On the Distribution of Ownself

in Singapore English*

* This work is supported (in part) by grant from Jeon-Dae Memorial Fund. I would like to express my thanks to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Chonghyuck Kim & Zechy Wong

(Chonbuk National University & National University of Singapore)

∣ Chonghyuck Kim & Zechy Wong

On the Distribution of Ownself in Singapore English ∣

Kim, Chonghyuck & Wong, Zechy. (2015). On the Distribution of Ownself in Singapore English. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 23(4), 45-62. Singapore English, a variety of English born out of intense contact with other local languages, has a unique self-expression in its lexicon - ownself. This self-expression displays partial convergence with its believed source, Chinese ziji: Like ziji, ownself can appear in a non-argument position, where it performs all of ziji’s emphatic functions. Unlike ziji, however, ownself cannot appear in an argument position. This partial convergence presents an apparent problem for substratist theories of creole genesis in contact linguistics (e.g. Lefebvre 1998; Bao 2005), because the theories predict full syntactic and semantic convergence between ownself and ziji. In this article, we resolve this problem by analysing the peculiar distribution of ownself as a consequence of grammatical competition between lexical items with overlapping distributions; ownself enters into competition with other self-expressions (e.g., himself) in argument position, and loses out in the process. In recent years, competition has been claimed to play a key role in the creation of new grammatical features in contact situations (Mufwene 2003, 2005; Aboh 2009), but the mechanics of such competition have largely remained elusive. Our analysis, to the extent that it is successful, can be construed as one specific way in which competition influences the creation of a new linguistic feature.

Key Words: reflexives, ownself, ziji, Creole, Singapore English

1. Introduction

Singapore English is a variety of English born out of intense contact with the local languages spoken in Singapore, including the Chinese languages (such as Hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin) and Malay. In its lexicon, there exists a certain self-expression – ownself – not found in any other variety of English. The unique presence of this self-expression in Singapore English raises two immediate questions, in (1).

(1) a. What is the origin of ownself?

b. Do theories of creole genesis account for the properties of ownself?

Our aim in this paper is to investigate the origin of ownself and address the question that it presents to current theories of creole genesis.

We argue in the following section, developing Wee’s (2007) suggestion, that ownself originates from the Chinese self-expression ziji, based on the exact parallel behaviors that they display as emphatic reflexives. In section 3, however, we next show that ownself is markedly different from ziji in one important respect: While Chinese ziji can be used either as an emphatic reflexive or as an argument reflexive, Singapore English ownself can be used only as an emphatic reflexive. We show that this partial convergence between ownself and ziji constitutes a problem to the substratist approach to creole genesis and its derivatives, as currently available in the literature. To resolve the problem of partial convergence, we present our analysis of ownself in section 4, which brings together the substratist approach with a principle that governs grammatical competition between lexical items with overlapping distributions – the Elsewhere Condition. Under the proposed analysis, ownself enters into competition with other self-expressions (e.g., himself) in argument position, and loses out in the process. Our analysis, to the extent that it is correct, entails that grammatical competition must be recognized as an element that plays an active role in the formation of a contact language. Competition has recently been claimed to play a key role in the creation of new grammatical features in contact situations (Mufwene 2003, 2005; Aboh 2009). Our analysis can be construed as one concrete case where competition influences the creation of a new linguistic feature.

2. Ownself and ziji

There are a number of empirical reasons to think that ownself originates from the self-expression ziji found in Chinese, the major local language in Singapore.

The word ziji is from Mandarin Chinese, which we use exclusively in this article. We have consciously not made a distinction between Mandarin and the other Chinese dialects spoken in Singapore; such a distinction would not affect our analysis.

As Wee (2007) observes, ziji displays two distinctive syntactic characteristics – particularly when used as an emphatic reflexive – that set it apart from a Standard English self-expression like himself. First, unlike an English emphatic reflexive which can appear in many syntactic positions, as in (2a), Chinese ziji typically appears between subject and predicate, as in (3a). In some cases, where an adverb like every day/always is present, ziji may be separated from subject position, as in (3b), but it can never appear at the end of a sentence like an English emphatic reflexive, as in (3c). Second, while an English self-expression requires the presence of an overt subject in an imperative sentence, as in (2b), ziji does not require the presence of an overt subject in an imperative sentence, as in (3d).

(2)	a.	(Jack is the last person who would sleep at work, but tonight…)

Jack (himself) will (himself) sleep at work (himself).

b.	*(You) yourself do the homework.

