EL1102 Studying English in Context
Essays
This page contains some comments on the essays that students have written for this module in earlier semesters. If you wish to look at the essay questions for Sem 1, 00/01, please click the following: ESSAY QUESTIONS SEM. 1 00/01.
Question
‘Rich kids [in Singapore] are not snobbish, and Singlish is spoken for fun ... A public school accent [= RP, or posh British acccent] is okay, but an MTV accent is not so cool’ (Wong Sing Yeong, 8 Days).
‘I should hope that when I am speaking abroad, my countrymen will have no trouble recognising that I’m from Singapore’ (Tommy Koh).
Discuss the above quotations. You will need to say what you mean by accents and why they might be markers of group or national identity. Provide copious examples in your answer.
Comments
Among my (Peter Tan’s) groups, just about 10%
chose to do this essay. It’s extremely difficult to generalise about the
answers based on these small numbers, but I think a couple of observations
might be appropriate.
1. The question is left a little open. If you’re answering a question, it’s always worthwhile to analyse the question itself and ask yourself what you’re supposed to say. The question itself is in a fairly popular format - beginning with a couple of quotations, and inviting comments based on those. The rubric however particularises the discussion on
2. Essay questions always ask for some view(s) from you. A lot of people were very industrious in consulting a variety of texts and readings, and they should be commended for the initiative taken. However, there is a danger of the answer ending up like a ‘collage’ of quotations from several people on accents.
3. The question makes it clear that the focus should be on accents. It’s easy to talk about ‘Singlish’ or ‘American English’, etc. in general. You need to make a distinction between dialects/varieties in general (on the one hand) and accents (on the other).
4. The question invites engagement with the quotations. In other words, the quotations are there not only for ‘decorative’ purposes. Say what you think Wong and Koh mean, and state if you agree with them. This also means that there must be some engagement with Singaporean English accents.
5. The key elements (accents, group identity, national identity) also need to be connected in some meaningful way. Do you think there is a relationship between them? What is the difference between group identity and national identity? How large a part does accent play in this?
‘In countries where two or more languages co-exist, confusion often arises’ (Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue).
Discuss how English speakers in the past coped with either Scandinavian (8th century onwards) or French (11th century onwards).
Comments
Among my groups, just over 10 per cent chose to answer these questions. Here are some general comments.
1. Analyse the question again. It takes the familiar form of a quotation followed by an instruction.
2. The instructions narrow the discussion to the way English speakers coped with Scandinavian OR French. Note that you are not meant to deal with both.
3. You will need to give a general account of what happened, but if that is all that you do, you wouldn’t have engaged with the issues raised by the question. For example, a good answer will need to address the problem of CONFUSION mentioned in the quotation. (Is it, or is it not a problem?) The instructions also ask you to focus on how English speakers COPED. In other words, you are asked imaginatively to take the point of view of English speakers. Try to put yourself in their position. What were the problems. You need to take hold of the historical ‘facts’ that you can get from a variety of sources, and imaginatively or empathetically extend the discussion.
4. Please note that if you discuss an event in the past, you need to use the past tense.
With reference to the socio-historical conditions under which standard English emerged, discuss the view that this is a class dialect, one major social function of which is to secure the position of the class who use it.
I only got a small number of essays answering this question, below 10%, understandable perhaps because of the group task on during the week of the deadline. By and large answers did not stray too far from the rubric!
1. Analyse the question, and see what is required of you. The essay prompt does not include a quotation as in many of the other essay prompts, but the activity that students are supposed to engage in is to ‘discuss’ a view. You need to see this view as being a controversial one, and therefore among other things, you will need to say whether you agree with the view or not (‘standard English’ = ‘class dialect’ that favours a particular class). Either way (whether you agree with it or not), you will need to provide supporting material for that view. In other words, what is required is an ARGUMENTATIVE essay, where you argue for a particular view with supporting evidence.
