Abstract
Singapore has a multiethnic and multilingual society. Presently, the population of this country is composed of 75.9 per cent Chinese, 15.2 per cent Malays, 6.5 per cent Indians. Each of the three major racial communities has been constructed by many subethnic groups definded on the basis of their ethnicity in parallel with their literary traditions.
In this situation of severe ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity, a large part of language education policy-making has been concerned with its political and social relevance, not with its pedagogic consequences. Indeed, there has been no precise formulation of the objectives of the bilingual policy beyond stating that it would help national integration by facilitating interethnic communication and provide cultural stability by enabling people to keep an intra-ethnic mother tongue. The policy makers in education seemed to think that students educated in English and their racial mother tongue would not only break racial barriers, but also identify themselves as being “Singaporean” with both Western and Asian values, thus contributing to a more harmonious and better disciplined society.
