Part I Ch 1 Language & Politics: Singapore

 

PART I: SETTING THE FRAMEWORK

Ch 1

Context and rationale

 

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly; everything that can be said can be said clearly” – L. Wittgenstein

 

     Back in the eighties, I was teaching Reader Expectation Methodology (REM) to Duke University’s undergraduates. Our undergrads were part of the best of the High School graduating class throughout the country – they found it hard to accept that they had to deal with a required writing course. It fell to us to show them that REM made a difference. And we were able to. Throughout that effort, I observed the limits of good college level writing in the US and the difference that REM could make. That difference stayed with me, while the methodology worked its way through the Country’s Universities and colleges.

    Years later, as I sought to address the perception amongst Singaporeans that Singapore had a ‘world class education system’ I began to work on this text. This effort started as sheer curiosity on my part. I was back home in Singapore at the time, having been away for many years. That last phrase is a story in itself, and the reader can find that adventure elsewhere, which tells you how I ended up in the USA. But the claim led me into examining business, academic, domestic and professional writing from local sources, looking for confirmation of such great news! What I found was disappointing. How had such a conclusion been reached?

   Well, somewhere around 2007, the Singapore government’s Ministry of Education had started to use PISA - the Program for International Student Assessment, created by the Organization for Economic Development. (OECD).¹ Ch 11 explains PISA’s mission and claims in sufficient detail. OECD had advertised PISA as a testing method to measure the potential economic strength of fifteen-year-olds. The conclusions were based on student performance in the areas of math and science, while areas like writing were ignored. But that and other omissions did not prevent developing countries from accepting OECD’s claims. 

   Singapore’s students did well in PISA’s math and science assessments. Result? An OECD ‘high five’ that said, ‘You’re the best!’ But math and science skills don’t produce sharp thinking and effective communication.  They use given formulas, an approach that does not teach nor train the mind to analyze arguments and understand perspectives. Nor do they help build the strength of character that enables personal integrity. 

   I found that much of our domestic, business, academic and professional writing was neither clear nor concise. And this had implications. Leadership presented issues, they sounded good, but they didn’t seem to resolve the real problems. Why? So I pursued these questions, and gathered writing examples over a wide range, from the ordinary to the professional. And in most if not all, the arguments presented were weak.

Here’s one example, from Mr. Ong Ye Kung, the current Health Minister:

 

“A government that has its own set of checks and balances is one that is accountable and functions well, which is why the Singapore government’s ability to ‘ownself check ownself’ is a virtue.”²

 

Accountable, the man says. Sure, but to whom? One’s own self? This is acceptable? Incredible. Given Singapore’s political climate of authoritarian paternalism, there is always an inherent importance attributed to statements from anyone in authority. Here, accountability to the electorate is comfortably rendered invalid and nonexistent. My research kept uncovering comments like this, and each one raised disturbing questions. Interesting examples, accompanied by inaccurate and even misleading interpretive descriptions. And the political impact of it all is significant.   

   Place this discovery against Singapore’s educational history. Start with the decision to remove the study of English Literature from school curriculum. True, the sources used may not have had much historical relevance, as with studying Shakespeare in a Southeast Asian setting. But there are always moral lessons to be learned and political insight to be gained. Even more, South-East Asia is rich in literature, and covers several interwoven cultures, as with Singapore, Malaya, Srivijaya, and even colonial Portuguese and Dutch influence. Except that ASEAN countries have never come to terms with using such resources. Then again, it has also been recognized that the effective use of language deteriorates as a result of authoritarian control, implying that the decay of cognitive ability goes hand in hand with the decay of political conditions and political freedom.³ Why? Because inhibited political maturity does not support intellectual participation and moral contribution. Makes sense. If you are not allowed to learn to assess events from a critical perspective and speak your mind and see how it can create change, then you end up unable to see anything wrong, and you accept whatever you’re told. Your mind moves along predetermined lines, like a horse with blinkers on. Your responses are predictable, as you rationalize your denial of everything happening. You do not question events nor seek explanations. You live in denial, and do not resist authoritarianism in any way, shape, or form, other than grumbling a great deal about it! Since it is the authority, it must be right. Scary? Yup. At least one local Editor has struggled with this.⁴

    As I continued my initial discovery, the need for local folk to think hard, write well and act decisively kept presenting itself as a citizen imperative - an opportunity for individual and community growth. While this applies to most places, in Singapore’s context, it is critical. Singapore is a small place, so centralized control is easy. But then again, change is not a far- flung geographical challenge! Local writing styles demonstrate an ineffectiveness that reflects an inability to control the political use of the English Language.

