Mapping english linguistic capital the case of filipino domestic workers in singapore

MAPPING ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CAPITAL:
THE CASE OF FILIPINO DOMESTIC WORKERS
IN SINGAPORE











BEATRIZ PAREDES LORENTE

(M.A. Literature, Ateneo de Manila University;
M.A. Linguistics, Ohio University)

A THESIS SUBMITTED

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
AND LITERATURE

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

i
Acknowledgements
When I started this dissertation, I did not know where my questions would
take me. My thanks go to the institutions and people who have been my oases,
lighthouses and travelling companions.
First and foremost, I am grateful to the women who participated in this
study who shared their time and their stories with me, and who constantly
asked why I was researching about English when there were more dramatic
things I could write about. I am thankful to them, to my students at the
Bayanihan Centre and to the volunteers of the Filipino Overseas Workers of
Singapore (FOWS) skills training program for keeping me grounded in the
everyday realities of using English.
My supervisor, Anne Pakir, believed in what I had to say before I
found the words to talk and write about my topic coherently. She patiently
and constantly challenged me to clarify my thoughts and unstintingly
supported me through more than six years of writer’s block, life changes and
new work demands.
My thanks go to friends and former colleagues at the Asia Research

Institute of the National University of Singapore, especially the Asian
migrations cluster who exposed me to research on transnational migration. My
thanks also go to colleagues at the Language and Communication Centre of
Nanyang Technological University. I owe adobo to Francesco Cavallaro, Ng
Bee Chin and Tan Ying Ying. I am also grateful to Chan Ling Ling and Lee
Acknowledgements

ii
ii
Hwee Hoon who found ways to help me manage my full teaching load and my
writing between January to March 2007.
Friends read early versions of some of my chapters and discussed the
issues in this dissertation with me at various times. I am particularly grateful
to Shanthini Pillai, Noorashikin Abdul Rahman, and T. Ruanni F. Tupas for
being critical readers and wonderful traveling companions.
This dissertation would not have been completed without a supportive
family. I am grateful to my mother, Amelia P. Lorente, for believing in my
work and my sister, Lora Frances P. Lorente, for help in inputting and
organizing data and keeping me sane.
Finally, I am especially grateful to my husband, Bruno Trezzini, who
read through and critically commented on drafts of my dissertation and who
took care of everything else so I could concentrate on writing. Thank you for
everything.
This dissertation is dedicated to my late father, Felino L. Lorente, a
teacher, writer and scholar, who showed me just how rewarding asking
questions could be.


iii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i
Table of Contents iii
Summary vi
List of Tables and Figures viii
Acronyms ix
1 English Voices in an Unequal World System 1
English as a site and means of symbolic struggle 2
English in an unequal world system 4
Voices in English 7
The case study: English-speaking Filipino domestic workers in
Singapore 7
Research questions 10
Relevance of the study 11
Outline of the study 15
2 Linguistic Capital in Transnational Arenas 17
Language and globalization 17
Theorizing voice 21
Revisiting linguistic capital 22
Inequalities in the world system 28
The world system 28
Transnational arenas 30
Agency and negotiated identites 32
Agency 32
Negotiated identities 35
Remapping linguistic capital 38
The macro-level of analysis 39
The micro-level of analysis 41
Summary 43
3 Listening to Voices: Methodology and Data Collection 44
The Bayanihan Centre 46

Secondary data sources 49
Class cards 49
Self-selection bias 50
Statistical profile of FDWs who attended English classes 51
In-depth interviews with Filipino domestic workers 53
The in-depth interviews 54
The interview participants 61
Attitudinal survey 65
Additional data sources 68
Table of Contents


iv
4 In the Grip of English: The Philippine State and the Making of
Overseas Filipino Workers 70
The Philippines as a labor-sending state 70
History of labor migration from the Philippines 73
Patterns of labor migration from the Philippines 77
The feminization of migrant Filipino labor 81
The grip of English 86
The history of English in the Philippines 89
The making of English-speaking overseas Filipino workers 93
English in shifting indexicalities 98
Re-indexing competitiveness 101
Re-indexing nationalism 106
Summary 114
5 The Script of Servitude: Maid Agencies in Singapore and the
Positioning of English-speaking Products 115
Maid agencies as mediating and centering institutions 116
The mediating and centering functions of transnational labor

