16/10/2021

ALS Newsletter October 2021

From the President
Australian Journal of Linguistics news
New from UNE
News from UWA
News from ANU
News from the University of Queensland
News from RMIT Language Studies/Applied Linguistics
News from University of Wollongong
News from Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE)
News from the Charles Darwin University
News from the Language and Communication Research Hub Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research Central Queensland University
News from the University of Melbourne
News from Macquarie University
Job: Lecturer, The University of Newcastle
About ALS

From the President

We have a very full newsletter so I won’t take much space for a President's report this time but let others speak to the enormous amount of linguistic activity and energy that I see all over the country – and this is what is happening when travel is restricted! Unfortunately that restriction has meant that the annual conference will not be held in person for a second year, but we know that our online version was a huge success in 2020 and I look forward to actively participating in the 2021 offering.

This year we will be awarding a Talkley award at the Annual Conference. This is an award for public communication about matters linguistic. We invite nominations for this award and these should be sent directly to me (i.mushin@uq.edu.au) or to our secretary John Mansfield (john.mansfield@unimelb.edu.au) by November 30^th.

Ilana Mushin

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Australian Journal of Linguistics news

After lengthy typesetting delays in India due to COVID-19, Volume 41, Issue 2 2021, as well as the first two articles of Issue 3, of the Australian Journal of Linguistics (AJL) are now available online. Please see list of articles below, with clickable links to the abstracts. To read/download an article, or access any article from Volume 1 (1981) onwards, you will need to be logged in to the ALS website as an ALS member or be logged in to the AJL website using your institution’s online credentials.

Happy reading!

A tale of two genres: Engaging audiences in academic blogs and Three Minute Thesis presentations
Hang (Joanna) Zou & Ken Hyland

Putting time in context: There is no causal link between temporal focus and implicit space–time mappings on the front–back axis
Yutian Qin

Ongoing change in the Australian English amplifier system
Martin Schweinberger

Entity- vs. event-existentials: A new typology
Yong Wang

Fricative contrasts and neutralization in Marri Tjevin
John Mansfield & Ian Green

Elastic language in academic emails: Communication between a PhD applicant and potential supervisors
Peyman G. P. Sabet, Samran Daneshfar & Grace Zhang

Constraints on subject elision in northern Australian Kriol: Between discourse and syntax
Connor Brown & Maïa Ponsonnet

Jean Mulder
Editor-in-chief, AJL

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News from UNE

Congratulations to Piers Kelly, a linguistic anthropologist based in UNE’s Department of Archaeology, who was awarded an Australian Research Council DECRA to commence in 2022. His project is entitled ‘Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia’. He will be giving a talk on 'The linguistics of message sticks' at the University of Melbourne on 5 November 2021, register here:

Finex Ndhlovu gave an invited keynote speech titled 'Decolonising Multilingualism: Why Decolonise? Why Language?' at the 8th Language and Literacy Education Conference, organised by the Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies, Witwatersrand University, South Africa, 26-27 August 2021. The conference also hosted the official launch of Finex's new book (co-authored with Leketi Makalela) Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa: Recentering Silenced Voices from the Global South. Critical Language and Literacy Studies Series. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Diana Eades gave a (remote) plenary at the International Language and Law Association conference in Spain in September. (title: “Circumstances, context, contextualisation and change: addressing referentialism in law’s approach to language”).

Diana’s expert sociolinguistic report on written communication with former youth detainees in the Northern Territory was positively received by the Federal Court in the major class action case which was finalised in July.  (Jenkings v Northern Territory of Australia (No 4) [2021] FCA 839). Diana reports that this case reinforced her experience that an expert in legal proceedings often does not (fully) realise the significance of the particular questions they are asked to address in their report.

Margaret Sharpe is currently involved in the production of a Yugara dictionary (Brisbane and south and west of Logan).

Cindy Schneider

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News from UWA

Greetings from ‘the cave’

The last couple of months have been exhausting. We are lucky in our WA bubble/cave but still miss our families and seeing you all in the flesh. The internet has been useful and much has been happening as you will see below. This activity is particularly impressive considering the ruthless restructures the UWA School of Social Sciences (where Linguistics is located) is currently undergoing. We are with you if you and/or your colleagues have been experiencing similar job cuts.

Retirement

Our dearest friend and colleague A/Prof. Marie-Eve Ritz has retired. Marie-Eve joined UWA in 1990, initially as tutor, while still completing her PhD at Paris-Sorbonne University. Marie-Eve then had a post-doc in Linguistics between 1991 and 1993. She was appointed lecturer in the Applied Linguistics Program of the School of Education at UWA and taught there between 1996 and 2008 while also teaching semantics in the Linguistics major. Marie-Eve joined UWA Linguistics as a full-time staff member in 2009 and she remained in UWA Linguistics until her retirement. Since her arrival, Marie-Eve has been central to the success and continuity of our Discipline Group. Marie-Eve will be an Honorary Research Fellow so we will still see her from time to time. Thank you, Marie-Eve, for all your hard work. We will really miss you.