(3)	a.	Ta	ziji	chi	fan.

3sg	self	eat	rice

‘S/He is eating rice by him/herself.’

b.	Ta	mei	tian	ziji	chi	fan.

3sg	every	day	self	eat	rice

‘S/He eats rice by him/herself every day.’

c.	*Ta	mei	tian	chi	fan	ziji.

3sg	every	day	eat	rice	self	‘S/He eats rice by him/herself every day.’

d.	(Ni)	ziji	chi	fan.

(2sg)	self	eat	rice

‘(You) eat rice by yourself.’	(Wee 2007: 371)

We find the distinctive syntactic characteristics of ziji mirrored in the distribution of Singapore English ownself; Wee’s examples for ownself in (4) below correspond exactly to his examples for ziji in (3).

(4) a.	He ownself open the door.	(Wee 2007: 361, (2a))	b.	He always ownself sweep the floor.	(Wee 2007: 365, (13a))

c.	*	The boy got paint the house ownself.	(Wee 2007: 365, (15a))

d.	(You) ownself do the homework.	(Wee 2007: 366, (16))

Wee also notes that ownself shares a distinctive semantic characteristic of ziji. Emphatic ziji differs from a Standard English emphatic reflexive in that English emphatic reflexives allow an ‘additive’ reading, as in (5a), while Chinese ziji only allows an ‘exclusive’ meaning, as in (5b-c). That is, the English sentence in (5a) can be true even if John had not done all the painting work by himself, but for (5b) to be true, John must have painted the wall without help. If John does receive help from others, as in (5c), the sentence becomes unacceptable.

(5)	a.	John himself painted the wall, (even though others helped him).	b.	Yue-han	ziji	you-le	qiang-bi.

John	ziji	paint-PERF	wall

‘John himself painted the wall.’

c.	*	Shui-ran	you ren bang ta,

Even though	have people help him,

Yue-han	hai-shi	ziji	you-le qiang-bi.

John	still	ziji	paint-PERF wall

‘Even though other people helped him, John himself painted the

wall.’	(Example (a) adapted from Wee (2007: 368))

Singapore English ownself behaves on a par with ziji, as Wee’s (2007: 368) example in (6) shows.

(6) Ali ownself paint the house, (*even though other people help him).

Based on the above parallels between ownself and ziji, Wee (2007: 370) speculates that ‘ownself is quite likely to be based on Chinese ziji’. Wee has not gone as far as to claim that ownself is indeed from ziji, because his main concern was not to argue for their relationship. Wee’s statement, however, need not remain as a speculation. Let us add to Wee’s observation further similarities between ziji and ownself which will provide enough ground to conclude that ownself originates from ziji.

Wee’s article is the only work on ownself in Singapore English.

Wee illustrates the ‘exclusive’ meaning of ziji and ownself with examples like (5c) and (6), where the reflexives are construed, roughly, as ‘without getting help’. This illustration, however, is not fully satisfactory, because ziji also regularly denotes a number of other senses under the broad ‘exclusive’ meaning. These other senses of emphatic ziji are illustrated in (7) – ‘by one’s own will’ in (7a), and ‘without a cause, or by itself’ in (7b). These senses are quite unique to Chinese ziji, in that they cannot easily be expressed by English reflexive forms.

(7)	a.	Ta	ziji	gei-le	na-ge ren	qian, xian-zai you shuo qian

She self give-PERF that person money, now again	say	money

bei	tou	le.

PASS	stolen	PERF

‘She gave that person money of her own free will, but now says the	money was stolen.’

b.	Men	ziji	kai	le.

Door	self	open	PERF

‘The door opened by itself.’

Given that the exclusive meaning of ziji can be realized in a range of different but related senses, we would expect ownself to have the same range of senses if the latter lexical item were based on the former. This expectation is borne out; all the senses of ziji can be conveyed by ownself, as the parallel between (7) and (8) shows.

(8)	a.	She ownself gave the man money, but now say the money got stolen.	b.	The door ownself open.

Li and Thompson (1981) note two additional distinctive properties demonstrated by Chinese ziji. One is that ziji can be used in the sense of ‘one’ to express a general truth in the form of a proverb, as in (9a). Another property is that in a complex sentence with more than one verb, ziji can occur either before the first verb or the second one, inducing a different meaning in each case, as in (9b) and (9c).

