Dr Lisa Lim

(BA NUS; PhD Reading)
Tel: 2859 2871
Office: MB 206
Email: lisalim@hku.hk

{Profile} {Publications}

Profile

Dr Lisa Lim, a Peranakan Chinese Singaporean, was at the Department of English Language and Literature of the National University of Singapore until 2003; in 2004 she exchanged balmy breezes for North Sea winds to be at the University of Amsterdam until 2009, for a year at the Institute of Phonetic Sciences, and then as senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of English and the Amsterdam Centre for Language and Communication (ACLC). She is thrilled to be back in tropical Asia. Her research areas centre around phonetics/phonology/prosody, sociolinguistics, endangered languages, language documentation, and New Englishes, especially postcolonial varieties of Asia, such as Singapore English, with particular interest in contact dynamics, involving both sociohistorical and linguistic investigation. She has (co-/) edited a number of volumes and special issues, in particular on both structural and sociolinguistics aspects of English in Asia, and is currently co-authoring (with U. Ansaldo) Languages in Contact for CUP. She serves on the editorial board for World Englishes.

The ongoing results of two previous research projects are the following:

The Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC) was collected for the project Towards a Reference Grammar of Singapore English, which was funded by a National University of Singapore Academic Research Grant R-103-000-003-112 (Lisa Lim and Joseph A. Foley, principal investigators; Vivienne Fong, Ni Yi-Bin and Lionel Wee, project members; 1998-2001). GSSEC, collected in the period 1998-99, comprises 32 recorded extracts, coming to approximately 8 hours of conversation, totalling over 60,000 words, of naturally occurring spontaneous discourse of native Singapore English speakers, varying along a number of demographic variables, such as age, gender, ethnic group, and education level. [The data have also been incorporated into the Singapore component of the International Computerised Corpus of English (ICCE-SIN).] The recordings are accompanied by orthographic transcriptions. Researchers are welcome to use the corpus, observing the Ground Rules and Conventions. [download pdf] Requests should be sent to Lisa Lim (lisa.ls.lim@gmail.com), enclosing a completed Usage Declaration form. [download pdf] Users must acknowledge GSSEC as a source in their research (citing Lim 2001 and Lim & Foley 2004), and should send a copy of any resources derived from the data (publications, additional annotations or analyses, etc.) to Lisa Lim.

The documentation of Sri Lanka Malay: Linguistic and cultural creolization endangered, a project funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung’s initiative for the Documentation of Endangered Languages (DoBeS) (2004-2009), involving Umberto Ansaldo (principal investigator; then University of Amsterdam, now University of Hong Kong), Lisa Lim (co-investigator and project manager; then University of Amsterdam, now University of Hong Kong), Walter Bisang (collaborator; Universität Mainz, Germany), Thiru Kandiah (collaborator; University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and Curtin University), Sebastian Nordhoff (PhD researcher, University of Amsterdam). The digital archive is accessible at the project webpage at http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/slm

 

Course offered in 2010-11:

LCOM1001 Introduction to Language &Communication
 LCOM2005 Language, Communication & Globalisation
LCOM3001 Cultural Dimensions of Language &Communication

 

Publications (selected, from 2003)

Authored books 

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. in prep. Languages in  contact. (Key Topics in Sociolinguistics.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Saldin, B.D.K. In collaboration with Lisa Lim. 2007. Kamus Bahasa Melayu Sri Lanka. A Sri Lanka Malay–Malay–English dictionary. Colombo; Frankfurt/ Nijmegen: Volkswagen Stiftung/ DoBeS.

 

Edited collections and special issues 

Lim, Lisa, Christopher Stroud & Lionel Wee, eds. in prep. The multilingual citizen. Towards a politics of language for agency and change. (Encounters.) Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.

Lim, Lisa, Anne Pakir & Lionel Wee, eds. 2010 forthcoming. English in Singapore: World language and lingua franca. (Asian Englishes Today.) Hong Kong University Press.

