Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Series Editors’ Preface
- 1Language and Transnational Domestic Workers
- 2The Making of ‘Workers of the World’: Language and the Labor Brokerage State
- 3Assembling the ‘Supermaid’: Language and Communication Skills for ‘Vulnerable Occupations’
- 4Marketing Domestic Workers: Maid Agencies in Singapore
- 5The English-Speaking Other Looks Back
- 6Translating Selves: The Trajectories of Transnational Filipino Domestic Workers
- 7Conclusion
- Appendices
- References
- Index
5 - The English-Speaking Other Looks Back
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2026
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Series Editors’ Preface
- 1Language and Transnational Domestic Workers
- 2The Making of ‘Workers of the World’: Language and the Labor Brokerage State
- 3Assembling the ‘Supermaid’: Language and Communication Skills for ‘Vulnerable Occupations’
- 4Marketing Domestic Workers: Maid Agencies in Singapore
- 5The English-Speaking Other Looks Back
- 6Translating Selves: The Trajectories of Transnational Filipino Domestic Workers
- 7Conclusion
- Appendices
- References
- Index
Summary
Anna was a Filipino domestic worker (FDW) I met in Singapore on a Sunday in April 2001, on what would turn out to be the first day of my PhD fieldwork. It was my first day as a volunteer teacher in the Filipino Overseas Workers in Singapore (FOWS) skills training program. I had been tasked to teach English to FDWs who had enrolled in the nursing aide course. Anna was one of my students and she, along with two other women, had stayed behind in the classroom as the rest of the students took a 15-minute break. In the course of talking about her employer, Anna told me that her employer's 'bad English' was one of the reasons why her English had deteriorated in Singapore:
She had an anecdote about the 'bad English' of her employers. One time, her employer's husband called to say they would not be home for dinner and then he instructed her '...so you eat yourself'. 'Eat myself, sir?! But where do I begin? My foot?! My finger?!' She repeated the punchline, much to the amusement of her two classmates (and me). She complained about the English used by her Singaporean employers and said that she had been forced to learn to speak Singlish because when she spoke 'good English' or 'yung English ba na parang yung sa atin' (the English that's like what we speak back home), her employers would say 'Ha? Cannot understand you'. (Field notes, 1 April 2001)
Anna's joke about her employer's English was the first of many jokes I heard in Singapore that poked fun at the English of Singaporean Chinese employers. Anna had earlier described her employer as a 'perfectionist' who was always correcting her; the joke was a temporary reversal of that pattern as Anna was showing how she knew 'better' English than her employer.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scripts of ServitudeLanguage, Labor Migration and Transnational Domestic Work, pp. 96 - 125Publisher: Multilingual MattersFirst published in: 2026
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the eReader version of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.