HDR student updates

PhD candidate Connor Brown will be in Kununurra working as a relief facilitator for the Mirima Language Centre's nest program during September-December 2021. The nest facilitator works in collaboration with Miriwoong speakers to coordinate the delivery of language lessons in Kununurra schools as part of the Miriwoong language nest program. This a project of Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring and aims to support the preservation and revitalisation of Miriwoong language and culture.

PhD candidate Madeleine Clews has submitted her detailed PhD proposal to the Graduate Research School, outlining her plan to undertake the first comprehensive historical sociolinguistic study of English in Western Australia. She has completed an article on the indigenisation of SAY in Aboriginal English and has co-authored a chapter on Aboriginal English for a new Cambridge University Press multi-volume History of English with Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Glenys Collard. 

PhD candidate Troy Reynolds is nearing completion of the EmuR database for his PhD thesis, finalising ToBI transcription, and is preparing for the analysis stage of his first component study. In August, he presented a five-minute speed paper at Forum on Englishes in Australia 2021 on his work with high-rising terminals in Aboriginal English. Troy also submitted, with Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Glenys Collard, an invited chapter on Aboriginal English for the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes.

PhD candidate Eleanor Yacopetti visited northern Arnhem Land for the first field trip under the ‘Landscape, Language and Culture in Indigenous Australia’ Discovery Project funded through the Australian Research Council. See further details in ‘Fieldwork’ below.

Staff updates

Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway continues her one-year lecturing position at UWA and is teaching three units during the second semester of 2021. This semester, she has worked to emphasise links between lecture topics and real-world events by inviting linguists, local language speakers, and other language professionals to visit her classroom and share their diverse projects and passions with her students.

Mitch Browne has been doing Zoom teaching for University of Queensland and some RA/consultancy work with a team based at Deakin University with respect to how organisations can provide more engaging/enriching reconciliation training programs.

Fieldwork

Eleanor Yacopetti and Maïa Ponsonnet visited northern Arnhem Land for the first field trip under the ‘Landscape, Language and Culture in Indigenous Australia’ Discovery Project. They collected data on the language of country and space with speakers of the Kune variety of Kunwok based in Maningrida and in the Buluhkaduru outstation. In addition to traditional elicitation, Eleanor also conducted systematic elicitation tasks such as the ‘Man & Tree’ game.

Eleanor Yacopetti, Pixie Campion, Michaela Brian, Sophia Brian and Maïa Ponsonnet listening to Pixie’s life story at Buluhkarduru.

Rachel Brian and her daughter Noreen in Maningrida drawing maps to explain their country to Eleanor Yacopetti.

Publications

Connor Brown & Maïa Ponsonnet (2021). Constraints on subject elision in northern Australian Kriol: Between discourse and syntax, Australian Journal of Linguistics, DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2021.1962807

Mushin, llana & Maïa Ponsonnet. 2021. Country, People and Language in Carpentaria in Castro-Koshy E. & Lehartel T, Alexis Wright Carpentaria, 37-62. Paris: Ellipse.

Rodríguez Louro, Celeste & Glenys Collard (2021). Teaching and learning guide for Australian Aboriginal English: Linguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. Language and Linguistics Compass. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lnc3.12431] (This Guide is intended as a resource for those wishing to teach about Aboriginal English and it includes suggested readings, a sample syllabus, focus questions and a seminar activity.)

Internship program showcased

UWA Linguistics was featured by UWA News during NAIDOC week this year to showcase the Discipline Group’s innovative internship program – led by Dr Luisa Miceli – which recently saw students work with First Nations communities in understanding the link between language and cultural identity.

https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2021/july/students-learn-why-linguistics-is-important-for-cultural-identity

Consultancies

Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro are collaborating with the Heart Foundation in the creation of medical media for Indigenous communities. The second video, scripted by Glenys Collard entirely in ABORIGINAL ENGLISH, encourages people to be mindful of heart attack signs. The video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyI3huqt6S0&t=5s

Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro are also providing consultancy for the UWA Centre for Rural Health both in research methods and the production of media addressing domestic violence in the Pilbara, WA – all in Aboriginal English.

