Lisa Lim, Assoc. Prof.
UNESCO Chair, VinUniversity
Director of Engagement and Development
Biography
Associate Professor Lisa Lim is Director of Engagement and Development for VinUniversity’s UNESCO Chair in Environmental Leadership, Cultural Heritage, and Biodiversity.
She previously has held professoriate positions at leading educational institutions in Asia, Europe, and Australia, including the National University of Singapore, and Universiteit van Amsterdam, and more recently has taken on leadership positions, including as Head, School of English, University of Hong Kong (2016-2018), Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney (2019-2020), and Dean International, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University (2022-2025).
Her interests centre around: language contact and evolution, in particular in New Englishes, especially Asian varieties in multilingual ecologies, such as Singapore and Hong Kong; issues of language shift, endangerment, revitalisation, postvernacular vitality, and intangible cultural heritage of minority and endangered language communities, such as the Peranakans in Singapore and the Malays of Sri Lanka; the sociolinguistics of globalisation, with attention to mobility, urban multilingualism, computer-mediated communication, and their impact on contact dynamics; and environmental linguistics.
Her books include Languages in Contact (Cambridge University Press, 2016, with Umberto Ansaldo), and The Multilingual Citizen (Multilingual Matters, 2018, co-edited with Christopher Stroud and Lionel Wee), which was shortlisted for the British Association for Applied Linguistics Book Prize 2019.
Associate Professor Lim is a longstanding consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary, for Singapore English and Hong Kong English, and is a member of their Advisory Forum. She has also helmed a regular column, Language Matters, in the South China Morning Post since 2016: all her columns can be found at http://www.scmp.com/author/lisa-lim.
- Linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism
- Contact linguistics
- Language shift, endangerment, and revitalisation
- Sociolinguistics of globalisation
- Migration linguistics
- Environmental linguistics
Associate Professor Lisa Lim has been consulted on her research and expertise in various media, including The Economist, New Scientist, Australia’s Channel 9 News, ABC Radio, ABC Radio Hobart, Triple U FM, Adelaide Radio, China Global Television Network, Radio and Television Hong Kong’s Backchat, South China Morning Post, Time Out Hong Kong, and Channel News Asia.
- Sociolinguistics
- World Englishes
- Contact linguistics
- Phonetics and phonology
- Language endangerment
- Language and globalisation
- Cross cultural communication
- Research methods and fieldwork methods
Books and edited volumes
1. Borlongan, Ariane M. & Lisa Lim, eds. 2024. Multilingualism and Mobility in the Twenty-First Century: New Trajectories and Possibilities in Migration Linguistics. Special Issue, AILA Review 37(1). https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.37.1
2. Lim, Lisa, Christopher Stroud & Lionel Wee, eds. 2018. The Multilingual Citizen. Towards a Politics of Language for Agency and Change. Encounters. Multilingual Matters.
3. Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2016. Languages in Contact. Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Goh, Robbie, Lisa Lim & Lionel Wee, eds. 2013. 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 4. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
5. Lim, Lisa, Anne Pakir & Lionel Wee, eds. 2010. English in Singapore: Modernity and Management. Asian Englishes Today. Hong Kong University Press.
6. Lim, Lisa & Nikolas Gisborne, eds. 2009. The Typology of Asian Englishes. Special Issue, English World-Wide 30(2).
7. Lim, Lisa & Ee-Ling Low, eds. 2009. Multilingual, Globalising Asia: Implications for Policy and Education. AILA Review 22.
8. Ansaldo, Umberto, Stephen Matthews & Lisa Lim, eds. 2007. Deconstructing Creole. Typological Studies in Language 73. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
9. Lim, Lisa, ed. 2004. Singapore English: A Grammatical Description. Varieties of English Around the World G33. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Articles and chapters (selected)
10. Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. fc. The sustainable linguist and indigenous environmental knowledge in Asia. In Shin Yi Chew, Stefanie Pillai & R.K. Shangeetha, eds. Glimpses into the Future of Language Use in Asia. Routledge.