2. It is assumed that you will focus mainly on the happenings in England around the 16th to 18th centuries. Discussions about the position of English in relation to French, Latin, Norse, etc. are not relevant. More adventurous answers might also touch on the movement towards a Wessex standard in Old English, and perhaps the choice of a standard American English in the face of the variation resulting from the Englishes brought across the Atlantic by the Irish, Scots and English in its various dialects, and the Englishes arising from the emigration of continental Europeans and Jews, and from the slave trade.
3. It will be helpful to provide some sort of definition of a standard language, and perhaps very quickly the process of standardisation in general. You will need to identify the dialect that got promoted to the status of a standard as the East Midland dialect, or the variety of English spoken by the merchant class in London.
4. Again, when describing historical events, use the past tense.
5. Essays structured largely as narratives (this happened, then this happened) will suffer.
‘On both linguistic and social grounds, New Varieties of English (eg Singaporean English) are just like other varieties of the language, neither worse nor better.’ Discuss.
This was a favoured question, with a high percentage of responses.
1. Analyse the question before answering it. This is an ARGUMENTATIVE question, requiring you to take up a position on the issue. Are NVEs better or worse? Are they neither better nor worse?
2. Notice that ‘worse’ and ‘better’ call for some sort of comparison. NVEs are to be contrasted to OVEs (Old[er] Varieties of English: British English, American English, Australian English, etc.). You should show you know what these terms mean. If you write New Varieties, please note the plural noun. You need the plural verb form too!
3. Most of you chose Singaporean English as your example of an NVE. You might need to distinguish between Standard Singapore(an) English (SSE) and Colloquial Singapore(an) English (CSE). I am very doubtful about some comments made about how pupils are taught ‘British English’ in Singaporean schools today. I also find it not acceptable to contrast Singapore(an) English and Standard English.
4. Students who gave original examples were rewarded. I enjoyed the account about ketok by someone. (‘He was ketoked by the shopkeeper’!) The question demands the discussion of concrete examples.
Critically examine the role of English in the world, looking at both the benefits it brings ex-colonial nations and the problems it might cause for them.
This question was a great favourite with students, and I received the most number of essays in response to this question. This might have been because it was the last question with the latest deadline, and students often leave things till right at the end.
1. To a certain extent, it is difficult to get far wrong with this question. Part of the problem, I think, is that it looks so innocuous, that some students approach it like a GP essay question, and are happy just discussing what they think about English in the world. While a lot of what is discussed is common-sensical, you will be assumed to have familiarised yourself with the lecture material and the main readings recommended at least. This means that I would assume essays to refer to (a) the pragmatic function, (b) the mathetic function, (c) homogenisation, and (d) marginalisation.
2. On the other hand, I found many answers that adequately summarised the comments made in the lectures and the coursebook. Examiners also value highly your own opinion and your own voice. Obviously also, if you have consulted other readings, and these have been integrated well into your essay, you would have been rewarded too. (For example, you could discuss English in the Internet.)
3. A number of essays provided rather long historical accounts. Unless you can show that this is relevant to the subject at hand, it would be best to keep this section as short as possible.
4. Examples are always valued as ways of concretising what you say. In a few essays, though, many examples of the various positions of English in India, Nigeria, Brunei, etc. were referred to, but I did not get a sense of what was being communicated. This is highly problematic. When you provide examples, you must make sure that your reader will know what the example is meant to show. Otherwise, the essay will come across as a series of anecdotal comments which are not well integrated.
5. Watch out if you use terms like ‘mother tongue’. These are defined differently by different people, and the way the Ministry of Education uses it in Singapore is unusual. For many, ‘mother tongue’ = first language spoken by a child. For a significant percentage of Singaporeans therefore, English is a mother tongue (among other languages) or even the mother tongue. If ‘mother tongue’ refers to ancestral language, then for most Chinese Singaporeans, this would be a Southern Chinese language (Cantonese, Teochew, etc.) rather than Mandarin.
6. After presenting the benefits and the problems, try to resolve the issue in some meaningful way. You might, for example, recommend a course of action. You might suggest that one outweighs the other. You might suggest that one of them is non-serious.
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© 1998, Peter Tan
Last updated: 27/10/98