Lim, Lisa & Nikolas Gisborne, eds. 2009. The typology of Asian Englishes. Special Issue, English World-Wide 30(2). [Link to EWW Special Issue TOC]

Lim, Lisa & Low Ee-Ling, eds. 2009. Multilingual, globalizing Asia: Implications for policy and education. Special Issue, AILA Review 22. [Link to AILA Review TOC and abstracts]

Ansaldo, Umberto, Stephen Matthews & Lisa Lim, eds. 2007. Deconstructing creole. (Typological Studies in Language 73.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Lim, Lisa, ed. 2004. Singapore English: A grammatical description. (Varieties of English Around the World G33.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Link to volume TOC]

 

Articles in journals & volumes 

Forthcoming/ in preparation

Ansaldo, Umberto & Lisa Lim. in prep. Citizenship theory and fieldwork practice in Sri Lanka Malay communities. In Lisa Lim, Christopher Stroud & Lionel Wee, eds. The Multilingual Citizen: Towards a Politics of Language for Agency and Change. (Encounters.) Manchester: St Jerome Press.

Ansaldo, Umberto and Lisa Lim. forthcoming. Areal features of English in Asia: The case of tone. In Raymond Hickey, ed. Areal Features of the Anglophone World. (Topics in English Linguistics.) Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. Singapore: Language situation. In Rint Sybesma, ed. The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. Singlish. In Rint Sybesma, ed. The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. English and multilingualism in Singapore. In Carol Chappell, ed. The Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. Standards of English in Southeast Asia. In Raymond Hickey, ed. Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World. (Studies in English Language.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. The politics of English (and Sinhala and Tamil) in Sri Lanka: Kaduva for privileged power, tool for rural empowerment? In Lionel Wee, Lisa Lim  & Robbie Goh, eds. The Politics of English in Asia: Language Policy and Cultural Expression in South and Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific. (Studies in World Language Problems.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Lim, Lisa. in prep. Southeast Asia. In Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola & Devyani Sharma, eds. The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lim, Lisa. forthcoming. Tone in Singlish: Substrate features from Sinitic and Malay. In Claire Lefebvre, ed. Creoles, Their Substrates and Language Typology. (Typological Studies in Language.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. in prep. Contact in the Asian arena. In Terttu Nevalainen and Elizabeth Closs Traugott, eds. Handbook on the History of English: Rethinking Approaches to the History of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. in prep. The mechanisms of contact must be complex: Singapore English particles as a case of categorial fusion.

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2011. Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish). In Bernd Kortmann, ed. The World Atlas of Variation in English: Grammar. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. forthcoming. Singlish. In Michaelis, Susanne, Philippe Maurer, Magnus Huber & Martin Haspelmath, eds. The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

2010

Lim, Lisa. 2010. Peranakan English in Singapore. In Daniel Schreier, Peter Trudgill, Edgar W. Schneider & Jeffrey P. Williams, eds. The Lesser-Known Varieties of English: An Introduction. (Studies in English Language.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 327-347. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa. 2010. Migrants and ‘mother tongues’: Extralinguistic forces in the ecology of English in Singapore. In Lisa Lim, Anne Pakir & Lionel Wee, eds. English in Singapore: Modernity and Management. (Asian Englishes Today.) Hong Kong University Press. 19-54.


Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2010. Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish). In Bernd Kortmann & Kerstin Lunkenheimer, eds. The Electronic World Atlas of Variation in English: Grammar. Max Planck Digital Library in cooperation with Mouton de Gruyter.

Lim, Lisa, Anne Pakir & Lionel Wee. 2010. English in Singapore: Policy and practice. In Lisa Lim, Anne Pakir & Lionel Wee, eds. English in Singapore: Modernity and Management. (Asian Englishes Today.) Hong Kong University Press.

 

2009

Lim, Lisa. 2009. Revisiting English prosody: (Some) New Englishes as tone languages? In Lim, Lisa & Nikolas Gisborne, eds. The Typology of Asian Englishes Special Issue, English World-Wide 30(2): 218-239. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa. 2009. Beyond fear and loathing in SG: The real mother tongues and language policies in multilingual Singapore. In Lim, Lisa & Low Ee-Ling, eds. Multilingual, globalizing Asia: Implications for policy and education. Special Issue, AILA Review 22: 52-71. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa. 2009. Not just an 'Outer Circle', 'Asian' English: Singapore English and the significance of ecology. In Thomas Hoffman & Lucia Siebers, eds. World Englishes: Problems, Properties, Prospects. (Varieties of English Around the World G40.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 179-206.

