ASIALEX 2005 Singapore with its theme Words in Asia Cultural Contexts is co-organised by the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS). One of a hundred events happening during the year-long NUS Centennial Celebrations, this conference has attracted participation from almost every major Asian country.
Words are the primary locus of study in several disciplines, and this conference with paper and workshop presentations from almost a hundred participants over a three-day period is of interest to lexicographers, lexicologists, educationists, linguists, philologists, cultural geographers, cultural theorists, writers and literary scholars, and those who have interest in words in diverse Asian contexts.
The examination of the mental lexicon and its relation to print and electronic dictionaries can be generally characterized as one that involves relating word knowledge to world knowledge. The study of the words alone, however, may not suffice and often leads to the wider question of how individuals relate to their place in society, define and occupy cultural space and construct it through language. The them of Words in Asian Cultural Contexts is thus followed through in four major strands: lexicography and lexicology; sociolinguistics and language pedagogy; literary, cultural and postcolonial studies; and information and communication technology.
