While singular they is used predominantly to reference generic and epicene antecedents, recent studies of ‘Inner Circle English’ varieties (Kachru 2006) indicate its growing acceptability amongst younger speakers when referencing specific and definite antecedents (Conrod 2019; Moulton et al. 2020). This shift coincides with the increasing visibility of nonbinary identities and adoption of gender-neutral language in the West. Scholars have yet to examine how singular they functions in Outer Circle varieties such as Singapore English (SgE), which has been proposed to be simultaneously shifting towards internal linguistic norms while acquiring innovations from non-local varieties (Starr 2019).

This study explores various factors that influence singular they acceptability in SgE via a survey of 102 SgE speakers, who rated 54 sentence stimuli for grammaticality on a five-point scale. These stimuli varied by pronoun, definiteness of antecedent, referent’s gender prototypicality (gendered versus non-gendered personal names, e.g., Claire versus Frem), and case. Results were analyzed via linear mixed-effects modelling using the lmerTest package in R.

Significant main effects were discovered for respondents’ religiosity and gender, with religious male respondents being notably less accepting of singular they. Consistent with prior findings in Inner Circle varieties, younger respondents (aged 18 to 24) found singular they more acceptable than older ones (25 and above). Age interacted significantly with both gender and religiosity – older participants exhibited greater variation between male versus female and religious versus non-religious respondents.

The findings suggest that singular they is gaining acceptability in SgE, with certain social groups’ ideological stances constraining its adoption. The uptake of singular they in SgE underscores that external norms’ influence on Outer Circle varieties should not be uniformly characterized as the adoption of prestigious features by speakers wishing to speak more ‘standard’ varieties.