brokers 117
Maid Agencies in Singapore 120
Positioning English-speaking products 129
Representations of Filipino domestic workers in Singapore 129
The relative values of English linguistic capital 135
Styling the domestic worker 139
Performing the script of servitude 143
Displaying servitude 153
Summary 160
6 Translating Selves: Filipino Domestic Workers in Singapore and the
Trajectories of English 162
Trajectories of English 163
Translating selves 164
English in the Philippines 164
English in Singapore 168
“I have lost my English” 168
“You’re the one who adjusts, not them, right?” 173
“’Yung madam/Madonna ko” 177
“Pa-English-English” in the Philippines 185
“Lord, help me to English my tongue” 189
Summary 191
7 Mapping Voices: Filipino Domestic Workers in Singapore and the
Symbolic Values of “Good English” 192
The symbolic values of “good English” 192
Good English is “puro Ingles” 193
Singlish is not “good English” 195
Mapping voices 201
Positioning employers 201
Table of Contents

v
Employers who speak Singlish and/or who are not fluent in
‘standard’ English 202
Expatriate employers and Singaporean employers who
speak ‘standard’ English 207
A hierarchy of desirable employers? 210
Positioning domestic workers 213
More than just a maid 213
Indonesian domestic workers 217
Locating belonging 222
Accents of non-belonging 222
In-group codes and offstage identities 224
Summary 227
8 Conclusion: Towards Conditions of Possibility 228
English linguistic capital and symbolic struggles 229
Inequalities and English 231
Mobilizing English 233
Enabling conditions of possibility 235
Appendix 1: Sample of a “Maid Test” 239
Appendix 2: Sample Biodata of a Domestic Worker 243
Appendix 3: Questionnaire (English Translation) 244
Bibliography 248

vi
Summary
Current studies of global English have been criticized for being caught
between dichotomies – between arguments about homogeneity or
heterogeneity, linguistic imperialism or linguistic hybridity – which do not
allow for sufficiently complex understandings of what is currently happening

to English and to the communities, groups and individuals who are
appropriating it.
This study examines how, as linguistic capital, English is both a
resource for and a domain of symbolic struggles in transnational social fields
or arenas. This is contextualized by remapping English in macro- and micro-
levels of analysis to account for how it is embedded in structural inequalities
and how it is mobilized in the immediate struggles of individuals. In this
regard, this study draws from the case of Filipino domestic workers in
Singapore. The case presents a unique opportunity to explore how the
inequalities of the world system and the acts of English identification of
individuals are configured in the context of the flows of migrant women
between the Philippines and Singapore, two post-colonial states in contrasting
stages of development, that had and that continue to have a historical and
cultural formation negotiated in or mediated by English.
To unpack the different dimensions of the case, the study focuses on
how macro- and micro-level social actors in the transnational arena of
domestic work appropriate English and what the effects of these
appropriations may be, at their levels. These social actors are the Philippine
Summary


vii
state, transnational maid agencies in Singapore and the Filipino domestic
workers in Singapore themselves. In particular, the study describes how, in the
transnational field, English is appropriated by: (1) the Philippine state in its
discourse about the competitiveness of its migrant workers; (2) maid agencies
in Singapore, in their script of servitude for Filipino domestic workers; and (3)
the Filipino domestic workers in Singapore in how they negotiate the everyday
realities of their marginalized position in Singapore society.
This study argues that English is embedded in multiple interconnected

sites of symbolic struggle. The appropriations of English at different levels
and their effectiveness at generating uptake are contingent on the space-
specific distribution of valuable material and symbolic resources. This has
particular implications for marginalized groups such as the Filipino domestic
workers who mobilize English in their immediate struggles to reconstitute the
everyday impositions of structural power on their lives. An understanding of
the interactions between structural inequalities engendered by English and
agentive appropriations of English should inform strategic interventions.


