Ethnic differences in the comprehension of Singlish metaphors

This paper seeks to investigate Singaporeans' cultural perceptions via metaphors as tools for investigating culture-specific conceptualizations, zooming into the differences between the comprehension of Singlish metaphors across different ethnic groups. 46 metaphorical Singlish words were used as stimuli in a questionnaire on metaphor comprehension, administered on Singaporean Chinese, Malay and Indian participants. The results showed that the largest ethnic differences exist between Chinese responses and the Malay and Indian responses, suggesting that the Chinese subgroup possesses the most divergent set of conceptualizations. Results also indicate that amongst the languages that have contributed loanwords into Singlish, English expressions are likeliest to exist across all ethnic groups' linguistic metaphor repertoires – a result corroborated by how a lower proportion of English expressions are facing metaphor death compared to non-English expressions. Overall, this case study demonstrates that although differences in ethnicity can cause significant lexical (and thus conceptual) divides between speakers, for communities speaking English as a common language, English may exist as a crucial convergence point between different groups, not only for language, but for culture and cognition. In particular, the results suggest that ethnic culture is not only transmittable via the ethnic languages, but also via the aforementioned ‘convergence point’ – the English language. • Ethnicity is a factor influencing Singaporeans' understandings of Singlish-unique metaphors. • Differences in ethnicity can cause significant lexical and thus conceptual divides between speakers of different heritages. • In Singapore where communities adopt English as a common language, English exist as a crucial convergence point for culture and cognition. • Ethnic culture is not only transmittable via the ethnic languages, but also via the English language.