Dr Jia Jia and Singlish in Writing

Photos taken from this website: http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/features/people/1038164/They_have_1_5_million_YouTube_hits.html

So, I hear that Dr Jia Jia will be featured in the National Day rally. Hey, that's the sign that you have really arrived and made it as a national icon. Like Phua Chu Kang, Barbarella, Ah Meng and Taufik. Wow! 

I like that little guy. He's super cute and he says some outrageous things although I know his dad tells him what to say. He's our own Sophia Grace except that he does not sing...yet. And he's got his own big brother side kick too! And if you don’t know who I am talking about, Google Dr Jia Jia.

But much as I like Dr Jia Jia, I am not so sure that I am a fan of what he's doing. I find some of his jiajiaisms like “delicious” instead of dyslexia, clever and amusing. And all the Hokkien and Malay phrases are endearing- si bei pai seh, jin pai tung, jia lut, Tak boleh tahan. Trust me; at the right moment, they are just the thing to say. But I do get upset when Dr Jia Jia mangles his English grammar to make his Singlish sound cute. It’s not cute when Big Brother says “The impacts of iPhones and iPads on kids” “I sit bus to school” or “You cannot like that one”.  And it’s not cute when their tenses and sentence structures don’t sound anything like English, especially when we see them in the subtitles.

Ironically, I read that the original intention of the Dr Jia Jia’s videos was to discourage the use of Singlish (The New Paper, Monday April 2, 2012). However, I don’t see any evidence of this at all in the videos I have seen.  

I can hear all of you crying out, “Wet blanket”, “Purist!” and the like, but wait. I admit the English teacher in me can be critical sometimes, but you must also agree with me that you don’t want your children to speak and write Singlish all the time. As adults, who have mastered the language, we are at liberty to play with it and to use all the Singlish we want, because we know when to switch back to proper English. Unfortunately, for young children, especially those who do not get enough help with learning English, this may end up to be the only kind of English they will learn. And say what you like, this will eventually be a hindrance to their education and careers.  People who support Singlish, saying that it promotes our national identity, are people who either have already a good command of English and use Singlish as their fun language or are those whose English is less than stellar and don’t want to be criticised for it.

I will admit that I like Singlish phrases and use them often. My favourite words are “smoke” and “powderful” which I use every now and then, even in class.  But if I am teaching my young learners, I consider it my responsibility to teach them the correct and the standard version of the language, and not short change them with a non-standard version.  This is especially so for kids who come from non-English speaking homes. The school, the classroom and the teachers are their only sources of good English; kids gets enough Singlish from their home and play environments.  So while Dr Jia Jia looks and sounds super adorable with his Singlish utterances now, try to imagine him a young adult speaking like that still. Not so cute, right?

So is there no place for Singlish in school at all? Of course not. In essay writing, I often encourage children to add some Singlish expressions or structures into the dialogues they write in their stories. This is especially so when the characters they are writing about are Singaporean aunties and uncles or Singaporean baddies. The use of Singlish makes the characters real and gives them the distinct Singaporean identity that we want in our stories. The uncle in the wet market in not going to say,
“And would Madam like some fresh kembong today?” 
He’s more likely to say, “Aunty, today got fresh kembong. Want or not?”
And Aunty is likely to say,
“Is it? Expensive or not?” and not
“Really? Is it going to cost me an arm and a leg, my good man?”
Similarly, the bad guy who does not like the way you are looking him will probably say,
“Look what? Never see before ah?” instead of
“Who do you think you are looking at? Haven’t you seen me before?”

Dialogue, in its very nature, is meant to be casual and conversational and capturing the right voice in writing dialogues remains a challenge for all writers. So it can be quite painful to read the dialogues of local characters that are written in full sentences and in super correct English. They sound extremely stilted and completely unSingaporean.

Make no mistake. I don’t advocate using Singlish in the actual narrative, only in dialogues but I find that teachers often penalise students for doing so.  I don’t think this is right. There is a place for Singlish - in appropriate dialogues - and this should be allowed. I am often amused by how teachers pounce on examples of written Singlish but are happy to allow their students to use all manner of “broken” English in their everyday conversations.  While we don’t always write the way we speak, you cannot deny that our speaking habits often leak into our writing.

What should we do then? Don’t ban Singlish in the classroom. It won’t work. But point out its place in writing and in speaking. The occasional Singlish is fine and even desirable when we seek to be a part of the gang, but it’s important for students to know that for each Singlish phrase, there is an English equivalent for it. And when there isn’t, there is still a grammatical way to express that thought.

I don’t think we should over-correct children’s speech; being the English police is not always fun, but when certain Singlish phrases get overused or if the proper equivalents should be learnt, do highlight them for teaching and discussion.

Often, speaking carelessly is a bad habit that can be corrected; it is no reflection of one’s IQ. Teachers can do so much to help their students develop the desirable speaking habits. 

As for Dr Jia Jia and Big Brother, I trust they are learning the right habits from their respective schools.