Lim, Lisa & Nikolas Gisborne. 2009. The typology of Asian Englishes: Setting the agenda. In Lim, Lisa & Nikolas Gisborne, eds. The Typology of Asian Englishes Special Issue, English World-Wide 30(2): 123-132. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa & Low Ee-Ling. 2009. Introduction. In Lim, Lisa & Low Ee-Ling, eds. Multilingual, globalizing Asia: Implications for policy and education. Special Issue, AILA Review 22: 1-4.

 

2007-2008

Lim, Lisa. 2008. Dynamic linguistic ecologies of Asian Englishes. Asian Englishes 11(1): 52-55.

Ansaldo, Umberto, Lisa Lim & Salikoko S. Mufwene. 2007. The sociolinguistic history of the Peranakans: What it tells us about ‘creolization’. In Ansaldo, Umberto, Stephen Matthews & Lisa Lim, eds. Deconstructing creole. (Typological Studies in Language 73.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 203-226.

Lim, Lisa. 2007. Mergers and acquisitions: On the ages and origins of Singapore English particles. World Englishes 27(4): 446-473. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2007. Identity alignment in the multilingual space: The Malays of Sri Lanka. In Anchimbe, Eric A., ed. Linguistic identity in postcolonial multilingual spaces. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 218-243. [download pre-print version pdf]

 

2005-2006

Ansaldo, Umberto & Lisa Lim. 2006. Globalisation, empowerment and the periphery: The Malays of Sri Lanka. In Elangaiyan, R., R. McKenna Brown, Nicholas D.M. Ostler & Mahendra K. Verma, eds. Vital Voices: Endangered Languages and Multilingualism. Proceedings of the FEL X Conference. Bath: Foundation for Endangered Languages; & Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. 39-46. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2006. Keeping Kirinda vital: The endangerment-empowerment dilemma in the documentation of Sri Lanka Malay. In Aboh, Enoch & Miriam van Staden, eds. ACLC (Amsterdam Centre for Language & Communication) Working Papers 1: 51-66. [download pdf]

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2005. Countries and Languages – Asia. Singapore. In Brown, Keith, ed. The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed. Elsevier Publishers.

Ng, Sandy & Lisa Lim. 2005. Appreciating language contact in pronunciation teaching: Local languages’ effect on Singapore English. In Deng, Xudong, Victor Matthew Cole, Maria Luisa C. Sadorra & Wu Siew Mei, eds. Paradigm shifts in English Language teaching and learning. (Selected Papers from the Inaugural CELC International Symposium.) Singapore: Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore. 143-154.

 

2003-2004

Ansaldo, Umberto & Lisa Lim. 2004. Phonetic absence as syntactic prominence: Grammaticalization in isolating tonal languages. In Fischer, Olga, Muriel Norde & Harry Perridon, eds. Up and down the cline – The nature of grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language 59.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 345-362.

Lim, Lisa. 2004. Sounding Singaporean. In Lim, Lisa, ed. Singapore English: A grammatical description. (Varieties of English Around the World G33.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 19-56.

Lim, Lisa. 2004. Everything you wanted to know about how stressed Singaporean Englishes are. In Burusphat, Somsonge, ed. Papers from the eleventh annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.

Lim, Lisa & Joseph A. Foley. 2004. English in Singapore and Singapore English: Background and methodology. In Lim, Lisa, ed. Singapore English: A grammatical description. (Varieties of English Around the World G33.) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1-18.

Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2003. Sounds Cocos. In Solé, M.J., D. Recasens & J. Romero, eds. Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS2003). Barcelona: The 15th ICPhS Organizing Committee. 803-806.

 
 


Last updated: 12 July 2011