Sign Language as “Mother Tongue Orphan”: A Challenge to Raciolinguistic Multiculturalism in Singapore

This article examines the contested status of “sign language” in Singapore by exploring deaf people's experiences of the “Mother Tongues”—the state's designation for the official languages of Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil—with a particular focus on the relationships that deaf Chinese Singaporeans have with Mandarin. The term “sign language” in Singapore simplifies a complicated linguistic ecology that includes signing varieties that range from styles that follow English grammar and structure more closely to styles that are more visually and conceptually accurate. Under Singapore's bilingual education policy, all Singaporeans must learn English as well as their “Mother Tongue”; however, deaf people are exempt from this policy. Because sign language in Singapore defies ethnic categorization, it presents a challenge to the state's raciolinguistic claims to multiculturalism, which conflate ethnicity with language. Sign language is thus rendered ideologically suspect: a “mother tongue orphan,” uncomfortably located in the state's language schema. Interlocutors express a sense of alienation from both the “Mother Tongues” and from Singapore Sign Language (SgSL), although in recent years more deaf Singaporeans are coming to reclaim SgSL as their own. This case demonstrates how raciolinguistic ideologies might be reinforced even through those to whom such language policies are not meant to apply.