(9)	a.	ziji	zhuan	qian	ziji	hua.

self	earn	money	self	spend

‘If one earns money, then one can spend it.’

b.	wo	ziji	yao	qu.

I	self	want	go

‘I myself want to go (i.e., it is I who want to go).’

c.	wo	yao	ziji	qu.

I	want	self	go

‘I want to go by myself (i.e., no one else should go.)’

(Li and Thompson 1981: 139)

These properties of ziji are also found in ownself; ownself can be used in the sense of ‘one’, as in (10a); and in a complex sentence with two verbs, it can induce a meaning difference, depending on its attachment site, as shown in (10b) and (10c).

(10)	a.	Ownself earn money, ownself spend.

‘If one earns money, then one can spend it.’

b.	I ownself want to go.

‘I myself want to go (i.e., it is I who want to.)

c.	I want to ownself go.

‘I want to go by myself (i.e., no one else should go.)’

Morphological consideration of ziji and ownself reveals further similarities. First, both of them are composed of two discrete parts; ziji is composed of zi and ji; and ownself of own and self. Second, both of the reflexive forms are devoid of phi-features such as number, person, and gender. Third, ownself is a form one can easily obtain from the translation of zi and ji, which in English literally mean own and body respectively.

Based on the extensive similarity between ziji and ownself examined in this section, we conclude that ownself indeed emerged in Singapore English under the influence of Chinese ziji.

3. Mapping ziji onto ownself and a problem

In contact languages, many lexical items which have the appearance of lexifier words behave like local words. This phenomenon, seen to be a consequence of substratum transfer, is standardly assumed to arise through a formal process called relexification (Musyken 1981; Lefebvre and Lumsden 1994; Lefebvre 1998). Relexification is a process that combines the pronunciation of a superstrate (lexifier) word with the semantic and syntactic properties of the corresponding substrate (local) word, as illustrated in (11).

(11)	Original lexical entry	Lexifier language

[phonology]i	[phonetic string]j used in specific

[semantic feature]k	semantic and pragmatic contexts

[syntactic feature]n

New Lexical Entry

[phonology]j or [∅]

[semantic feature]k

[syntactic feature]n	(Lefebvre 1998: 16)

Using this substratist approach to the creation of a new lexical item in a contact language, we can formalize the emergence of ownself in the way shown in (12).

(12)	A substratist analysis of ownself

Lexical entry for Chinese ziji	Lexical entries for English own and self

[tsɯtsi]i	[əʊn]j	[sɛlf]j

[semantic feature]k

[syntactic feature]n

Lexical Entry for Singapore English ownself

[əʊnsɛlf]j

[semantic feature]k

[syntactic feature]n

Under the substratist analysis envisaged in (12), the emergence of ownself in Singapore English is construed as an outcome that results from adding the pronunciations of the English words own and self to the lexical entry of Chinese ziji, replacing the original pronunciation. In other words, ownself is analysed as none other than Chinese ziji disguised in an English form. An immediate consequence of this analysis is that we can explain, in a simple and concise manner, why ziji and ownself display the parallels observed in the previous section – they behave alike because they share all their properties except pronunciation. This is a welcome result. To the best of our knowledge, there is no alternative theory that can better capture the observed parallels between ownself and ziji. We therefore conclude that relexification is an important linguistic process that plays an active role in the creation of a new lexical item and that it is a primary factor involved in the emergence of ownself in Singapore English.

However, there is a non-trivial problem with the substratist analysis in (12). The problem is that it predicts ownself to behave ‘exactly’ like ziji. This prediction is largely true, as we have seen from the parallels observed in the previous section, but it is not quite accurate, because ownself differs from ziji in one crucial way. Observe the contrast between (13) and (14). As is well-known, ziji can freely serve as an argument in a sentence: It can appear in subject position, as in (13a), in object position, as in (13b), or in the object position of a preposition, as in (13c). Unlike ziji, however, ownself is unable to occur in any of the argument positions, as first reported by Wee (2007). (Both ziji and ownself can be used in adverbial position as an emphatic reflexive, as in (13d) and (14d), of course.)

(13)	a.	Zhangsan	shuo	ziji	kanjian-le	Lisi.

Zhangsan	say	self	see-Perf	Lisi

‘Zhangsan said that he saw Lisi.’      (Huang & Liu 2000: 168)

b.	Zhangsan	xihuan	ziji.

