About me
Velda is a Singaporean linguist whose research focuses on Singlish. She works within paradigms of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology and examines language and identity, language in globalization, and language politics. Through her professional work on Singlish, she engages in debates on the linguistic status of Singlish, and questions fundamental assumptions of linguistic hybridity and multilingualism: what is language, and how language facilitates identity construction.
Having graduated with a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Colorado Boulder, Velda’s research focuses on synthesizing and challenging academic work that have placed Singlish in many, often conflicting categories: a mixed language, a creole, and a “bastardized variety of English,” among others. In a country where speakers hold multiple hybrid registers as part of their linguistic repertoire, where Singlish’s borders start and end is a difficult analytical question to answer. In her work, Velda argues that to understand Singlish’s multiple linguistic realities, one must consider the impact of the subjective perceptions and “reports” of its speakers: instead of starting by approaching Singlish as an empirically observable linguistic register, Singlish should instead be treated as a space of metapragmatic negotiation. This prioritizes the evolving linguistic ideologies within the unique context of Singapore’s rapid socioeconomic development into a modern and affluent postcolonial nation, and allows the examination of how these ideologies form narratives that then anchor and guide linguistic practice in Singapore.
Velda has over a decade of college teaching experience, having designed and taught multiple courses in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology at CU Boulder. These courses include Language and Culture, Language and Social Media, World Language Policies, Language in US Society, and Language, Gender, and Sexuality. She is also affiliated with CU’s Program of Writing and Rhetoric, and has led first-year writing courses informed by her research in contact linguistics and hybridity.
Starting in Fall 2026, Velda will be taking up the position of Visiting Lecturer in Linguistic Anthropology at New York University.
