News
Gods Have Eyes: Praying Online in Singapore
The Daoist Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple (新加坡韮菜 芭城隍庙) started their ‘Praying Online’ initiative on 7 April 2020, to adapt to the newly-implemented safe-distancing measures that were introduced to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Singapore. The pandemic marked a paradigm shift for religious groups and places of worship in Singapore, having to quickly adopt new technologies to shift religious events online. Assistant Professor Alvin Eng Hui Lim (NUS English, Linguistics & Theatre Studies) explores how religious groups have constructed their online multimedia efforts, through primarily visual channels like live-streaming and broadcasting in his chapter, ‘Gods Have Eyes: Praying Online in Singapore’, in CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age (University of Hawaii Press, 2023). He finds that while the religious events were subject to minimal production and postproduction, with little camera movement and cuts, they maintained their focus on spirituality through persuasive techniques and encouraging online prayer. Asst. Prof. Lim discusses the Christian churches’ use of PowerPoint slides over the years and how they transitioned online through the use of such presentation tools. He also evaluates the different practices elicited by the different groups online, such as the live-streamed videos of the deity, via the effigy, broadcast by …
Gods Have Eyes: Praying Online in Singapore Read More »
Read More
22 NUS programmes in global top 10 in QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025
History of Art, Geography, Linguistics and Politics & International Studies at NUS ranked in the Global Top 10 of the latest Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS WUR) by Subject 2025 released on 12 March 2025.
Read More
Recent linguistics alumnus receive LSA student abstract award
Recent alumnus Kunmei Han (PhD in linguistics 2024, now lecturer at Shenzhen University) won the second prize of the Student Abstract Award at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of America. This title of her abstract is “LIWC Approach Towards Healthy Aging Languages”. More information: https://www.lsadc.org/student_abstract_award
Read More
Exploring the Early Printing Press: EN5241 Students Take Rare Books Tour of the National Library of Singapore (NLS)
By Timothy Wan (Literature MA-by-research student) As research students in EN5241: Literature and New Worlds, 1590-1700, we studied British and Anglophone texts from the early modern period. This was a period when a variety of technological advancements made the world increasingly, and rather suddenly, interconnected, while also opening new scientific ‘worlds’ via optical instruments (from the microscopic to the cosmic). “Encounter” is a major concern in literature of the period, especially in travel writing, a massively popular genre, and the many fictional voyages based on that body of work. Across our term, we asked questions such as: Why were people interested in writing about new or distant locales? How and why did these writers represent other peoples, cultures, and countries, particularly before England’s colonial expansion? How do they describe novelty or difference? And how do their textual networks anticipate today’s globalized world?
Read More
Moving beyond career success to serve with purpose, integrity and compassion
“As you step into the world, may you step out to lead with purpose, with integrity, with compassion, not just for your career but for the greater good.” This was the clarion call sounded by Ms Denise Phua, Member of Parliament for Jalan Besar GRC and Mayor for Central Singapore District, to a 100-strong audience at a recent talk where she shared insights on career transitions and effective leadership.
Read More
NUS Linguists Make Breakthrough Discovery on Detecting Early Linguistic Signs of Dementia by Studying the Natural Speech of Seniors
The novel study revealed that participants with memory-related mild cognitive impairment spoke less and used fewer, but more abstract, nouns that is consistent with the speech pattern of Alzheimer’s patients.
Read More
Edwin Thumboo Prize 2024
The Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has awarded the Edwin Thumboo Prize 2024 to two pre-university students for their excellent literary work. Named after one of Singapore’s most prominent poets and scholars, the Edwin Thumboo Prize aims to promote excellence in the study of Literature at the pre-university level by recognising outstanding literary works by A-level and International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBDP) students of English Literature in Singapore. It is administered by the Department with support from the Ministry of Education (MOE). The Prize, established in 2019, is funded by generous donors, including patrons of the arts and former winners of the Angus Ross Prize. Winner Mr Raphael Niu Raffles Institution $200 prize award Raphael Niu Raphael’s essay on Andrew Marvell’s Selected Poems and Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella was exceptionally and eloquently poised in his observations about these two seminal poets. His essay, Truth and Reality in Andrew Marvell’s Selected Poems and Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella clearly epitomized good literary writing and was characterized by an unusual degree of refreshing insights. The perceptive links made between the two poets were both convincing …
Edwin Thumboo Prize 2024 Read More »
Read More
NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences alumni honoured for contributions to public service, education, literature and the corporate sector
FASS paid tribute on 15 May 2024 to four eminent alumni for their outstanding contributions towards nation-building, growth of the university, the promotion of the arts and social sciences, and impact in the private sector.
Read More
Is it in Colloquial Singapore English: What variation can tell us about its conventions and development
The Speak Good English campaign, launched on 29 April 2000 by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, aimed to improve the English-speaking proficiencies of Singaporeans. This was due to a growing concern about the prevalence of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), commonly known as ‘Singlish’, a variant of English that the government once saw as grammatically incorrect. CSE has developed as a product of language contact in a multicultural society, growing to become a marker of the Singaporean identity. It has become one of the most prominent forms of post-colonial English and is studied as a World English. Associate Professor Mie Hiramoto (NUS English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies) studies some of the unique features of Colloquial Singapore English in “Is it in Colloquial Singapore English: What variation can tell us about its conventions and development” (English Today, 2022). Hiramoto and other linguists look into features at the various language levels, such as phonetics, morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Specifically, they zero in on the use of the term, “is it”, modelling its usage through statistical studies. Through this analysis, they investigate how CSE users tended to use this term and how they constructed is it questions. The research identifies the different strategies and …
Read More