Zhangsan	like	self

‘Zhangsan likes himself.’

c.	Zhangsan liu-le	dan-gao	gei	ziji.

Zhangsan keep-PERF	cake	PREP	self

‘Zhangsan kept some cake for himself.’

d.	Zhangsan	ziji	shao	cai.

Zhangsan	self	cook	food

‘Zhangsan cooks food himself (as opposed to anyone else cooking	for him).	(Li and Thompson 1981: 138)

(14)	a.	*John said that ownself like Mary.

b.	*John likes ownself.

c.	*John kept some cake for ownself.

d.	John ownself cook food.

The substratist analysis in (12) fails to account for this difference between ziji and ownself. Of course, this failure does not mean that the substratist analysis is wrong; in fact we believe the analysis must be right, given the extent of the observed parallels between emphatic ziji and ownself. Rather, the difference means that relexification cannot be solely responsible for the emergence of ownself, and that there must be something else, some kind of independent mechanism, that is also involved in the creation of ownself. It is thus necessary to incorporate such a mechanism in a theory of creole genesis, in addition to relexification, to explain the distribution of ownself.

In the literature, Bao (2005) proposes one such mechanism, the Lexifier Filter, which can work in tandem with relexification.

(15)	Lexifier Filter

Bao’s (2005) theory of creole genesis consists of two mechanisms – system transfer and the lexifier filter. System transfer is a mechanism that brings an entire subgrammatical system from a substrate language to a contact language. Although he does not make a commitment as to whether system transfer is carried out through relexification, we assume that it is done through relexification. In a later article, Bao (2009) explicitly argues against relexification and proposes an alternative mechanism based on usage-based grammar. As far as our discussion is concerned, however, his new mechanism is no better than relexification in that it also fails to explain why ownself does not occur in the argument position. Hence, we will use the more widely used notion, relexification, in our discussion of ownself.

Morphosyntactic exponence of the transferred system conforms to	the (surface) structure requirements of the lexical-source language.

To rephrase somewhat informally, (15) says that the lexifier filter rules out the Chinese morphosyntactic properties of a Singapore English lexical item as ungrammatical if they do not conform to the grammar of Standard English. This, in effect, means that the lexifier filter functions as a mechanism that produces Singapore English words that partially converge with Chinese words while being consistent with the surface grammar of Standard English.

The partial convergence between ziji and ownself, however, cannot be due to the lexifier filter. The rule that governs the distribution of English self-expressions is Principle A of the binding theory in (16), as stated by Chomsky (1981: 188) (or some modified version of it, e.g., Reinhart and Reuland’s (1993) Principles).

(16)	Principle A: An anaphor is bound in its governing category.

If we assume, following the spirit of the lexifier filter, that ownself is subject to Principle A, we may indeed successfully rule out the case where ownself occurs in subject position, as in (14a), as a violation of the principle; it is ungrammatical for the same reason himself is ungrammatical in subject position, as in (17).

(17)  *John said that himself likes Mary.

But there is nothing we can say about the case where ownself occurs in object position, as in (14b) and (14c), as the principle incorrectly predicts ownself to be licensed in object position, on a par with himself in (18).

(18)  a.	John likes himself.

b.	John kept some cake for himself.

Clearly, some principle other than the lexifier filter must be at work to rule out ownself in object position.

4. Grammatical Competition: Elsewhere Condition

We propose the elsewhere condition in (19) as a principle that governs the distribution of ownself in Singapore English.

(19)	The Elsewhere Condition

If a contact language acquires lexical item A and lexical item B	realizing the same category C, the lexical items A and B enter into	competition to realize category C. The lexical item that spells out	more of C’s features wins the competition.

The condition in (19) is not new. It is a slight variation of a well-known principle that has been recognized since at least Anderson (1969) and Kiparsky (1973) as a universal principle that governs many morphophonological phenomena. It has also recently been shown to play important roles in the domain of syntax (e.g., Neeleman and Szendröi, 2007). Our claim in (19) is that the elsewhere condition should also be recognized as a principle that governs and determines the emergence and fate of an innovative lexical item in a contact language. In the literature, there are many versions of the elsewhere condition. Our formulation is a modified version of Neeleman and Szendröi’s (2007), reproduced in (20).

(20)	All else being equal, a phonological realization of a category C	that spells out more of C’s features takes priority over a	phonological realization that spells out fewer features.

