What is Singapore army lingo? Investigating the relationship between Singapore military slang and Singlish

• Main Author: Boo, Ashley Ting Wei
• Other Authors: Tan Ying Ying
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Linguistics::Colloquial language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165177
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Despite the wide interest in Singapore army slang, there is as yet hardly any academic research done on this topic as language use in the military is generally limited. Existing studies on military jargon or slang mainly focus on the meaning and function of English military terms and rarely go beyond that to investigate how they enter everyday language. There is a need to conduct more research on multilingual military slang and how it became a part of a language. This study examines the meaning and function of Singapore military slang, and explores how certain Singlish expressions may have originated from the Singapore army. A glossary of Singapore army slang was produced by compiling data collected from 5 Singaporean army-themed movies and the interviews of 30 Chinese Singaporean NS men aged 21 to 50 years old. Singapore army slang was found to be multilingual and used in Singlish utterances. It is used by NS men in the civilian world as it continues to serve useful functions. Some Singlish expressions were found to originate from the Singapore army, although other expressions associated with the army may have other origins. Singapore military slang made its way into Singlish through its spread to the Singlish community via NS men. This suggests that the Singapore army is a valuable area to look at when investigating the history and evolution of Singlish, and that men can also be the innovators when it comes to language change.