Media

Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Glenys Collard have also had a new piece published in The Conversation. Titled ‘Yarns from the heart: The role of Aboriginal English in Indigenous health communication’, the article offers reflections on Glenys’ and Celeste’s applied social sciences work with the Heart Foundation on the development of heart health videos fully scripted in Aboriginal English. https://theconversation.com/yarns-from-the-heart-the-role-of-aboriginal-english-in-indigenous-health-communication-163892

Social media

Lucía Fraiese is social media person for the ALS. She is currently looking for advanced PhD students and ECRs to showcase their research projects. If you are a PhD student or ECR and would like to be featured on ALS Twitter please contact Lucía on lucia.fraiese@research.uwa.edu.au

Upcoming sessions and panels

With Lesley Woods (ANU), Jakelin Troy (Sydney), Ruth Singer (Melbourne), Alice Gaby (Monash) and Felicity Meakins (Queensland), Celeste Rodríguez Louro is organising a session for ALS2021 titled ‘Decolonisation, collaboration and inclusion in Linguistics’. We welcome all to join! More information is available here: https://als.asn.au/Conference/Conference2021/Call-for-papers/OrganisedSessions#s3

With Catherine Travis (ANU) and James Walker (La Trobe), Celeste Rodríguez Louro is organising the fifth iteration of Language Variation and Change, Australia (LVC-A5) which will take place at the 2021 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society to be hosted online by La Trobe University. We have an exciting line up of papers and a keynote by Prof. Rena Torres Caucollos (Penn State) who is also the Editor of the Cambridge University Press journal Language Variation and Change. More information is available on https://als.asn.au/Conference/Conference2021/Call-for-papers/LVCA5.

Upcoming presentations, keynotes and invited talks

October

Maïa Ponsonnet will be delivering an invited keynote presentation titled ‘Emotion, discourse, and linguistic diversity: Emotions in grammar and discourse in Northern Australia’ at Languaging Diversity: The Linguistic Construction of Emotional Challenges in a Changing Society, October 2021. This is a ticketed event but Maïa’s keynote presentation will be available for viewing after the conference. We will share the link in the February 2022 newsletter. https://underline.io/events/183/sessions

Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Glenys Collard will be presenting a paper titled ‘Yarns from the heart: Decolonising sociolinguistic research and the creation of community-based media in Australia’ at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 49, University of Texas at Austin, to take place online 19-24 October 2021.

Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro will offer a talk titled ‘Aboriginal English and the language police’ at the upcoming Raising the Bar event to take place on Tuesday 26 October at The Globe, in Perth City. Those in Perth can register through the following link:  https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/aboriginal-english-and-the-language-police-tickets-170127149885?aff=eemailordconf&utm_campaign=order_confirm&ref=eemailordconf&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite&utm_term=viewevent. The event will also be recorded and made available as a podcast in due course.

November

Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro have joined forces with Heart Foundation health professionals Julie Smith, Tanya Battaglia and Shelley McRae to present a paper at the Aboriginal Health Conference 2021. Their paper is titled ‘How we talk: Reflections on a collaborative yarning style animation to encourage heart health checks’.

Celeste Rodríguez Louro has been invited to contribute to the ‘Sustainable academia: Principles and practice’, panel to take place at the 2021 Conference of the Australian Historical Association, University of New South Wales and State Library of NSW, Sydney to take place online on 29 November-2 December 2021.

December

Maïa Ponsonnet, Luisa Miceli, UWA Archaeology colleagues Ingrid Ward and Emilie Dotte-Sarout, and student Jason Rustandi will be delivering a paper at the Australian Archaeological Association’s annual conference, 1-3 December 2021. The paper is titled ‘Fire and words: How linguistic nuances can inform archaeological investigations of combustion features’.

Celeste Rodríguez Louro, Glenys Collard and Lucía Fraiese have had their paper accepted for presentation at LVC-A5 to take place at ALS2021. The paper is titled ‘It’s live or die, you know: Utterance-final tags in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal English’.

Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro will be presenting their paper titled ‘Yarns from the heart: The role of Aboriginal English in Indigenous health communication’ at the ‘Decolonisation, collaboration and inclusion in Linguistics’ panel to take place during ALS2021.

Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Glenys Collard will be offering a keynote presentation at DiPVac5 to take place online on 14-16 December 2021. The title of the keynote is ‘The soul of language: Discourse-pragmatic variation in Australian Aboriginal English’. More information is available on https://www.dipvac.org/dipvac-5.html.

Celeste Rodríguez Luoro

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News from the ANU

Publications

Billington, Rosey, Thieberger, Nick, & Fletcher, Janet. (2021). Nafsan. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, FirstView, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100321000177

Billington, Rosey, Stoakes, Hywel, & Thieberger, Nick. (2021). The Pacific Expansion: Optimizing phonetic transcription of archival corpora. In Proceedings of INTERSPEECH 2021 (pp. 4029–4033). International Speech Communication Association. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2021-2167

Dahm, M. R., Williams, M., & Crock, C. (2021). ‘More than words’–Interpersonal communication, cognitive bias and diagnostic errors. Patient Education and Counseling. Doi:10.1016/j.pec.2021.05.012.