viii
List of Tables and Figures
Table 1: General biographical profile of interview participants at time of
interview 57
Table 2: Profile of interview participants: education, previous work
experience and reasons for coming to Singapore 58
Table 3: Annual deployment of overseas Filipino workers, 1984-June
2005 78
Table 4: Top 10 destinations of overseas Filipinos, as of December 2004 79
Table 5: Top 10 destinations of landbased overseas Filipino workers
(rehires and new hires), 2004 and 2005 80
Table 6: Skill category, selected years (in %) 81
Table 7: Deployed overseas Filipino workers (new hires, top 10
occupational groups by sex), 2005 82
Table 8: Annual deployment of new hires by skill category (female
percentage in brackets), 1992-2002 83
Table 9: Top 10 destinations of overseas Filipino workers and percent
female in OFW population, 2002 85
Table 10: Estimated stock of transnational domestic workers in
Singapore, 1986-2004 122

Table 11: Generalized levels of English proficiency among transnational
domestic workers in Singapore 130
Table 12: Prevailing stereotypes of Filipino, Indonesian and Sri Lankan
transnational domestic workers in Singapore 131
Table 13: Prevailing stereotypes of foreign domestic workers in Canada 137
Table 14: Forms of address/reference: Domestic workers for employers 179
Table 15: Preferred forms of reference: Employers for domestic workers 181
Table 16: Forms of address/reference: Domestic workers for their
employers’ children 182
Table 17: Preferred forms of reference: Employers’ children for domestic
workers 183
Table 18: Words used to refer to (a) employers and experiences with
domestic work and (b) activities, etc. on their days off 226



Figure 1: Posters on the glass door of a maid agency in Lucky Plaza 124
Figure 2: Rules posted on a glass door of a maid agency in Lucky Plaza 155


ix
Acronyms
3D Dirty, degrading, dangerous
AB Bachelor of Arts
BEP Bilingual education policy
BS Bachelor of Science
BSP Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
DepEd Department of Education
DH Domestic helper
DOLE Department of Labor and Employment

DOLOP DOLE Labor Opportunities Program
EOI Export-oriented industrialization
FDI Foreign direct investment
FDW Filipino domestic worker
FOWS Filipino Overseas Workers in Singapore
FUSE Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education
GDP Gross domestic product
HB House Bill
HSW Household service worker
LCP Live-in Caregiver Program
MOI Medium of instruction
MOM Ministry of Manpower
NC2 National Certificate II
NSO National Statistics Office
OFW Overseas Filipino worker
OPA Overseas performing artist
OWWA Overseas Workers Welfare Administration
POEA Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
SWS Social Weather Station
TESDA Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women



1
1
English Voices in an Unequal World System
Just as, at the level of the relations between groups, a
language is worth what those who speak it are worth, so
too, at the level of interactions between individuals,

speech always owes a major part of its value to the
value of the person who utters it.
(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 252)

This study is about mapping the appropriations of English linguistic capital in
transnational contexts, particularly in the case of Filipino domestic workers
(FDWs) in Singapore. Threading through this study are three interrelated
themes: the centrality of language as a resource for and a site of symbolic
struggles, the structural inequalities of the world system and the conditioned
agency of language users.
Firstly, as observed by Heller (2001a), “language is both a key domain
of struggle over difference and inequality, and a means of conducting that
struggle” (p. 120). Language is a field where what is considered legitimate and
hence culturally valuable, in the form of the ‘authentic’ accent or the
‘standard’ variety, is contested by different social groups. At the same time,
language is also a resource. On the one hand, it is a central element for
regulating access to valuable symbolic and material capital. On the other hand,
speakers can mobilize linguistic resources – accents, varieties, registers – to
semiotically position themselves in various social spaces. Secondly,
contemporary linguistic and cultural contacts are mediated by the structural
inequalities engendered by the economic and political forces of globalization.
Chapter 1


2
In this regard, it must be emphasized that language interacts in a variable
fashion with other systems of inequality. Thirdly, people’s functional and
indexical appropriations of language are determined, constrained and
conditioned by such systems of inequality. This emphasizes the importance of
examining people’s multiple investments into their linguistic acts, desires and

performances (Pennycook, 2007b) as they exercise their conditioned agency.
English as a site and means of symbolic struggle
In a letter to the Forum section of The Straits Times, a frustrated Singaporean
whose parents had been unsuccessful in hiring a foreign domestic worker
questioned the rationale behind the written test which first-time foreign
domestic workers in Singapore have to pass before they can be employed:
Is it not sufficient [for maids] to just understand some simple
words for conversation? Is it really necessary for the maids to
be able to read a lot of English words? So long as they are able
to converse in English, why do they even need to read up that
much? […] Are maids here to work as maids or as clerks?
(Loh, 2006).

