Singapore Mandarin: Its Positioning, Internal Structure and Corpus Planning

This paper investigates the positioning of the Chinese language used in Singapore in the context of world languages, identifies the different registers of usage, and evaluates the trend of its corpus planning. Singapore Mandarin is similar to Putonghua (Standard Chinese) in every linguistic aspect, though it has some unique features in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. It should be seen as a variety of Modern Chinese, rather than nonstandard Chinese. Singapore Mandarin can be further divided into two subvarieties: Standard Singapore Mandarin and Folk Singapore Mandarin. With regard to its corpus planning, it is suggested that a specialized institution be established to codify the language to complement the government's