Fraser, H., & Kinoshita, Y. (2021). Injustice Arising from the Unnoticed Power of Priming: How Lawyers and Even Judges can be Misled by Unreliable Transcripts of Indistinct Forensic Audio. Criminal Law Journal, 45, 142-152. 

Gleason, K., & Dahm, M. R. (2021 (online first)). How patients describe their diagnosis compared to clinical documentation. Diagnosis. doi:10.1515/dx-2021-0070

Grama, James, Catherine E. Travis and Simon Gonzalez. 2021. Ethnic variation in real time: Change in Australian English diphthongs. In Hans Van de Velde, Nanna Haug Hilton and Remco Knooihuizen (eds), Studies in Language Variation (Papers from the Tenth International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 10), Leeuwarden, June 2019), 292-314. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.25

Lu, Y., & Gnevsheva, K. (2021). Accentedness and personality evaluation of Asian and Caucasian non-native English speakers by Asian non-native English listeners. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Advance online publication.

Mayer, Elisabeth, Carmel O'Shannessy and Jane Simpson.  2021.A special issue of the journal Languages, Australian Languages Today, is now complete. The special issue is guest edited by Elisabeth Mayer, Carmel O'Shannessy and Jane Simpson. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages/special_issues/Australian_Languages 

O'Shannessy, Carmel. 2021. Conventionalised creativity in the emergence of a mixed language – a case study of Light Warlpiri. In Aboh, Enoch O. and Cécile B. Vigouroux (Eds.) Variation rolls the dice: A worldwide collage in honour of Salikoko S. Mufwene. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://benjamins.com/catalog/coll.59 

Slade,  Diana features in a new book, Women in Social Semiotics and SFL by Eva Maagerø, Ruth Mulvad and Elise Seip Tønnessen, which details the work of nine women in these fields.

Teruya, Kazuhiro, Canzhong Wu and Diana Slade Matthiessen, C.(eds). 2021. The collected works of Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen, Volume 1, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Part 1. Equinox Publishing.

Travis, Catherine E. and Rena Torres Cacoullos. 2021. Categories and frequency: Cognition verbs in Spanish subject expression. Languages (Special Issue ‘Revisiting Language Variation and Change: Looking at Metalinguistic Categories Through a Usage-Based Lens’, eds. Brown & Rivas) 6(3): 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030126

Social media and newsletter

To hear about what we at ANU ICH and our partner organisations from the International Consortium of Communication in Health Care have been up to, follow us on twitter at@ANU_ICH and subscribe to our new newsletter.

PhD Thesis

Yang Xu submitted her PhD thesis entitled "Teachers and Students Enacting Language Policy: A Case Study of a Secondary School in China”, supervised by Yuko Konishita

Grants/Awards

Mary Dahm has been awarded an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award ($453,679) for her three-year project Addressing the challenge of communicating uncertainty in diagnosis. The project aims to examine the critical role and impact of communication on the diagnostic process in health settings.

Seminars, workshops and conferences

• O'Shannessy, Carmel, Vanessa Davis, Denise Foster, Jessie Bartlett, and Alice Nelson.  2021. Little Kids' Word List, presentation at Knowledge Intersections Symposium, Charles Darwin University, Sep 21, 2021
• O'Shannessy, Carmel and Jessie Bartlett (Red Dust Role Models). 2021. Little Kids Learning Languages (joint with Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation), presented to the stakeholder organisation Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Family Partnership Program in Alice Springs on Monday Sep 20.  see: https://little-kids-learning-languages.net/ 
• O'Shannessy, Carmel and Vanessa Davis (Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation) and Emma Browne presented their research to Desert Therapy, a group of health professionals, in Alice Springs, Sep 1, 2021.
• O'Shannessy, Carmel and Vanessa talked about the spoken wordlist they are developing, the Little Kids' Word List <https://little-kids-learning-languages.net/>
• Emma presented on her PhD research on Warlpiri children's language ideologies <https://afmlta.asn.au/babel/>.  
• Travis, Catherine E. 2021. “Ethnolectal variation in real time: Ethnicity, gender and class in Sydney, Australia”. Paper presented as part of the Abralin Ao Vivo series (14 July). Watch this presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLEI67i9E-w
• Travis, Catherine E. 2021. “Ethnicity and social class in a modern metropolis: Socio-regional differences in (ing) in Sydney”. Paper presented as part of the Sydney Centre for Language Research seminar series (13 August). Watch this presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFYZQmnfzTs
• Mary Dahm presented her research with Dr Carmel Crock (Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital) on the "The pragmatics of diagnostic uncertainty – a closer look at hedges and shared understanding in diagnostic statements" as part of an international panel on "A pragmatic agenda for healthcare: fostering inclusion and active participation through shared understanding" at the 17th International Pragmatics Association (IPRA), 27 June - 2 July 2021. Their analysis of role play interactions in a clinical exam found that interactions with incorrect diagnosis had longer diagnostic statements, more specific observations in giving diagnosis, and more self-repair and introductory hedges.
• Diana Slade presented at the 19th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication Medicine and Ethics (COMET), 28-30 June 2021 on discharge interactions with elderly patients in an Australian hospital ED, a collaboration with Suzanne Eggins. This research was part of a larger project on critical role of discharge communication in the transition of care from acute to primary setting funded by an ARC Linkage Grant.

