Conflicts between World Englishes

Abstract

Abstract Negative attitudes of non-Singaporeans towards Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) are often used to support the “Speak Good English Movement” in Singapore. This article examines spontaneous metalinguistic discourse about SCE in an online Facebook group where Taiwanese migrants in Singapore gather for mutual support. Based on the idea that metalinguistic discourse is mediated through the social relation between interlocutors, this study reveals how the language ideologies surfacing in the investigated online space are formed through stance-taking processes between people sharing a nationality. We argue that this spatial context elicits and escalates negative ideologies of SCE, which are situated in popular hierarchies of varieties of English, and also hierarchies of Mandarin.