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The discursive construction of new citizen identities in Singapore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

Raymund Vitorio Open the ORCID record for Raymund Vitorio [Opens in a new window]
Raymund Vitorio*
Affiliation:
De La Salle University, Philippines
*
Address for correspondence: Raymund Vitorio Department of English and Applied Linguistics Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education De La Salle University 1501 Br. Andrew Gonzalez Hall 2401 Taft Avenue Manila, Philippines [email protected]
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Abstract

This article investigates how new citizens reconfigure dominant indexes of citizenship to claim status as legitimate new citizens of Singapore. New citizens are expected to resolve a tension that underpins public discourses in Singapore society: while the statal narrative of multiculturalism countenances new citizens to have perceivable markers of difference, everyday discourses expect new citizens to assimilate into the ‘Singapore core’—a term used in Singapore that denotes a homogeneous understanding of what it means to be Singaporean. By adopting a metapragmatic approach, this article identifies three common indexes of citizenship that new citizens negotiate to resolve this contradiction: language, loyalty, and legacy. By reconfiguring common markers of citizenship in Singapore, new citizens are able to discursively construct a type of citizenship that they can legitimately claim and contribute to. This expands common understandings of the notion of citizenship in Singapore society. (Citizenship, language ideologies, multiculturalism, metapragmatics, Singapore)*

Type
Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , June 2023 , pp. 387 - 408
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

I am deeply indebted to my research participants, without whom this study would not have been possible. I would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. I am indebted to Joseph Sung-Yul Park and Ben Rampton for their encouragement, close reading, and insightful comments during the conduct of this study. Finally, I thank Lionel Wee, Melanie Cooke, Mie Hiramoto, Rebecca Starr, Aileen Salonga, Johannes Højgaard Nielsen, and Gene Flores for their invaluable contribution throughout the research.

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