Call for submission

The editorial board of Studies in Language Change, published by De Gruyter Mouton, is calling for submissions of book proposals. Included in submissions suitable for the series are monographs based on Masters and PhD theses that fit the following description:

Studies in Language Change presents empirically based research that extends knowledge about changes in languages over time and historical relations among the world’s languages without restriction to any particular language family or region. While not devoted explicitly to theoretical explanations, the series hopes to contribute to the advancement in understandings of language change as well as adding to the store of well-analysed historical-comparative data on the world’s languages. The series also covers synchronic studies of earlier stages of languages which can serve as a basis for investigation of developments in later stages of those languages.

Visit https://www.degruyter.com/serial/SLC-B/html for more information.

Events

The ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (Lancaster University) and the ANU-led International Consortium for Communication in Healthcare invite you to ‘Talking health online: Why it matters and what linguistics can contribute'. This online webinar will be held on Thursday 21 October 2021, 12 to 1.30pm BST (10-11.30pm AEDT). Experts from the UK and Hong Kong will reflect on the challenges, opportunities and insights associated with researching online communication about health and illness.

Community outreach

In March 2021, ICH launched a new consumer reference group to ensure health service user involvement in our research projects. The group is facilitated by Mary Dahm and a consumer co-facilitator and meets every 6-8 weeks to discuss ICH ongoing and prospective research projects. The group just had its fifth meeting and provided valuable input to various ICH projects.

Wayan Arka

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News from The University of Queensland

Staffing

As part of a broader initiative to develop Indigenous-led linguistics at UQ, we have recently  welcomed new staff appointments: Industry Fellows, Des Crump and Robert McLellan and Research Associates (also UQ Linguistics students) Lowana Tudor-Smith and Paul Williams.

Congratulations…

Felicity Meakins, Lindell Bromham, Xia Hua and Cassandra Algy were winners Interdisciplinary section of the Australia Museum Eureka Awards.

Grants Received

ARDC Platforms Program: PL074, “Australian Text Analytics Platform (ATAP)”, $1,196,510 ($759,510 from ARDC; $436,500 in co-investment from UQ, AARNet and Sydney) (2021-2023) (Haugh, Schweinburger)

ARDC National Data Partnerships Program: DP768, “Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA)”, $890,000 ($525,000 from ARDC; $365,000 in co-investment from UQ, AIATSIS, ANU, ARC CoEDL and Melbourne) (2021-2023) (Haugh)

MRFF Indigenous Health Fund-Incubator. “Developing Cultural Sensitivity and Capability through Communication Training for Mental Health Professionals”, $705,000 (2021-2023) (Mushin)

HDR completions

Aseeri, Majdah. (2021) Pragmatic strategies in Saudi Arabian university students communication with lecturers: A comparison of language and gender. PhD Thesis, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland. 

Macklin-Cordes, Jayden (2021). Phonotactics in historical linguistics: Quantitative interrogation of a novel data source. PhD Thesis, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland. https://doi.org/10.14264/9d9e8be

Publications

Browne, Mitch. (2021). On the Integration of Dative Adjuncts into Event Structures in Yapa Languages. Languages, 6(3), 136. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030136

Chang, Wei-Lin Melody and Michael Haugh (2021). Teasing and claims to non-serious intent in Chinese talk shows. East Asian Pragmatics 6(2): 135-159.

Chang, Wei-Lin Melody, Michael Haugh and Hsi-Yao Su (2021). Taking it too far: The role of ideological discourses in contesting the limits of teasing and offence. Pragmatics 31(3): 382-405.

Clift, Rebecca and Michael Haugh (2021). Conversation analysis and sociopragmatics. In Michael Haugh, Dániel Z. Kádár and Marina Terkourafi (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics (pp.616-638). Cambridge University Press.

Culpeper, Jonathan and Michael Haugh (2021). (Im)politeness and sociopragmatics. In Michael Haugh, Dániel Z. Kádár and Marina Terkourafi (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics (pp.315-339). Cambridge University Press.

