Before discussing the difference between Singlish and English,
one must first define Singlish first. According to Wikipedia,
"Singlish is a creole interlanguage native to Malaysia and
Singapore." Also to note, in a strict sense, a creole interlanguage
is not a language by itself.
Contrary to popular believes, Singlish is NOT the official
language of Singapore, in fact, it is only an informal variation of
the language ( or a collection of slangs ) that is spoken in
informal situations. Since it is not the official language, English
lessons taught in Singapore does not tolerate Singlish. In our
Secondary School years ( or Junior High School, as how it is
termed in Taiwan. ), teachers made it clear that there are times
for using informal languages, however, when in academic
environments, students should use formal and standard English,
that simply means no slangs and informal grammar.
Singapore is notorious for its widespread use of its informal
variation of the English language. However, the government is
aware of this problem, and is in the process of trying to correct
it. Campaigns such as the Speak Good English Movement is an
example of efforts done to correct this problem.
Furthermore, this problem is not so apparent in better schools,
such as the one that I came from ( Temasek Junior College,
ranked 3rd or 4th in Singapore. ). In these schools, students
tends to stay out of Singlish even in informal situation, although
some slang terms are still used. Also to note, students from
Junior Colleges have to take the Cambridge A'Level as their
graduation exam. The Cambridge A'Level is an examination
conducted by the Cambridge University in England, from which
we can expect no Singlish. From the generally well performance
of Singaporean students in the A'Level ( yes, the detestable
General Paper included. ), one can reasonably deduce that the
English language used by these students are pretty standard.
It is also important to note that Singlish have its own distinct
grammar and terms. It is a misconception that Singlish is just
some poorly written English. In Singlish, when we say "kanna",
it means that we are "going to get it" ( mostly used to describe
receiving deserved punishments. ), as you see, the Singlish way
of expressing the idea does not involve any misspelling of
English words, nor does it involve poorly formed grammar.
Although Singlish can sometime be interpreted as poorly formed
English, but Singlish does have it own set of grammar, which is
similar to both the Chinese grammar and the English grammar.
Now onto the topic of the meaning and usage of the word
"contention". This word is often used to describe competition
between two entities. For example: "There is a contention for the
first place in the competition.". Although this can also be used to
describe controversial issues, but such meaning cannot be
represented just with the word "contention" alone. I would
suggest using the term "contentious issues", or just
"controversial issues", which fits the context better. It is worth
mentioning that "contention" is seldom used alone, instead, it is
often used with words such as "between", or "of".