Introduced by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in 2005 as part of a package
of measures
1
to raise the quality of first-time foreign domestic workers, the
multiple choice test is supposed to help ensure that would-be domestic
workers possess the basic numeracy and literacy skills to perform household
tasks and adapt to life in Singapore (Tan, 2006). The assessment of these basic
numeracy and literacy skills is conducted in ‘simple English’, suggesting that
foreign domestic workers should be able to read and understand the language
in order to work in Singapore. For the letter writer though, the communicative


1
A sample of part of the test is in Appendix 1. The requirements introduced by the MOM in
2005 are described in Chapter 5.
Chapter 1

3
skills of domestic workers need not be tested by a written examination as
“maids” just need to “understand some simple words for conversation” and
they do not need to be “able to read a lot of English words” nor to “read up
that much”. For him, this limited repertoire indexes domestic work,
distinguishing “maids” from “clerks”.
The letter writer’s notions about the functions and values of English in
domestic work are a marked contrast to Myrna’s
2
views about her competence
in English. Myrna, a Filipino domestic worker (FDW)
3
who had been working
in Singapore for 11 years at the time I interviewed her, told me she had “better
English” than her first Singaporean Chinese employer:
MYRNA: My female Chinese employer, she was even the one
who criticized me. The one who is not good is the one who
criticizes! She thought she was good. (BL: What was your
reaction when she criticized you?) I didn’t react because I knew
I was better than her. I just told her that our Englishes were
different: theirs is British English, ours is American English.
4


(’Yung amo kong Chinese na babae, siya pa ’yung namimintas.
Kung sino pa ’yung di marunong, siya pa ’yung namimintas.
Feeling niya, siya ’yung magaling. (BL: Ano ’yung reaction mo
pag pinipintasan ka niya?) Wala e alam ko namang mas
magaling ako sa kanya. Sinasabi ko na lang sa kanya na

magkaiba ’yung English namin: ’yung sa kanila British
English, ’yung atin American English.)



2
The names of the FDWs in this study have been changed.
3
In Singapore, “FDW” is used as an acronym for foreign domestic workers. In this study
though, I have chosen to use “FDW” to refer to a transnational Filipino domestic worker; this
use is specific to this study. There are FDWs who work for families in the Philippines but they
are not the ones I refer to in this study. It must be noted that there are also other terms used to
refer to the FDW. In Singapore, “Filipino maid” is commonly used. The acronym “DH”
(domestic helper) is widely used by Filipinos and the FDWs themselves. In the Philippines,
the FDW is now officially known as a Filipino household service worker (HSW) (see for
example, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, 2006c).
4
All the translations from Filipino or Ilocano to English are mine. “BL” refers to the author,
“…” indicates a pause in speech and “[…]” indicates ellipsis.
Chapter 1


4
In Myrna’s short narrative, one can see the imprint of the asymmetrical
relationship between FDWs and their employers in Singapore. Myrna was
unable to assert that she had “better English” than her former employer
whenever the latter criticized her. However, she was able to claim that their
Englishes were just “different” by associating her employer’s English with
British English, and her own English with American English. For Myrna,
English is obviously more than just a lingua franca through which she and her

employer can communicate; it is more than just a medium through which she
can understand instructions and participate in conversations. For Myrna, these
distinctions between her English (“better English” and “American English”)
and that of her former employer’s (“not good” and “British English”) may
very well enhance – however momentarily – her social position vis-à-vis her
former employer.
English in an unequal world system
The differences between the letter writer’s and Myrna’s views about the
English of foreign domestic workers in Singapore challenge the popular notion
that English is a neutral global lingua franca with homogenous and predictable
functions, values and meanings. They also challenge the dichotomies –
homogeneity or heterogeneity, liberal accommodation or resistance, linguistic
imperialism or linguistic hybridity – which current studies of global English
seem to be mired in. These dichotomies may no longer allow for sufficiently
complex understandings of what is currently happening to English and to the
individuals, groups and communities who are appropriating, using and doing
English (Pennycook, 2003).
Chapter 1