Dunn, V., Felicity Meakins,  & C. Algy. (2021). Acquisition or shift: Interpreting variation in Gurindji children’s expression of spatial relations. In E. Aboh & C. Vigouroux (Eds.), Variation Rolls the Dice (pp. 105-131). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ekberg, Katie., Ekberg, Stuart., Weinglass, Lara., & Danby, Susan. (2021). Pandemic morality-in-action: Accounting for social action during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discourse & Society, 09579265211023232. https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/2BNGDNSC73IIR4DISZ9F/full

Haugh, Michael, Dániel Z. Kádár and Marina Terkourafi (eds.) (2021) Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Haugh, Michael (2021). Discourse and politeness. In Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian Wong (eds.), The Companion to Discourse Analysis (2nd edn) (pp.219-232). Bloomsbury, London.

Lee, Narah (2021). Overt subject NPs as a contrast marker in Korean discourse. Linguistic Research, 38 (2), pp. 365-393. DOI: 10.17250/khisli.38.2.202106.007

McDinny, Dinny†, Don Rory†, Eileen Rory†, Kathleen Shadforth†, Doreen George†, Thelma Dixon†, Lena Dixon†, Roy Dixon†, Marjorie Keighran†, Katie Baker†, Peggy Mawson, Daphne Mawson, Miriam Charlie, Hazel Godfrey, Shirley Simon, Alan Baker, William Kidd, Muldoon Noble, Linda McDinny, Alan Rogers, Ilana Mushin, Ben Stuckey and Glenn Wightman. 2021. Garrwa and Gunindirri Garrwa Plants and Animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from the Gulf of Carpentaria, north Australia. Northern Territory Botanical Bulletin no.52.

Meakins, Felicity, & Patrick McConvell. (2021). A Grammar of Gurindji, as spoken by Violet Wadrill, Ronnie Wavehill, Dandy Danbayarri, Biddy Wavehill, Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal, Long Johnny Kijngayarri, Banjo Ryan, Pincher Nyurrmiari and Blanche Bulngari. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Meakins, Felicity, & Stewart, J. (2021). Mixed languages. In S. Mufwene & A. M. Escobar (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mushin, Ilana & Simona Pekarek Doehler (2021). Linguistic structures in social interaction: Moving temporality to the forefront of a science of language. Interactional Linguistics 1:1. https://doi.org/10.1075/il.21008.mus

Mushin, Ilana. & Maïa Ponsonnet (2021) Country, People and Language in Carpentaria. In Castro-Koshy, Estelle & Temiti Lehartel (eds). Agrégation anglais 2022. Alexis Wright « Carpentaria ». Ellipses.

Obana, Yasuko and Michael Haugh (2021). (Non-)propositional irony in Japanese. (Im)politeness behind honorifics. Lingua 103119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103119

Qiu, Jia, Xinren Chen and Michael Haugh (2021). Jocular flattery in Chinese multi-party instant messaging interactions. Journal of Pragmatics 178: 225-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.03.020

Rühlemann, Christoph and Martin Schweinberger. 2021. Determinants of Nuclear Stress in English. Journal of Pragmatics 178: 426-439.

Schweinberger, Martin. 2021. Ongoing change in the Australian English amplifier system. Australian Journal of Linguistics, DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2021.1931028

Schweinberger, Martin. 2021. On historical developments in the Irish English intensifier system. Anglistik - International Journal of English Studies 32(1): 139 – 158.  (Special Issue: Focus on English Linguistics: Varieties meet Histories, Eds. Daniela Kolbe-Hannah & Ilse Wischer).

Schweinberger, Martin. 2021. On the waning of forms – a corpus-based analysis of decline and loss in adjective amplification. In Svenja Kranich and Tine Breban (eds.), Lost in change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical constructions and categories, 235–260. John Benjamins.

Schweinberger, Martin, Michael Haugh and Sam Hames (2021). Analysing discourse around COVID-19 in the Australian Twittersphere: A real-time corpus-based analysis. Big Data & Society 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211021437.

Stewart, J., & Felicity Meakins (2021). Advances in mixed language phonology: An overview of three case studies. In M. Mazzoli & E. Sippola (Eds.), New Perspectives on Mixed Languages: From Core to Fringe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Ilana Mushin

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News from RMIT Language Studies/Applied Linguistics

Recent publications

Journal articles

Muniroh, R.D.Da. (HDR candidate now graduated) & Heydon, G. (2021). Addressing the Gap Between Principles and Practices in Police Interviewing in Indonesia. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-021-09474-7 (Open access link: https://rdcu.be/cw8zO)

Book chapters

Mullan, K. and Béal, C. 2021. The use of humour to deal with uncomfortable moments in interaction: a cross-cultural approach. In Vanderheiden, E. & Mayer, C.-H. The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, pp. 41-66. Palgrave Macmillan.

