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Not only does Singapore have a unique ethnic and multilingual makeup, it also boasts unique language policies, especially with regard to the learning of the official languages. Previous studies of Singaporean youths have largely focused on the differences in attitudes and code-switching between linguistic varieties (e.g. Colloquial Singapore English [Singlish] and Standard Singapore English) as well as looking at the specific languages of Singapore's multilingual community. This paper seeks to examine how Chinese-Singaporean youths differ in their perception of the benefits (general, communicative, cognitive and pragmatic) and disadvantages associated with Mandarin-English bilingualism and their Chinese-Singaporean identity. 165 Chinese-English bilingual youths from secondary schools, Polytechnics/Junior Colleges, University undergraduates and young working adults were stratified based their gender, socio-economic status and self-rated language proficiency. Our findings suggest that bilinguals' self-rated proficiency is generally the best indicator of local Chinese youths' attitudes towards Chinese-English bilingualism and identity, regardless of their current occupation, gender or socio-economic status.

The few studies on Family Language Policy in Singapore (FLP) have generally focused on FLP in local and immigrant Chinese families. This article explores language policies that seem to undergird Singaporean-Japanese families' language practices. In-depth interviews and observations with five such families showed that Japanese only functions as the language of communication between the Japanese parents and their children if parents have invoked particular language policies to support its transmission and use at home. For most families, English was the main medium of communication among family members. Language policies and practices in these families were heavily influenced by the value emplaced on each language within the parents' linguistic repertoire and their beliefs regarding language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]