Yoshiyuki Asahi is associate professor of sociolinguistics in the Department of Research at National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. He completed his PhD at Osaka University in 2004. He works on language variation and change in Japanese, and he investigates dialect contact situations in a number of locations including new town, Hokkaido, Sakhalin, Hawai`i as well as real- time studies in honorifics at Okazaki. He is the author of Saharin-ni nokosareta nihongo Karafuto hōgen [A Japanese dialect of Karafuto in Sakhalin, Russia] (Meiji Shoin, 2012), Nyūaun kotoba no keisei-ni kansuru shakaigengogakuteki kenkyū (Hituzi Syobo, 2008), and the editor of Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (de Gruyter Mouton, 2022), Japanese sociolinguistics illustrated: New Edition (Hituzi Syobo, 2021), Amerika Hawai nikkei shakai no rekishi to gengo-bunka [History, Language and Culture of Japanese communities in Hawaii and the mainland US] (Tōkyōdō, 2015).

Janet Fletcher is Professor of Phonetics in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. She has held previous appointments at the University of Edinburgh, the Ohio State University, and Macquarie University.

Her research interests include phonetic theory, laboratory phonology, and acoustic modelling of prosodic effects in various languages. She is currently working on phonetic variation, and prosody and intonation in a group of French Polynesian languages. She also continues to document the phonetics and phonology of selected Australian languages. She is a member of the Research Unit for Indigenous Language in the School of Languages and Linguistics and is a Chief Investigator in the University of Melbourne node of the Centre of Excellence "Dynamics of Language".

Jane Simpson FASSA FAHA RSNSW studies the structure and use of several Australian Aboriginal languages: Warumungu, Kaurna and Warlpiri. She has taught and convened different types of courses on Australian Aboriginal languages since 1996. She has worked on revitalisation and maintenance of Indigenous languages in the Tennant Creek area, dictionary projects, a longitudinal study of Aboriginal children acquiring creoles, English and traditional languages, and on the National Indigenous Languages Report. She is Professor Emerita at the Australian National University.

Alison is a Research Professor at Cardiff University, in the Centre for Language and Communication Research. Her main contributions to linguistics have been in relation to formulaic language and dementia communication. Her 2002 monograph Formulaic Language and the Lexicon won the 2003 Book Prize of the British Association for Applied Linguistics. Her 2020 monograph The Dynamics of Dementia Communication won the same prize in 2021 and was second in the biennial Book Prize of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Her contributions to understanding dementia communication, which have been taken up worldwide for training dementia carers, include three animated films voiced by Sir Tony Robinson, several radio interviews and podcasts, and an accessible guide for dementia carers, Why Dementia Makes Communication Difficult: A Guide to Better Outcomes (2021).

She has also published on the evolutionary origins of language, the (puzzling) nature of the word, hybridity in language structure and the challenges of reconstructing historical pronunciation for performances of early music.