5
The case of Myrna and the letter writer highlights how ‘English’ is
mobilized by various speakers in symbolic struggles over the distribution of
valuable material and symbolic resources. That ‘English’ can be mobilized in
different ways by various speakers indicates that it is not a unitary construct.
English is a social, ideological, historical and discursive
construction, the product of ritualized social performatives that
become sedimented into temporary subsystems…That is to say,
the temporary sedimentation of English subsystems is a result
of agentive acts, particular moves to identify, to use and adapt

available semiotic resources for a variety of goals (Pennycook,
2007b, p. 169).

In order to begin to overcome such dichotomies and to examine how
‘English’ is a social performative rooted in particular configurations of power
between speakers in specific social domains and spaces, it is necessary to
move beyond understandings of language that are framed by paradigms of
bounded nations and stationary speakers. Such paradigms which are tied to an
earlier era of nation-building still seem to be the dominant frameworks used in
studies of global English and of language in society in general. These
frameworks seem to be durable even as the deterritorialization, hyper-mobility
and intensive interconnectedness of the current era of globalization have
already destabilized them. As an important step in moving beyond such
paradigms, it is necessary to locate the functions, values and meanings of
English and the symbolic struggles over them in the world system
(Wallerstein, 2004). As Blommaert (2005) rightly argues:
In an era of globalization, the threshold of contextualization in
discourse analysis or sociolinguistics can no longer be a single
society (or even less a single event) but needs to include the
relationships between different societies and the effect of these
Chapter 1


6
relationships on repertoires of language users and their
potential to construct voice (p. 15).

On a fundamental level, taking the world system as the “threshold of
contextualization” for English means affirming that the world in which
English has the status of the global lingua franca is not a uniform space. The

ubiquity of English and its use in linguistic and cultural contact zones are
engendered and organized by inequality. Furthermore, the framework of the
world system (Wallerstein, 2004) highlights the interconnectedness of these
different scales such that “what occurs in a particular sovereign state can and
must be explained by reference to state-level dynamics, but needs to be set
simultaneously against the background of substate and superstate dynamics”
(Blommaert, 2003, p. 612).
Thus, for example, to contextualize the letter writer’s and Myrna’s
views about the functions, values and meanings of English, it would no longer
be enough to examine the asymmetrical relationship between a domestic
worker and her employer. The relationships between the different societies
that are coming into contact in the transnational field of domestic work would
need to be considered. In the case of the letter writer and Myrna, this would
mean, among other things, examining the mechanisms of and processes
involved in the labor flows between the Philippines and Singapore, two
Southeast Asian countries in contrasting stages of development, two post-
colonial states that had and that continue to have a historical and cultural
formation negotiated in and mediated by English (Pakir, 2003a).
Chapter 1


7
Voices in English
Contextualizing English in the world system does not mean denying the
creativity individuals, groups and communities exercise when they
appropriate, use and do English; it actually brings such voices into sharper
focus (Blommaert, 2005). Pennycook (1994) defines voice as “a site of
struggle where the subjectivity of the language-user confronts the conditions
of possibility formulated between language and discourse” (p. 296).
Pennycook’s definition highlights how voice is conditioned agency. To listen

to it, one needs to examine what and how social positions, identities and
subjectivities emerge when social actors use language, alongside other
material and symbolic resources, to reconstitute conditions of possibility in
their own everyday lives, and in the groups and communities which they are a
part of.
Thus, for example, the voices of the letter writer and of Myrna emerge
from their appropriation and use of English to affirm, negotiate and
reconstruct their social positions in the transnational context of domestic work
in Singapore. This notion of voice also raises other questions: How do globally
marginalized groups like FDWs find voices in English? How are we to
contextualize these voices in English in the inequalities of the world system?
What are the conditions of possibility that shape their voice? These are some
of the questions this study explores.
The case study: English-speaking Filipino domestic workers in Singapore
To develop the aforementioned themes, this study draws from the case of
FDWs in Singapore. Migrant Filipino women have come to occupy a niche as
Chapter 1


