Creating individual styles through discourse variation in Singapore Mandarin

Abstract By applying the concepts of indexicality and enregisterment, this paper demonstrates how different discourse particles and their collocations index various personae in Singapore Mandarin and how media representations enregister them within the community. The theory of persona is shown to explain the majority of seemingly random individual differences in discourse particle usage exhibited by two TV hosts. Finally, it is important to note that not all variation between the two hosts can be attributed to the enactment of personae. Psychological factors, such as bilingual lexical activation, should also be considered influences on linguistic variation, alongside linguistic and social factors.