To show how the elsewhere condition in (19) works, we need to postulate what feature sets reflexive forms spell out. Our postulated spell-out rules for ownself and himself are given below:

(21)	Spell-out rule for ownself

[DP −pronominal, +anaphor]	⇨    /ownself/

(22)	Spell-out rule for himself/herself/etc.

[DP φ, −pronominal, +anaphor]  ⇨ /himself, herself, etc./

In our rules, we assume that both himself and ownself target the category DP, the maximal projection of a nominal expression, as their spell-out domain. Further, we assume that they both, as reflexives, spell out the features [-pronominal, + anaphor], the features Chomsky (1981) adopts to define reflexives. The difference between the two lexical items is that himself phonetically realizes the phi-features (represented by ϕ) contained in a DP, while ownself does not phonetically realize phi-features, even if the DP it targets contains these features.

To illustrate, let us suppose that English syntax generates the structure in (23) for a reflexive, where phi-features are generated along with the features [-pronominal, +anaphor].

(23)	DP

[ϕ, -pronominal, +anaphor]

This structure satisfies the rule in (21) because it is a DP that contains [-pronominal, +anaphor]; it also satisfies the rule in (22), as the structure contains [ϕ] as well as the [-pronominal, +anaphor] features. Since the structure satisfies the structural descriptions of the spell-out rules in both (21) and (22), it can be, in principle, spelt out either as ownself or himself. Of the two possible forms, however, it is himself that always wins the competition; ownself loses out under the elsewhere condition in (19), because himself spells out more features than ownself. To summarize, the elsewhere condition in (19) interacts with the spell-out rules in (21) and (22) to yield the prediction in (24) concerning the distribution of ownself.

(24)  Ownself is blocked wherever a reflexive form with full specification of phi-features, e.g., himself, is licensed.

And this is precisely what is observed in Singapore English.

Consider the case where ownself occurs in object position, whose examples are reproduced in (25a, b).

(25)	a. *John likes ownself.

b. *John kept some cake for ownself.

These sentences violate the elsewhere condition, because ownself is used in a position where an alternative form like himself can be used. As such, they are rendered ungrammatical. If himself can be used in place of ownself, then it must be used, because himself is the form licensed by the elsewhere condition. This explains the clear grammaticality of (18), reproduced here as (26).

(26)	a. John does not like himself.

b.	John gave the book to himself.

As for the case where ownself is used in subject position, as in (14a), repeated here as (27a), we can indeed rule it out using Bao’s (2005) lexifier filter; all reflexive forms in English are subject to Principle A and thus both Singapore English (27a) and Standard English (27b) are ungrammatical.

(27)	a. *John said that ownself like Mary.

b. *John said that himself like Mary.

One potential problem for our analysis of ownself in subject position is  the proverbial examples in (9a) and (10a), repeated here as (28), in which ownself is allowed despite the fact that it is used in subject position.

(28)	a.	ziji	zhuan	qian	ziji	hua.

self	earn	money	self	spend	‘If one earns money, then one can spend it.’

b.	Ownself earn money, ownself spend.

‘If one earns money, then one can spend it.’

As a reviewer points out, however, (28b) need not be construed as a counter example to our analysis. Ownself here is not used as a reflexive but as a generic pronoun. As such, it is not subject to Condition A and thus can be used in subject position. Even if we analyze ownself in (28b) as a reflexive in subject position, it does not pose a threat to our analysis. As the only example where ownself appears in subject position, (28b) can be regarded as an exceptional case. The fact that (28b) is a frozen expression, a proverb, seems to allow it to bypass Condition A.

Now that we have seen why ownself is banned from argument positions, let us turn to consider the use of ownself as an emphatic reflexive. On the surface, himself and ownself appear to occupy the same position when they are used as emphatic reflexives. It is therefore tempting to expect himself in (29a) to block ownself in (29b).

(29)	a.	The principle himself came to our party.

b.	The principle ownself came to our party.

But this expectation is merely a result of the illusion of surface identity. In reality, emphatic himself in preverbal position is a post-nominal adnominal expression which is part of the subject (see Ahn (2010)), whereas preverbal ownself (like ziji) is an adverbial expression which is part of the VP, as represented in (30).

(30)	a.	[The principal himself] [VP came to our party.]

b.	[The principal] [VP ownself came to our party.]

Because it is part of the subject, which is a constituent, himself can be moved with the rest of the subject, as in (31a). However, the same movement is impossible for ownself, as shown in (31b), as it is not part of the preceding subject but is instead part of the following VP.

