Cui Jiaoyang 崔娇阳

Education:
B.A., Renmin University of China
M.A., Double Degree of Peking University and National University of Singapore

Research Interest:
Language Contact; Modern Chinese Grammar

Introduction:
I am honored to return to NUS for further study after working for several years. It is a recharging journey and I am enjoying learning about linguistics and other subjects from both the Profs and new classmates, who always provide me with theoretical, fresh and thought-provoking perspectives on language phenomena. Living and working in this multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society of Singapore, I am intrigued by local Mandarin usage, which led me to collect data while working as a research associate at Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL) and a part-time lecturer at National Institution of Education (NIE). More importantly, it was this interest and experience that formed my thesis topic, contact-induced grammatical change in Singapore.

Supervisor: A/P Tham Shiao Wei

Thesis Title: Contact-induced Grammatical Change of Written Chinese in Singapore: Adverbialization of Cognition Verbs

This research is based on local Mandarin (Singapore Mandarin) and focuses on the emerging usage of certain cognition verbs, as compared with how they are used in Mainland Chinese. Linguistic data mainly come from local Chinese newspapers, and these novel usage patterns will be further analyzed synchronically and diachronically. This work draws on theories of language contact and grammaticalization to explain the phenomena in question.