   So, what we shall do is to look at how folk think and argue, how they organize and put down their thoughts in writing, and then look at some of the issues that require involved decision. In selecting writing examples, I took the quickest route possible by using everything I encountered that provided something to work with. Our folk need to express their thinking clearly and strongly. The ability to catch what is being said, and then to respond in strong and clear terms is a powerful asset. It is a skill that needs to be taught effectively. That has not been done! I just want to encourage folk to think clearly and accurately and develop a critical mindset. The challenge for Singaporeans is to create a positive way forward, and this is a small contribution towards that goal.

    When it comes to thinking freely, Singapore’s people have grown up within the grasp of a reinforced cotton glove that retains rigid control, the results of which are now clear. Such control serves no purpose other than to support those who exercise it. So, I propose taking the Reader Expectation Method of analyzing writing and allowing it to work in the Singaporean context. This helps identify dominant writing styles that began in the colonies with the use of British English and its rhetorical style as the approved form of written communication. And then continued, in Singapore’s case, through a single party dominated society for many years.

   But the British legacy of phrasing and flair is no longer effective. Its expression and style will always be beautiful but is only effective within its historical and literary context. These days, the requirement that technocratic society places upon the writing task – to create content that is concise, clear, and quickly created, cannot be met by such a style. The old method of taking a scenic and descriptive route with marvelous words that meander through a long and winding road no longer works. It takes too long to get to the point! And the awareness of this challenge is another demand. When we try placing all that needs to be said into a single sentence, we sacrifice clarity and cohesion. When we speak briefly in a single sentence, we run the risk of losing context, which is always critical to understanding meaning.

     So, in Singapore’s written and political context, we get this odd state of contrasts – a very modern technological society that has moved its economic status from 3^rd world to 1^st world in my lifetime, and on the other hand, a ridiculously limited scope when it comes to the ability of its people to think hard, write well, and act decisively. What Reader Expectation can do is to help us reinvent our inherited but archaic colonial thinking and writing styles so that they match our technological progress. Of course, as long as the leadership is satisfied with the status quo, and is not encouraging criticism, there is not much demand for such a cause.

   Archaic colonial idiomatic form continues to be used in much of today’s writing in most places, for want of better alternatives. Hence the usefulness of the work by Williams and Gopen in the US. Reader Expectation provides a daring and innovative solution, demonstrating that effective writing does not depend on our use of knowledge and of vocabulary, but on our use of structure. By using structure effectively, we don’t need to struggle with English grammar, its polyvalent and often extremely nuanced vocabulary and phrasing, and its historically correct forms, in order to achieve the goal of writing well.

 As Dr. George Gopen once said,

 

“Any rule, however, runs the risk of going too far. That is, in order for it to be a rule, it has to state general guidelines and restrictions that will govern any possible situation. Sooner or later, a situation will arise in which the rule will produce a difficulty, an awkwardness, or even an impossibility. Obeying the rule then will only serve the purpose of keeping the rule inviolable; it will not necessarily produce the best solution to the reading/writing problem at hand. “⁵

 

Traditional pedagogy has always concluded that readers are responsible for understanding a written statement. But reader expectation turns that on its head. It says that it is the writer who needs to take responsibility. Sure, writers know what they intend, but this ‘knowing’ often translates into an assumption that ‘because I know, you know’. And that is never the case.

The day of ‘I didn’t understand him, so I guess he must be good’ in Singapore thinking is over. Like Caesar, it has been stabbed to death by multiple wounds. I have no desire to be Marc Antony. But if I must, I would be Brutus. Historically, word choice has been the way to go. The old understanding has been that the larger your vocabulary, the more you will impress your readers with words that they don’t know. Thus it has been taught to most of us. But research has shown that word choice amounts to 15% of communicative ability, while word order amounts to 85%.

From the perspective of the reader, Government policy affects us more than anything else, for it is people consequenced. And it is an irresponsible avowedly democratic government that does not make the effort to communicate clearly with its citizens. For the citizens part, they run the risk of not being meaningfully informed. The politics of the English language, its political terms of discourse, and our struggles therein, once again limit us.

   While the chapters in the book are set in logical sequence, each chapter offers its own perspective. The section on argument demonstrates the need for hard thinking because there are no easy answers to difficult issues. The material on writing identifies the issues common to Singaporean writing style. The final chapters bring up some of the issues that folk talk, write and struggle with, and that require follow-up and resolution.

   The process of working through the issues will allow the reader to frame the arguments that apply. Finally, this is both an interesting and challenging read, because it is not an abstract grammar text on rules, but a structural and contextualized approach that offers political empowerment as skills are honed.

What I have tried to do is provide a sharp look at how the way in which we think and write helps us to approach the issues that concern us; and then come to grips with what is needed for resolution. Whether this might serve as a catalyst for personal growth and empowerment is for the reader to discover.