2025 Rodney Huddleston Prize announced

In its eighth year of being presented, the annual Rodney Huddleston Prize is awarded to the best paper published in the previous year of the Australian Journal of Linguistics as judged by the members of the Australian Linguistics Society.

The $1,000 cash prize is generously funded by Taylor and Francis, the publishers of AJL, and is named after AJL’s first editor, Rodney Huddleston, who edited the journal from 1979-1985. 

The winner of the vote for the 2025 Rodney Huddleston Prize is:
The Jimmie Barker corpus: A Muruwari man’s documentation of Aboriginal languages, history and culture between 1968 and 1972' by Alison L. Mount, Jimmie Barker, Roy Barker Jr, Cassandra Sedran-Price, Michael Higgins, Lorina L. Barker, Barton Staggs & Jane Simpson. Australian Journal of Linguistics 44(2-3), 104-126. 
Congratulations to the winning author team!

Applications Now Open: 2025 Student and Indigenous Conference Attendance Support Grants

We are pleased to announce that applications for the 2025 Student Conference Attendance Support Grant and the 2025 Indigenous Conference Attendance Support Grant are now open. These grants provide valuable support to help students and Indigenous participants attend upcoming conferences.

👉 Click here for more details and to submit your online application.

Applications close on 10 October 2025. Don’t miss this opportunity!

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2025, and welcome to the new year (albeit one we’re already a fair way through – how does this keep happening?).

It was great to see so many of you at the ALS conference in Canberra at the end of last year. Attendance numbers were very strong, and there were many really interesting papers… and some nice merch – in the end, and there’s still some left if anyone wants to order a mug, t-shirt or tote bag. Congratulations and thanks to the organisers for their splendid work, and to AIATSIS for their financial and administrative support in facilitating the involvement of First Nations linguists.

Don’t forget that the ALS Research Grants scheme, along with the Laves, Jalwang and Kaldor Scholarships and the Michael Clyne Prize and Barb Kelly Prize are all currently open for applications, so hurry and get your applications in.

On a different note, most of you will be aware of the recent passing of Emeritus Professor Jeff Siegel. Many of us have first-hand experience of Jeff’s outstanding research, generosity and support as a colleague, and all-round status as a great and decent human being. We send our condolences to his family, and all his friends and colleagues at UNE and beyond.

Click here to read more... 

2024 Rodney Huddlestone Prize announced

The winner of the vote for the 2024 Rodney Huddleston Prize for the best paper published in the previous year of the Australian Journal of Linguistics has been announced.

The winners are Ilana Mushin, Joe Blythe, Josua Dahmen, Caroline de Dear, Rod Gardner, Francesco Possemato & Lesley Stirling for their article ‘Towards an interactional grammar of interjections: Expressing compassion in four Australian languages’ AJL 43(2), 158-189. Congratulations to all winners, who take home the $1000 prize money generously provided by Taylor & Francis, the publishers of AJL.

Voting is now open for the Rodney Huddleston Prize 2024

In its seventh year of being presented, the annual Rodney Huddleston Prize is awarded to the best paper published in the previous year of the Australian Journal of Linguistics as judged by the members of the Australian Linguistics Society.

The $1,000 cash prize is generously funded by Taylor and Francis, the publishers of AJL, and is named after AJL’s first editor, Rodney Huddleston, who edited the journal from 1979-1985.

The winner will be announced at the ALS Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 27 November 2024.

To cast your vote 

1. Click on the link https://als.asn.au/MemberGateway 
2. Use your login name and password to access the online member portal. If you have forgotten either, please click on "Forgotten your username or password?". 
3. After login, click on the "Votes" tab.  
4. The papers in Vol 43, 2023 of the Australian Journal of Linguistics are listed there; to access the abstract for a paper, click on the paper title.
5. To cast your vote for the best paper you have read in Vol43, please click the button in the column to the left of your selected paper and then submit your vote using the button at the bottom of the page.

Voting closes at 2.00 pm on Wednesday, 27 November 2024.

Jean Mulder
AJL Editor

The 2023 Talkley Award has been announced. The winner is:

Language Lab: A weekly linguistics segment on RTR FM 92.1 community radio offered by Dr Celeste Rodriguez Louro and colleagues (UWA Linguistics / Language Lab).

Previous shows can be accessed here: https://rtrfm.com.au/tags/the-language-lab/

The Talkley Award celebrates the best piece or collection of linguistics communication produced in the previous year by current ALS members. The Award acknowledges that the discipline of linguistics needs champions to promote linguistics in the public sphere and explain how linguistic evidence can be used to solve real-life language problems. The winner is announced yearly at the ALS Annual General Meeting.

2023 Rodney Huddlestone Prize announced

The winner of the vote for the 2023 Rodney Huddleston Prize for the best paper published in the previous year of the Australian Journal of Linguistics has been announced. The winner is Clair Hill, for her paper Multiparty storytelling in Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u. Congratulations Clair! Clair takes home the $1000 prize money generously provided by Taylor & Francis, the publishers of AJL.

Voting is now open for the Rodney Huddleston Prize 2023

In its sixth year of being presented, the annual Rodney Huddleston Prize is awarded to the best paper published in the previous year of the Australian Journal of Linguistics as judged by the members of the Australian Linguistics Society. 

The $1,000 cash prize is generously funded by Taylor and Francis, the publishers of AJL, and is named after AJL’s first editor, Rodney Huddleston, who edited the journal from 1979-1985. 

The winner will be announced at the ALS Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, 29 November 2023.

To cast your vote 

1. Click on the link https://als.asn.au/MemberGateway 
2. Use your login name and password to access the online member portal. If you have forgotten either, please click on "Forgotten your username or password?". 
3. After login, click on the "Votes" tab.  
4. The papers in Vol 42, 2022 of the Australian Journal of Linguistics are listed there; to access the abstract for a paper, click on the paper title.
5. To cast your vote for the best paper you have read in Vol42, please click the button in the column to the left of your selected paper and then submit your vote using the button at the bottom of the page.

Voting closes at 2.00 pm on Wednesday, 29 November 2023.

Jean Mulder
AJL Editor

2023 Student and Indigenous Conference Attendance Support grants now open

Applications are now open for the Student Conference Attendance and Indigenous Conference Attendance support grants, to assist presenters with costs to attend the 2023 ALS conference. We invite First Nations presenters and student presenters to submit applications for expenses of up to $800 to attend the conference and present their papers. Applications close on 22 October. Details and the application portals may be found under the funding and support tab.

ALS votes to support the Yes case in the Voice referendum

In September the ALS executive conducted a survey of members on (a) whether ALS should take a public position on the Voice referendum, and (b) if so, whether that position should be in support of the yes case or the no case. Responses to the survey were overwhelmingly in favour of taking a position, and for that position to support the yes case. The executive thanks all members who participated in the survey.