Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore

“Seeing the Unseen” is part of "Making Oral Languages Visible", a cross-disciplinary project that aims to preserve minority languages by adapting oral folktales into bilingual storybooks. The “unseen” in the title indexes (i) the Kristang language, a critically endangered Malay-Portuguese...

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Main Author: Mok, Elaine Wai Man
Other Authors: Alexander Coupe
Format: Student Research Paper
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165051
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1650512023-03-13T15:39:16Z Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore Mok, Elaine Wai Man Alexander Coupe Joan Marie Kelly School of Humanities ARCoupe@ntu.edu.sg, JMKelly@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Linguistics “Seeing the Unseen” is part of "Making Oral Languages Visible", a cross-disciplinary project that aims to preserve minority languages by adapting oral folktales into bilingual storybooks. The “unseen” in the title indexes (i) the Kristang language, a critically endangered Malay-Portuguese creole in Singapore and (ii) a ghost seen only by the story’s protagonist. Though ghost stories are perennially popular in Singapore, they comprise a nascent genre of study. While previous iterations of this project have focused on the artistic process, this paper offers a close textual analysis of the chosen Kristang folktale. In sum, the paper explores this question: what roles do ghost stories play in a storytelling medium? A bilingual Kristang native speaker narrated the story, which was recorded, transcribed and translated via anthropological linguistic field methods. Subsequently, each line of the story was classified according to guidelines set forth by Labov’s narrative categories and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. These linguistic theories lend an interdisciplinary perspective to the predominantly literary field of storytelling analysis. Most saliently, it was found that the story focused on setting up its historical background over plot-driving actions. Its thematic emphasis on historicity and cultural tradition suggests that ghosts serve memory-making functions. In Singapore’s evolving urban landscape, ghost stories help endangered community members to reanimate and remember their cultures. Crucially, this opens up further discussions on growing language revitalisation efforts, while serving as a reminder that past and personal narratives are indelibly tied to current and collective ones. Keywords – Kristang, ghost stories, discourse analysis, oral folktales, narrative analysis, Systemic Functional Grammar, language revitalisation, Singapore 2023-03-12T14:09:25Z 2023-03-12T14:09:25Z 2021 Student Research Paper Mok, E. W. M. (2021). Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore. Student Research Paper, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165051 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165051 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Linguistics
spellingShingle Humanities::Linguistics
Mok, Elaine Wai Man
Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
description “Seeing the Unseen” is part of "Making Oral Languages Visible", a cross-disciplinary project that aims to preserve minority languages by adapting oral folktales into bilingual storybooks. The “unseen” in the title indexes (i) the Kristang language, a critically endangered Malay-Portuguese creole in Singapore and (ii) a ghost seen only by the story’s protagonist. Though ghost stories are perennially popular in Singapore, they comprise a nascent genre of study. While previous iterations of this project have focused on the artistic process, this paper offers a close textual analysis of the chosen Kristang folktale. In sum, the paper explores this question: what roles do ghost stories play in a storytelling medium? A bilingual Kristang native speaker narrated the story, which was recorded, transcribed and translated via anthropological linguistic field methods. Subsequently, each line of the story was classified according to guidelines set forth by Labov’s narrative categories and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. These linguistic theories lend an interdisciplinary perspective to the predominantly literary field of storytelling analysis. Most saliently, it was found that the story focused on setting up its historical background over plot-driving actions. Its thematic emphasis on historicity and cultural tradition suggests that ghosts serve memory-making functions. In Singapore’s evolving urban landscape, ghost stories help endangered community members to reanimate and remember their cultures. Crucially, this opens up further discussions on growing language revitalisation efforts, while serving as a reminder that past and personal narratives are indelibly tied to current and collective ones. Keywords – Kristang, ghost stories, discourse analysis, oral folktales, narrative analysis, Systemic Functional Grammar, language revitalisation, Singapore
author2 Alexander Coupe
author_facet Alexander Coupe
Mok, Elaine Wai Man
format Student Research Paper
author Mok, Elaine Wai Man
author_sort Mok, Elaine Wai Man
title Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
title_short Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
title_full Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
title_fullStr Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
title_full_unstemmed Seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a Kristang ghost story in Singapore
title_sort seeing the unseen: discourse analysis of a kristang ghost story in singapore
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165051
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