapore, there is now a generation of young adults for whom English is a first language, and English has a stronger role in society in general. In Malaysia, on the other hand, there are fewer true native speakers; most Malaysians learn English at school, as a second language (L2), and it is used less in daily life.
The comparison was intended to provide an intergenerational perspective: Singaporean and Malaysian English both shared many grammatical features at one time, but it was predicted that these would be changing at a faster rate in Singaporean English.
Surveys were developed, which asked participants - undergraduates at the universities of Penang and Kuala Lumpur - about day-to-day activities in order to obtain naturalistic data. The surveys were also used with a British control group of first-year undergraduates at the University of Manchester.
The project examined the frequency of use of the have and got causative-resultatives; their use, the distribution of their use, and the use of the single-clause construction.
The research data was also examined to see how far the Singaporean and Malaysian English dialects had been influenced by other local, national, and indigenous languages and dialects.
Key findings
- The results show that the overwhelming majority of participants in Singapore and Malaysia used the single-clause structure in preference to the causative-resultative.
- The majority of the British control group used the causative-resultative structure.
- While the differences in the causativity are widespread in both Singaporean and Malaysian English, the patterns of use were different in each case.
- Linguists and educationalists in both countries will be able to refer to the results of this and other studies in the preparation of future educational materials.
- The explanations will contribute to an awareness of the grammatical variations and language change in the regional dialects of spoken English across Asia, and an understanding of local usages and variations can only contribute to improved communications within the region.
About the study
The research was carried out by Doctor Debra P Ziegeler, of the School of English and Linguistics at the University of Manchester. In the first part of the project, a comprehensive survey of the grammatical distribution of the causative verbal forms under investigation was carried out using corpus material from the International Corpus of English, Singapore and Great Britain, and the British National Corpus. The second part of the research involved field investigations, which involved distributing surveys to educated speakers of Singaporean and Malaysian English.
Key words
Linguistics
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