The Singapore Chinese
community is a unique bilingual community in that it finds itself a majority group ina multi-ethnic and multilingual society but is affected by
language planning measures much more than itsminority counterparts. This unusual outcome of language planning has carried with it many intriguing factsof
research interests. Among them, the complex language situation within the community is perhaps themost conspicuous, and it merits academic investigation as well as being an immediate concern of thesociety and the government of the country. In order to address the
relevant question in the research ofsocietal
bilingualism and at the same time to infirm the society about this complicated language situation,a
survey on language use and language attitudes was conducted in the Singapore Chinese community inmid-1996. A
questionnaire survey and an observation survey were integral parts of this investigation. Atotal of 2,788 copies of a questionnaire reporting habitual language use and judgmental opinions aboutlanguages together with demographic information were collected. At the same time, 3,440 individuals wereobserved While engaging in verbal interactions in public places, and their language choice and itsethnographically relevant contextual features were reported. It is with a database as the end results of suchendeavors that we applied VRA in the research on societal bilingualism.
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