8
domestic workers in many countries (Asis, 2005).
5
Among these countries is
Singapore where, as of 2004, there were an estimated 60,000-70,000 FDWs,
almost half of the 140,000-150,000 foreign domestic workers in the city-state
(Rahman, Yeoh, & Huang, 2005).
6
Their entry into domestic work in
Singapore is facilitated by the country’s Foreign Maid Scheme which was
introduced in 1978 to enable local women to enter into or continue

participating in the labor force so that the urgent labor shortage in the rapidly
industrializing country could be ameliorated (Wong, 1996). Under this
scheme, FDWs are considered to be low-skilled ‘foreign workers’ and the
state consistently maintains a tight policy of keeping their immigration in
check and ensuring their transient and temporary status as contract migrant
workers (Rahman et al., 2005, p. 238).
In choosing FDWs in Singapore as a case study, this study analytically
considers the case’s specific context and how its different parts are configured.
More specifically, this study examines how the world system and “acts of
English identification” (Pennycook, 2007b) are configured in the flows of
migrant Filipino women into the labor market of domestic work in Singapore.
As case studies help researchers connect the micro-level, or the actions of
individual people, to the macro-level, or large scale social structures and
processes (Neuman, 2000), this study considers how macro- and micro-level


5
As of 2002, the top 10 destinations of migrant Filipino women were Saudi Arabia, Hong
Kong, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Singapore, Kuwait, Italy, United Kingdom and
Brunei (Asis, 2005).
6
The MOM does not release official figures of foreign nationals working in the country, only
ballpark estimates. The figures were based on various sources: local media, academic
publications and personal communications with representatives of the embassies of Indonesia,
the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the major source countries of foreign domestic workers in
Singapore.
Chapter 1


9

social actors in the arena of transnational domestic work discursively
appropriate English, and what the effects of these appropriations may be at
these levels. These social actors are the Philippine state, the transnational maid
agencies in Singapore and the FDWs in Singapore.
It must be noted that this is not a comparative study or a multi-sited
ethnography in the traditional sense. However, it is argued that the FDWs in
Singapore represent an exceptional case, a “special (perhaps unique) set of
circumstances or phenomena that warrant intensive study” (Bradshaw &
Wallace, 1991, p. 154). It is also argued that while this study does not compare
transnational FDWs across locales, it does look at the multiple sites and scales
where the appropriation of English plays a significant role in the constitution
of the identities of FDWs in Singapore.
Furthermore, there are a number of reasons why FDWs, in general,
represent a unique case. FDWs are, as Parreñas (2001) puts it, “servants of
globalization”. Located at the margins of the global division of reproductive
labor and regulated as a temporary and disposable workforce in Singapore,
they are, in many ways, at the losing end of globalization. They are a globally
mobile group and can be found in developed countries such as Canada and
Italy, newly developed countries such as Taiwan and Singapore, and the oil-
rich countries in the Middle East.
7
FDWs are transmigrants and their travels
are marked by multiple departures, returns and detours. A migrant Filipino


7
Filipino women are not the only transnational domestic workers. There are also increasing
numbers of transnational Indonesian domestic workers in the Middle East, Hong Kong,
Singapore and Taiwan. Transnational Sri Lankan domestic workers can be found in the
Middle East and in Singapore. Women from Latin America and the Caribbean also migrate to

work as domestic workers in the USA and Canada. FDWs though are unparalleled in their
global scope.
Chapter 1


10
woman may head first to Singapore, then to Hong Kong to work as a domestic
worker. With sufficient capital, she may apply to work as a caregiver in
Canada with the goal of eventually settling there or getting a work visa for the
United States. In between and during her stints in these various countries, she
may travel back to the Philippines to visit her family for a few weeks or to rest
for a few months. What is most striking about FDWs though is the fact that
they are ‘English-speaking’, having finished at least 10 years of schooling in
the Philippine bilingual education system where English is, at least in theory,
one of the main mediums of instruction. While no external yardsticks have
been used to measure their language ability in Singapore (Yeoh & Huang,
1998a), their competence in English has been variously cited by maid agencies
as the reason why they are paid more than their Indonesian and Sri Lankan
counterparts and why they are “suitable” for taking care of young children
who, presumably, would be in the process of acquiring and learning English at
home and in school. The FDWs competence in English is striking because this
would mean that they, a marginalized social group, possess linguistic capital
that is central in the world system and highly valuable in the linguistic
economy of Singapore.
Research questions
In this light, the research questions which this study seeks to answer are: What
are the effects of appropriations of English in transnational arenas or social
fields structured by the unequal world system? To what extent do these
appropriations reconstitute and destabilize the structuring conditions in which
they are embedded? The answers to these research questions are explored

Chapter 1


11
through a case study where I look at the discursive appropriations of English
at different levels. More specifically, I examine how centering institutions,
namely the Philippine state and the maid agencies in Singapore appropriate
English to construct the identities and index the social positions of FDWs. I
also look at how FDWs in Singapore themselves appropriate English in their
acts of English identification.
Relevance of the study
This study contributes to three main areas of inquiry: (1) language and
migration in the broader context of the emerging field of language and
globalization; (2) global English; and (3) Philippine migration.
Firstly, this study contributes to studies of language and migration, in
the context of current understandings of and debates about globalization.
There is an increasing awareness of the need to incorporate globalization in
sociolinguistic analysis (Coupland, 2003). This is especially true of
sociolinguistic studies of migration where the focus has tended to be on
permanent departures and issues of uprooting and settlement. Such a focus has
meant that:
Most authors have tended to address the role of language and
sociolinguistic domination within the context of single nation-
states, discussing the fate of speakers of “dominated” languages
within a single “dominant” society. Relatively little has been
said about the meanings and uses of migrants’ languages in
more than one national context (Koven, 2004, p. 270).

This is not to say that such studies are no longer relevant; there are still many
migrants for whom, by force or by choice, physical departure is permanent.

However, with modern technologies of communication and travel, it is now
Chapter 1


12
more likely that such departures are “transient and complex, ridden with
disruptions and detours, and based on translocal interconnections between
places and multiple chains of movement” (Yeoh, Piper, Shen, & Lorente,
2005, p. 1).
Contemporary migrations
8
no longer seem to be permanent departures.
Migrants can take a diversity of trajectories. They can be temporary labor
migrants, highly skilled and business migrants, irregular migrants (also known
as undocumented or illegal migrants), refugees, asylum-seekers, forced
migrants, family members (also known as family reunion or family
reunification migrants), and return migrants (Castles, 2000). Crucially, these
trajectories are not uni-directional. Intense cross-border social relations
facilitated in part by modern communication technology enable migrants to
operate transnationally, that is, they are able to participate in the activities of
daily life in at least two nations.
9
The migrant Filipino women in my study for
example, are part of transnational households. They work as foreign domestic
workers in Singapore but they also actively maintain relationships with their


8
I refer here specifically to international migrants who are defined as “persons living in a
country other than that in which they were born” (International Organization for Migration,

2005, p. 379).There has been a significant increase in the volume and geographic scope of
international migration. In terms of volume, there were 175 million international migrants in
the world in 2000, making one out of every 35 persons in the world an international migrant.
This total is more than double that of the 76 million international migrants in 1960
(International Organization for Migration, 2005, p. 379). It must be noted that this increase in
numbers has partly to do with the emergence of newly independent states during the 1990s
(International Organization for Migration, 2005). International migration has become one of
the main factors in social transformation and development in all regions of the world. This has
partly to do with the sheer volume of remittances that are being transmitted throughout the
world. In 2003, official data showed global levels of US$72.2 billion, more than foreign direct
investments (FDI) and foreign direct assistance (FDA) (Hugo, 2003).
9
In social geography, transnationalism has been broadly defined as the “multiple ties and
interactions linking people or institutions across the borders of nation-states” (Vertovec, 1999,
p. 447). For other discussions on transnationalism, see also Basch, Glick Schiller and Szanton
Blanc (1994) and Kearney (1995). For an overview of transnational themes that are emerging
from recent studies, see Bailey (2001) and Yeoh et al. (2003).
Chapter 1


