As Bokhurst-Heng comments, "The development of language meanings in Singapore is very much intertwined with the imagining of the nation" (1999; 235). This imagining requires language, and it is in the area of language ideological debates that we see the concerns of the government being reflected. She argues that the production and reproduction of these language ideologies find their nexus in the annual SMC. There are assumptions of what entails a good society, and this status is partially reflected in the language it aligns itself with.

Before we begin a discussion of the SMC, we need to introduce the impetus behind it, which has been broadly attributed to the failure of the bilingual policy in Singapore. The bilingual policy was introduced as a means of "unifying the education system and to align it with its national objectives" (Bokhurst-Heng, 1998; 293). However, its first evaluation, led by Dr. Goh Keng Swee, showed a marked failure, which his team attributed to the use of dialects in homes, along with a lack of reinforcement of Mandarin outside the schoolroom. Hence, in 1979 the Government launched the SMC, aimed at popularizing the usage of Mandarin in Singapore.

The reasons given for the launch of the campaign are three-fold: for educational reasons, communicative purposes, and cultural preservation.

From the outset, one of the ideas that the SMC put forth was that Mandarin could be used as a kind of cultural anchor. Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew commented during the days of the bilingual policy (1972) that,

    "With the language [mother tongue] go the fables and proverbs. It is the learning of a whole value system, a whole philosophy of life, that can maintain the fabric of our society intact, in spite of the exposure to all current madnesses around the world."

English was regarded as a useful economic tool, but it brought with it certain destabilising forces. The cultural baggage that came with learning the language could not be ignored and had the potential to uproot Asian, or Chinese values. Previously, English had been presented as a neutral language, but in promoting Mandarin, this stand was reversed. As Bokhurst-Heng comments, it was to prevent such a scenario (a deculturalized society) that Chinese Singaporeans were encouraged to embrace Mandarin.

Secondly, there was the educational argument. As briefly mentioned above, dialects were seen as a negative force holding back development in Mandarin in schools. Children were performing badly in Mandarin because they had to juggle the learning of too many languages. As such, Mandarin, and the dialects as a collective whole were presented as diametrical opposites, and the reduction of usage in one would lead to an improvement in the other.

Thirdly, Mandarin was argued to be suitable for communicative purposes between speakers of different dialects. Aside from supporting the educational argument listed above, by not using dialects at all, in any social setting, Mandarin was considered a useful currency outside of Singapore as well.