Survey: https://forms.gle/sHjaYtEnW5i72TYk6
Responses on 15 September 2019 : 36
The topic I am working on is about dying dialects in Singapore. I have identified my target audience as young adults between the age of 16- 29. This survey that I have conducted aims to find out what younger generation think of the issue of dying dialects in Singapore. Through the survey, I hope to understand my targetted audience and their opinions on this issue.
QUESTIONNAIRE
This survey is divided into 3 sections.
First Section – The first section of this survey includes introduction questions. It is to have some basic background information and to also act as warm up questions.
Second Section – The second part of this survey aims to understand the audience at a deeper level and how often they use dialect to communicate.
Third section- This section aims to find out the audience’s perspective of the issue on dying dialects in Singapore and how willing they are to preserve our heritage.
FINDINGS
In the questionnaire, the age range was divided into 4 groups : below 16, 16-29, 29-35 and 35+. Although I am aiming to target at people between 16-29, I thought is good to open up the survey to all ages as I would get different views and would help to broaden my understanding.
16-29years old = 31, 29-35years old = 4, Below 16 = 1
Out of 36 responses, about 80% of the younger generation seldom/ do not speak in dialect (8 people never speak in dialect and 21 seldom speak). One of the main/ most common reason why they do not speak in dialect is because they do not know how to/ they are not good at it.
More than half of the respondents communicate with their grandparents in dialect. This could be because many elderly in Singapore speak primarily in dialect. One point that caught my attention is 30% speak dialect to their friends because I rarely/ never hear any of my friends speaking in dialect.
Almost all respondents (70%) understand their dialect (3 and above) and 45% (3 and above) are able to speak well in their dialect.
45% are able to speak well in dialect but only less than 20% of respondents (as seen in the chart above) often speak in dialects.
Majority of the respondents feels that the purpose of learning dialect is to communicate with their grandparents and to preserve our heritage.
About 80% of respondents are aware/ partly aware of these issues on dying dialects in Singapore. All respondents agree that they might be more willing to use dialect if they have sufficient knowledge about it.
Majority of respondents feel that dialect is important for the younger generation because of communication with grandparents and to preserve our heritage. One respondents mention about dialect being our mother tongue. I found this very interesting, even though all my respondents are able to identify the dialect group they belong to, but I guess if I were to guess what their mother tongue language is, all respondents will reply Mandarin. This common misconception about what that are commonly referred to as dialects today are also a subgroup of Mandarin.
In conclusion, I feel that majority the respondents feel that dialect is important so that we could communicate better with the elderly in Singapore as well as to preserve our heritage. However, many do not have sufficient knowledge about their dialects and it might be one of the reason why it stops them from speaking in dialects.
I personally feel that dialect plays an important part in our heritage. We should preserve our it not just for it to be left as part of history.