Non-ERA publications

Mullan, K. 2021.Review of John Rucynski Jr. and Caleb Prichard, eds. 2020. Bridging the Humor Barrier: Humor Competency Training in English Language Teaching. Australasian Humour Studies Network (AHSN) Digest, September 2021. https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/newsletter/ 

Sadow, L. and Mullan, K. 2021. A Tribute to Bert Peeters (1960–2021). The French Australian Review 70, 105-108.

New projects

Ducasse, A.M. Interculturality and inter-comprehension in the Assessment of plurilingual discursive competence: training in digital feedback. University of Pompeu Fabra, (Barcelona) Inter_ECODAL Project Team. (Four-year Research + Development + Innovation project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCINN) building on the team’s previous work: https://www.upf.edu/web/ecodal.)

Kerry Mullan

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News from University of Wollongong

Publications

Books

Zhang, Y. & Gao, X. (2021) Frontiers of L2 Chinese Education: A global perspective. Routledge.

Articles

Karimi N, Kanazaki R, Lukin A, Moore, A.R., Williams, A-J. and Connor, S. (2021) Clinical communication in inflammatory bowel disease: a systematic literature review protocol.  BMJ Open 11 (8) Aug 2021, e05105310:e039503. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051053

Butt, D., Wu, C., Moore, A., Cartmill, J. (2021) The pragmatism of drawing context networks: social hierarchy and social distance as dimensions of tenor. Functions of Language 28(3).  Special Issue on Context edited by Tom Bartlett (U Glasgow) and Wendy Bowcher (Sun Yat-sen U).

Ariztimuño, L.I. Dreyfus, S. and Moore, A.R. (in press) Emotion in speech: A systemic functional semiotic approach to the vocalisation of affect. Language, Context and Text.  Accepted 13/9/2021.

Symposia

1. Alison Moore organised and chaired a symposium at the Australian Functional Linguistics Association annual conference 2021 on 'Understanding Hasan’s impact: Critical explorations and extensions'. This symposium featured papers from winners of the Ruqaiya Hasan Prize for emerging scholars who engage closely with the concerns of the late Em/Prof Ruqaiya Hasan (1931-2015). Em/Prof Hasan held substantive positions in the UK, North America and Australia where she was based at Macquarie University, and visiting professorships in many different countries. Speakers and their papers were as follows

•  David Kellogg, The problem of articulate animals in Korean child conversation: A Hallidayan analysis, a Vygotskyan interpretation, and a Hasanian critique
•  Martin Tilney, Exploring symbolic articulation through corpus techniques in a short story by Peter Carey
•  Neda Karimi, Health communication research and Hasan’s semantic networks
•  Kristin Khoo, Approaching the psychtherapeutic context through texture

2. With Daniel Fryer (Oslo) Alison Moore organised a symposium on 'Social Semiotics and the Animal Other’ at the European Systemic Functional Linguistics Conference, Sheffield/Online 2021. Papers ranged from Bob Hodge (co-author of "Social Semiotics") on 'growth points' and interventions needed in linguistics that the Animal Other points us to papers on literary representations of animals, and the animalisation of different human ethnicities, with Halyna Pavlyshyn and Damon Thomas (UTS) on 'The Power of Multimodal Representation, or How Puss Became a Feral Cat'; and Hailing Yu (Hunan University) on 'The Otherness of the Chinese Monkey King: Animal, Culture and Identity

Alfie Herrero de Haro

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News from Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE)

Presentations

Several Batchelor Institute staff presented at the Knowledge Intersections Symposium 2021 on 21 September 2021:

• Vanessa Farrelly, Auriel Swan, Leeanne Swan, Shania Armstrong, Samantha Armstrong, and Christobel Swan presented “Ngketya Nwernaka Ilkerta Mparetyeka: Making Our Language Strong. Pertame Master-Apprentice Project”. https://callprojects.org.au/project/pertame
• Angela Harrison, Jennifer Green, April Campbell and Ben Foley presented “The Iltyem-iltyem sign languages project”. To view the KIS powerpoint and find out more about this work go to https://callprojects.org.au/project/iltyem-iltyem and https://iltyemiltyem.com/
• Angela Harrison, Maureen Campbell, and Kyra Campbell presented “Martutharra, Old meets New” https://callprojects.org.au/project/wangka-irrititha-munu-kuwarritha-southern-dialects-of-luritja-martutjarra-and-related-old-meets-new-project

James Bednall, Peter Salmon, Godfrey Simpson and Rosie Sitorus presented “Across Cultures, Across Disciplines: Developing a model for working in the ‘in between’” at the Artlands 2021 Symposium, 1 September 2021.

Robyn Ober, Kathrin Dixon and Paola Fischer facilitated a session at the Smith Family’s “Parent Yarn” to talk about “Navigating Multilingualism” in the family and home in order to keep heritage languages strong.