(31)	a.	The person who came to our party was the principal himself.

b. *The person who came to our party was the principal ownself.

The co-occurrence of himself and ownself in (32) also shows that the two emphatic reflexives occupy different syntactic positions.

(32)	The principal himself ownself came to our party.

Here, himself is a conventional adnominal emphatic reflexive used to emphasize the nominal the principal, while ownself is used as an adverbial emphatic reflexive to emphasize the manner of the action performed, [coming] to our party. This is similar to the ‘use [of] both a dpER [adnominal] and a vpER [adverbial] with the same DP referent” noted by Ahn (2010: 2) (ER = emphatic reflexive).

(33) Liz’s cast members dpthemselves are running the show vpthemselves.

Given that English emphatic himself never occurs in preverbal position, emphatic ownself does not enter into competition with himself, and is thus allowed to occur freely in this position, exhibiting all the semantic properties of Chinese ziji. In other words, the elsewhere condition in (19) has no effect on the use of ownself as an emphatic reflexive, as the competing himself is always banned from occurring in preverbal position by an independent constraint.

Before concluding, it is worthwhile to note an interesting phenomenon that may constitute another argument for our approach to ownself. In our analysis, the notion of grammatical competition plays a central role, where ‘competition’ is determined by the degree of phonetic realization of phi-features. An important consequence that naturally follows from the analysis is that a third form of reflexive in Singapore English which does have its phi-features spelt out, if it exists, is predicted to freely occur in argument position, because himself would not be able to block it. Interestingly, quite a number of Singapore English speakers produce exactly these reflexive forms, such as his ownself and my ownself, formed by adding possessive pronouns to ownself. And these speakers use the reflexives in argument positions, as shown in (34).

A reviewer suggests an extension of our analysis of ownself and ziji to his ownself and ta-ziji. While this suggestion is perfectly logical and sensible, it is somewhat difficult to do the extension in practice, mainly due to the fact his ownself is only used by some speakers of Singapore English. We will have to first wait and see how the use of his ownself develops in Singapore society before we make an attempt to do the suggested extension.

(34)	a.	Probably your kid is not as brilliant as many of the other	students, and therefore, causes him to have doubt about his	ownself.

b.	A: Are you getting ukulele lessons?

B: No, I’m giving my ownself lessons.

c.	Why do we do it? We got to ask our ownself.

d.	At the end of the day, it is up to your ownself to grasp the idea.

While it is unclear why these third reflexive forms are not used as widely as himself or ownself, the pattern of their use in (34) is precisely what our analysis predicts to hold.

(35) summarizes our discussion in this section.

(35)	a. object ownself	blocked by Elsewhere Condition

b. subject ownself	blocked by Lexifier Filter (CA)

c. emphatic ownself	no blocker

5. Conclusion

In this article, we have highlighted both the importance and limitations of the traditional substratist approach for studying the nature of novel lexical items in Singapore English. We began by tracing the roots of Singapore English ownself in Chinese ziji, drawing out their syntactic and semantic similarities to affirm the central role that substratum transfer plays in the creation of such new lexical items. We next examined significant differences that also exist between ownself and ziji, revealing the incapability of current formulations of the relexification process to fully explain the properties of ownself. Finally, we suggested that the principle of grammatical competition, as embodied in the Elsewhere Condition, can work in tandem with the traditional relexification mechanism to provide a satisfactory and comprehensive explanation for the behaviour of ownself in Singapore English. As we have noted in the article, this Elsewhere Condition is a well-established universal principle that has been demonstrated to play an important role in many kinds of linguistic phenomena. We therefore believe it to be fully applicable beyond the Singaporean linguistic environment, and expect it to prove relevant in analyses of other contact languages as well.

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Wee, L. (2007). Singapore English x-self and ownself. World Englishes 26(3). 360-372.

Chonghyuck Kim

Department of English Language and Literature

College of Humanities, Chonbuk National University

567 Baekje-daero, deokjin-gu

Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do 561-756 Korea

Phone: 82-63-270-3209

Emai: chonghyuck@jbnu.ac.kr

Zechy Wong

Department of English Language and Literature

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Block AS5

7 Arts Link, Singapore 117570

Email: ellkc@nus.edu.sg

Phone: 65-6516-6036

Email: zechywong@gmail.com

Received on September 25, 2015

Revised version received on December 14, 2015

Accepted on December 31, 2015