WELCOME TO MY HOMEPAGE.
ABOUT ME
I am a Singaporean linguist and an Associate Professor at the English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies department of the National University of Singapore. I spent time training as a PhD student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and then as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. My stints at both institutes were aided by awards at UH Mānoa; and by the Ministry of Education- National University of Singapore Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship and the National University of Singapore Overseas Graduate Scholarship.
I am mainly interested in the extreme ends of language change brought about by multilingualism, with particular focus on language endangerment and creole studies. My work also explores the intersections of language, doing linguistics, and technology, including the potential use of digital tools and artificial intelligence to support language revitalisation. Central to my current practice is an emphasis on community-engaged approaches to language documentation and revitalisation. Beyond my primary areas, I also enjoy contributing to interdisciplinary types of discussion and research, as I believe that a more holistic and integrated approach to the social sciences and humanities can do lots for linguistics, and vice versa.
Locally, I am Peranakan Chinese by birth, and I have worked on my endangered heritage language, Baba Malay for a bit. I still am trying to figure how my training allows me to do more in terms of revitalising the language, and have benefited lots from learning from community members.
In Semester 1 of AY 2026/27, I teach an advanced undergraduate seminar in language typology. In Semester 2, I teach the department's introductory linguistics course.
Outside of research and teaching, I am an Assistant Dean at the Research Division at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
And beyond academia, I enjoy being active, reading too much sci-fi and fantasy, knitting, travelling and spending time with my preschooler!
RESEARCH
GRAMMAR OF BABA MALAY
My 2014 PhD dissertation is a grammar of Baba Malay with sociophonetic considerations, and my committee members are Lyle Campbell (chairperson), Andrea Berez, Robert Blust, Katie Drager and Barbara Watson Andaya (external member).
The grammar has since been published as A Grammar of Modern Baba Malay by Mouton de Gruyter (2022). Reviews of the grammar appear in Linguistic Typology (reviewed by Peter Bakker) and Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (reviewed by Peter Slomanson).
Material collected from the field have been archived at Kaipuleohone, the University of Hawai'i Digital Ethnographic Archive.
OTHER ONGOING PROJECTS
I am one of the co-developers of the Language Endangerment Index (LEI) that is used by the Endangered Languages Catalogue (endangeredlanguages.com). If you would like to find out more about LEI, please feel free to contact me. I continue being interested in issues to do with
the assessment of language vitality, and how people talk about endangered languages in general.
I currently have a project looking at using LLMs to understand how people talk about language endangerment on online platforms, and was recently on a team that looked at implementing a constrained RAG AI for the learning of Baba Malay.
I also have more language-specific projects looking at new speakers and their relationships with Baba Malay......
GET IN TOUCH
Address:
National University of Singapore
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
National University of Singapore
Blk AS5, 7 Arts Link
Singapore 117570
Email:
nala.lee{at}nus.edu.sg