PhD completions

Head of School Debra Dank has passed her PhD thesis with no amendments and is awaiting conferral. Her thesis explores the place of semiotics in community narratives. Congratulations Debra!

Batchelor Press Language Projects

Kaurna Language Revival

Batchelor Institute Press recently published a suite of Kaurna language resources in collaboration with Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi (the legal custodians of Kaurna language), Adelaide-based educator Labhaoise Upton and the South Australian Department for Education. The resources are aimed at primary school-based learners of Kaurna language and follow on from work adapting this language to a number of the Press’s poster templates. Significantly, these latest resources also draw on the involvement of Kaurna speaker Jack Buckskin alongside Ngarrindjeri educator Nakia Ellis and linguist Rob Amery. A particular highlight of the books are the illustrations which have been provided by children of the Kaurna community together with children of Craigmore South and Keller Road Primary Schools, Adelaide. The Yantupina (The Visitor) book also involved artist mentoring by Adelaide-based Wulli Wulli and Guwa artist Shane Mankitya Cook. Further information via batchelorpress@batchelor.edu.au.

Songlines Yarrabah

Soon to be released by the Press is the book Songlines, based on a collection of song lyrics by Goongandji singer/songwriter Stafford Barry Cedric from Yarrabah, Far North Queensland. Cedric also has a primary school teaching background and is a former student at Batchelor Institute. While serving to highlight the literary value of Cedric’s lyrics – their poetic and political content – the songs are accompanied by commentary from Cedric along with images which share further insights into the songs’ meanings and inspiration. The song Justice for All, for example, includes commentary on the Aboriginal struggle, past and present, along with an image from a Black Lives Matter march in Cairns, 2020. A Far North Queensland and Goongandji perspective pervades the book which also includes Goongandji language references, as with the songs Burri Bana (Alcohol) and Bama Birrwa Bulumba (Look Listen Learn). The songlines are arranged in four sections: The land and me are one, People of the future, Love letters, and Culture alive. Reproductions of original artworks by Cedric also feature in the book. Songlines is produced with support from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Further information via batchelorpress@batchelor.edu.au.

Wadeye Endangered Languages Project

Batchelor Press continues to be involved in the publishing outcomes of this multi-year project which in effect is the realisation of a 15-year-long partnership between Wadeye community language advisor Pinpirrith Majella Chula and Maree Klesch, former manager of Batchelor Press and the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics. On the back of several field trips by Klesch to Wadeye this year, the Press is finalising a collection of readers in Jaminjung language, one of the seven regional language groups that the project encompasses. The Jaminjung readers include involvement from Dhudhawa Frank Jinjair as the key Jaminjung language speaker/advisor, along with Chula, John Mansfield (editing), Mark Crocombe (audio recording) and Klesch fulfilling several roles in addition to project management. The readers will be published for community distribution. Enquiries to batchelorpress@batchelor.edu.au.

Other Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics (Call) News

You can find out more about each of these projects and others at the CALL website https://callprojects.org.au/. CALL is also gradually adding to its language resources section, https://callprojects.org.au/language-resources, so please check it out and send resources to angela.harrison@batchelor.edu.au if you would like them to be added there to share with others.

Please also take the time to have a look at https://arrernte-angkentye.online/, an online Arrernte language resource developed in partnership with John Henderson (UWA).

James Bednall

News from the Charles Darwin University

The latest online short course on Bininj Kunwok runs from 11 October to 19 November. People can still join after the start date because there are no set lecture hours. Details are available at https://bininj-kunwok.cdu.edu.au/

Cathy Bow

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News from the Language and Communication Research Hub Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research Central Queensland University

Announcement

The centre of gravity of linguistics and the investigation of First Nations’ languages in North Queensland has now shifted to Central Queensland University. Professor Alexandra (Sacha) Aikhenvald and Professor R. M. W. (Bob) Dixon have now established a ‘Language, communication, and cultural well-being research Hub’ within the Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research, under the leadership of Professor Adrian Miller, Deputy-Vice-President Indigenous Engagement and BHP Chair of Indigenous Engagement.

Language, communication, and cultural wellbeing Research Hub: a summary

The impact of language loss on our world is the impetus behind the UN International decade of Indigenous languages (2022-2032). What happens when a language dies? - has become a critical question for many governments, researchers, and communities. Our collaborative and multidisciplinary program of research focusses on the critical relationships that exist between language, traditional knowledges, and social, emotional, and cultural wellbeing in the tropics. Linguistic expression and language maintenance are crucial cultural and social determinants of Indigenous health across the lifespan. Working in partnership with Indigenous communities in the tropics, our research explores the role which language and linguistic practices play in cross cultural communication, in developing shared understandings and as repositories for culture, history, identity, and spirituality. