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Abstract
The need to participate in a globalised economy creates a situation where 'the ability to cross boundaries' and the 'construction of new global, international norms' are especially important, and this has led to the 'old politics of identity' being increasingly abandoned 'in favour of a new pragmatic position' where language and culture are valued as commodifiable resources (Heller, 1999a: 5). In Singapore, this move towards a more pragmatic view of language can be seen in the Government's attempt to assert the economic value of the local languages, officially known as 'mother tongues'. The mother tongues originally contrast with English in a narrative where they are treated primarily as repositories of cultural values, and thus assigned to a domain (the traditional and cultural) that is distinct from that assigned to the latter (the economic and technological). This paper explores the factors motivating the Government's shift towards a discourse of linguistic instrumentalism, as well as its consequences, and ends by suggesting some possible general features of linguistic instrumentalism.