11. Lim, Lisa. In prep. Un/anticipated itineraries: Mobilities, contact, and the evolution of Asian Englishes. In Ariane M. Borlongan, Shirley Dita, Lisa Lim & Stefanie Pillai, eds. Asianizing Englishes: Diversities, Complexities, Possibilities. New Directions in World Englishes Research, Edinburgh University Press.
12. Borlongan, Ariane Macalinga and Lisa Lim. 2024. Multilingualism and mobility in the twenty-first century: An agenda for migration linguistics. In Ariane M. Borlongan & Lisa Lim, eds. Multilingualism and Mobility in the Twenty-First Century: New Trajectories and Possibilities in Migration Linguistics. Special Issue, AILA Review 37(1):1-9. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.00058.bor
13. Lim, Lisa. 2024. Defining migrants: Invisibilities, im/mobilities, and integration. In Ariane M. Borlongan & Lisa Lim, eds. Multilingualism and Mobility in the Twenty-First Century: New Trajectories and Possibilities in Migration Linguistics. Special Issue, AILA Review 37(1): 10-34. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.24007.lim
14. Lim, Lisa. 2024. Pidgins and Creoles in Southeast Asia. In Andrew Moody, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Southeast Asian Englishes. Oxford University Press. 54-74. DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192855282.013.4
15. Lim, Lisa. 2022. What it is like in words: Sociolinguistic itineraries and afterlives in global Asias. In Jerry Won Lee, ed. The Sociolinguistics of Global Asias. Routledge. 57-72. https://www.routledge.com/The-Sociolinguistics-of-Global-Asias/Lee/p/book/9780367646912
16. Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2021. Foundings and futures: How to live like a Peranakan in the post-digital ecology. In Enoch O. Aboh & Cécile B. Vigoroux, eds. Variation Rolls the Dice: A Worldwide Collage in Honour of Salikoko S. Mufwene. Contact Language Library 59. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 243–267. https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.59.10lim
17. Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2021. Contact, Asia, and the rethinking of Englishes in multilingual ecologies. In Alexander Onysko, ed. Developments in Research on World Englishes. Bloomsbury Advances in World Englishes. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 73-94. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350167087.ch-005
18. Lim, Lisa. 2020. Im/Mobilities. In Umberto Ansaldo & Miriam Meyerhoff, eds. Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages. London/ New York: Routledge. 335-347. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003107224-21
19. Lim, Lisa. 2015. Coming of age, coming full circle: The (re)positioning of (Singapore) English and multilingualism in Singapore at 50. Asian Englishes 17(3): 261-270. https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2015.1090772
20. Ansaldo, Umberto & Lisa Lim. 2014. The lifecycle of Sri Lanka Malay. Language Endangerment and Preservation in South Asia. Special Issue, Language Documentation and Conservation 7: 100-118. doi: 978-0-9856211-4-8
21. Lim, Lisa. 2009. Revisiting English prosody: (Some) New Englishes as tone languages? The Typology of Asian Englishes, Special Issue, English World-Wide 30(2). 218-239. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.30.2.06lim
22. Lim, Lisa. 2007. Mergers and acquisitions: On the ages and origins of Singapore English particles. World Englishes 27(4): 446-473.
23. Lim, Lisa & Umberto Ansaldo. 2006. Keeping Kirinda vital: The endangerment-empowerment dilemma in the documentation of Sri Lanka Malay. In Enoch O. Aboh & Miriam van Staden, eds. ACLC (Amsterdam Centre for Language & Communication) Working Papers 1: 51-66.
The genuine societal engagement and impact of her work has received recognition, including:
- Humanities Industry/ Community Partnership and Engagement Staff Choice Award 2024, awarded by Curtin University Faculty of Humanities
- Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award 2014, awarded by the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Arts
- Annugerah Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language Award) 2007, for contribution to the advancing of the Sri Lanka Malay language, awarded by the Conference of Sri Lanka Malays (COSLAM), Colombo, Sri Lanka.