13
families back in the Philippines by still playing the roles of wife, mother or
sister from afar. While remittances were perhaps their most tangible link to
their families back home, the women I spoke to also told me of how they
would SMS their children to remind them to do their homework or to say good
night. They participated in family decisions (e.g. whether or not a pregnant
sibling should get married, the school a niece or nephew should attend, etc.)
via long-distance calls, letters and/or by withholding or sending remittances.
There is a need, in the fields of migration studies and sociolinguistic studies of
migration to account for how transnationals such as the FDWs manage their

languages, identities and statuses in the contexts of both sending and receiving
countries (Koven, 2004).
Thus, this study departs from the traditional focus on permanent
migrants by examining the case of FDWs in Singapore who are considered to
be temporary migrants. As a transient labor force, they are geographically
mobile and they may move from destination to destination but they are
explicitly never incorporated in their host societies, such as Singapore.
10
This
study also looks at migration outside of American and Western European
contexts which are already vastly represented in literature. Instead, its broad
context is the feminized flows between the Philippines and Singapore.
In addressing the need to look at the “precise movements people (and
their symbolic attributes) make through different environments […] and […]
the larger frames within which such moves are possible, get enabled, get


10
This also raises questions with regard to conceptions of linguistic human rights and minority
language rights. The FDWs are a minority in so far as they occupy marginalized positions in
their host societies but they seem most able to publicly exercise their human rights and contest
their marginalized positions in their host societies through the medium of English.
Chapter 1


14
denied, and have effects” (Blommaert, Collins, & Slembrouck, 2005, p. 199),
this study hopes to contribute towards building sociolinguistic understandings
of language use and language users that go beyond current assumptions about
bounded nations and sedentary subjects.

Secondly, this research contributes to the study of global Englishes.
English is widely considered to be the language of globalization. As the
supposed international language (in discourses of English as an International
Language or EIL), it is regarded as the global lingua franca which according to
House (2003) often functions in a utilitarian and neutral manner among
speakers who share no other language code; such speakers collaborate in
English for local and restricted purposes, without any identity loading or
cultural investment in the language. As has been pointed out earlier, studies of
global English have tended to focus on linguistic descriptions of varieties of
English and on dichotomous debates about the implications of the global
spread and scope of English. However:
We need to understand how English is involved in global flows
of culture and knowledge, how English is used and
appropriated by users of English round the world, how English
colludes with multiple domains of globalization, from popular
culture to unpopular politics, from international capital to local
transaction, from ostensible diplomacy to purported peace-
keeping, from religious proselytizing to secular resistance
(Pennycook, 2007b, p. 159).

The foci of this study then are not on descriptions of English but rather on
interpretations of English, that is, on the indexicalities that are assigned to
English varieties, repertoires and specific forms, and mobilized by social
actors at the macro- and micro-levels. This study builds on the argument that
Chapter 1


15
English and for that matter, “good English is not a clearly definable object. It
is however, a powerful social fact” (Urciuoli, 1996, p. 107). This means a

focus on ‘English effects’: on how conceptions of English shape the “orders of
indexicality” (Blommaert, 2005), that is, the hierarchies of values and
meanings, which institutions produce and on how everyday appropriations of
English may impact the biographies of FDWs. In this regard:
The question then becomes not whether some monolithic thing
called English is imperialistic or an escape from poverty, nor
how many varieties there may be of this thing called English,
but rather what kind of mobilizations underlie acts of English
use or learning (Pennycook, 2007b, p. 171).

Finally, this study contributes a sociolinguistic perspective to the already rich
literature on the Filipino diaspora. There is a dearth of sociolinguistic studies
on the Filipino diaspora despite there being more than eight million Filipinos
overseas and despite the fact that overseas Filipino workers (henceforth
“OFWs”) are working in more than 180 countries around the world
(Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, 2006a). All of these
migrant Filipinos would know English and they would provide an altogether
new dimension to what the term “global English” signifies. This study is, to
my knowledge, the only sociolinguistic study so far that is entirely focused on
labor migration from the Philippines in general, and FDWs in Singapore in
particular.
Outline of the study
In the next chapter, I discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the study. I
describe my data collection methods in Chapter 3. Chapters 4 to 7 discuss
different dimensions of the case study. In Chapters 4 and 5, I analyze