Bazaar Malay topics

Zhiming Bao | National University of Singapore

Khin Khin Aye | Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, Malaysia

Bazaar Malay is a Malay-lexified pidgin with a Chinese substratum spoken in the marketplace of Singapore (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia). Although it is no longer a lingua franca in Singapore today, it is nevertheless still spoken by older Singaporeans. Like Chinese and Malay, Bazaar Malay is a topic-prominent language. We document three types of the Bazaar Malay topic construction and show that they are identical to the topic structures found in Chinese. The degree of convergence in the topic construction between Chinese and Bazaar Malay, and between Chinese and Singapore English, supports the systemic view of substratum transfer.

Keywords: Chinese, pidgin, Malay, substratum transfer, topic prominence, contact-induced change, Bazaar Malay

Published online: 04 March 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.25.1.06bao

Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

BRUNNER, THOMAS

2014. Structural nativization, typology and complexity: noun phrase structures in British, Kenyan and Singaporean English. English Language and Linguistics 18:1 ► pp. 23 ff.

Hiramoto, Mie

2012. Pragmatics of the sentence-final uses of can in Colloquial Singapore English. Journal of Pragmatics 44:6-7 ► pp. 890 ff.

LEITNER, GERHARD

2014. Transforming Southeast Asian language habitats. World Englishes 33:4 ► pp. 512 ff.

PARVIAINEN, HANNA

2012. Focus particles in Indian English and other varieties. World Englishes 31:2 ► pp. 226 ff.

SATO, YOSUKE

2014. Argument ellipsis in Colloquial Singapore English and the Anti-Agreement Hypothesis. Journal of Linguistics 50:2 ► pp. 365 ff.

Sato, Yosuke

2016. Remarks on the Parameters of Argument Ellipsis: A New Perspective from Colloquial Singapore English. Syntax 19:4 ► pp. 392 ff.

Vaish, Viniti

2020. In Translanguaging in Multilingual English Classrooms, ► pp. 11 ff.

Zhang, Hui, Ruanni Tupas & Aman Norhaida

2020. English-dominated Chinatown. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 30:1-2 ► pp. 273 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.