Lionel Wee
List of John Benjamins publications in which Lionel Wee is involved.
Book series
ISSN 1572-1183
Journal
ISSN 0172-8865 | E‑ISSN 1569‑9730
Title
The Politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific
Edited by Lionel Wee, Robbie B.H. Goh and Lisa Lim
This volume brings together contributions that explore the increasingly important roles that English plays in Asia, including its contribution to economic growth, national imaginaries and creative writing. These are issues that are political in a broad sense, but the diversity of Asian contexts… read more[Studies in World Language Problems, 4] 2013. ix, 322 pp.
2022 Globalization Handbook of Pragmatics: 25th Annual Installment, Brisard, Frank, Sigurd D’hondt, Pedro Gras and Mieke Vandenbroucke (eds.), pp. 91–106 | Chapter
2017 The party’s over? Singapore politics and the ‘new normal’ Language and Citizenship: Broadening the agenda, Milani, Tommaso M. (ed.), pp. 137–160 | Article
This paper highlights the dynamic nature of the relationship between government and society, drawing on as a case study the changing relationship between the Singapore government and the citizenry. I discuss the conditions under which the People’s Action Party is under pressure to change its style… read more
2016 Situating affect in linguistic landscapes Linguistic Landscape 2:2, pp. 105–126 | Article
2015 Adding insult to inquiry Pragmatics and Society 6:1, pp. 1–21 | Article
While compliments are usually intended to give credit and insults offense, the latter cannot simply be treated as opposites of the former. For example, a speaker can give credit to others as well as himself/herself. But while a speaker can offend others, it is less clear that a speaker can offend… read more
2015 Review of Leimgruber (2013): Singapore English: Structure, Variation, and Usage English World-Wide 36:2, pp. 259–263 | Review
2015 The party’s over? Singapore politics and the ‘new normal’ Language & Citizenship, Milani, Tommaso M. (ed.), pp. 455–478 | Article
This paper highlights the dynamic nature of the relationship between government and society, drawing on as a case study the changing relationship between the Singapore government and the citizenry. I discuss the conditions under which the People’s Action Party is under pressure to change its style… read more
2014 The Evolution of Singlish: Beyond Phase 5? The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and beyond, Buschfeld, Sarah, Thomas Hoffmann, Magnus Huber and Alexander Kautzsch (eds.), pp. 126–141 | Article
This paper focuses on the development of Singlish and shows that the study of Singlish provides us with useful information about how the development of (varieties of) English is related to issues of language, identity and culture in a rapidly globalizing world. As such, it raises the important… read more
2013 6. Governing English in Singapore: Some challenges for Singapore’s language policy The Politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific, Wee, Lionel, Robbie B.H. Goh and Lisa Lim (eds.), pp. 105–124 | Article
A critical assessment of Singapore’s language policy, focusing specifically on issues and challenges that arise from the government’s positioning of the English language, shows how the policy needs to be understood in relation to the government’s attempt to maintain harmony in an… read more
2013 16. Conclusion The Politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific, Wee, Lionel, Robbie B.H. Goh and Lisa Lim (eds.), pp. 303–316 | Article
2012 Review of Schneider (2011): English Around the World. An Introduction English World-Wide 33:1, pp. 100–104 | Review
2012 Review of Kachru & Nelson (2006): World Englishes in Asian Contexts English World-Wide 33:1, pp. 95–99 | Review
2011 The ranked list as Panopticon in enterprise culture Pragmatics and Society 2:1, pp. 37–56 | Article
The emergence of enterprise culture has raised the issue of how techniques of governmentality are being used to re-make individuals and institutions as bearers of enterprising qualities. This paper examines one such specific technique of governmentality, that of the ranked list. The ranked list is… read more
2009 Resolving the paradox of Singapore English hor English World-Wide 30:3, pp. 241–261 | Article
In this paper, we present paradoxical properties of the discourse particle hor in Singapore English and attempt to resolve them. Hor has been described as an attenuator of illocutionary force, which is used to convert statements and commands into questions and requests. We provide a new observation… read more
2006 The cultural basis of metaphor revisited Pragmatics & Cognition 14:1, pp. 111–128 | Article
Just how foundational metaphor is to cultural understanding has been a matter of considerable debate, manifested in the question of whether cultural models are, at bottom, based on conceptual metaphors (Gibbs 1994; Lakoff 1993; Lakoff and Johnson 1999; Quinn 1991). This paper revisits this debate… read more
2004 5. Reduplication and discourse particles Singapore English: A grammatical description, Lim, Lisa (ed.), pp. 105–126 | Chapter
2004 3. Nouns and noun phrases Singapore English: A grammatical description, Lim, Lisa (ed.), pp. 57–74 | Chapter
2003 The semiotics of metaphor: The conduit metaphor in Singapore’s language policy Journal of Language and Politics 1:2, pp. 199–220 | Article
This article investigates the role of metaphor in the production and reproduction of language ideologies. It does this by focusing on official discourses concerning the language policy of Singapore, where recurrent appeal is made to the conduit metaphor (Reddy 1993) in articulating various claims… read more
1998 Why You Talk Like That? The Pragmatics of a Why Construction in Singapore English English World-Wide 19:2, pp. 247–260 | Article
In this paper, we examine one wh-construction in Singapore English, which signals a demand for justification, and show that there is a systematic correlation between its structural and pragmatic properties. We suggest that this wh-construction is based on the imperative, and inherits the… read more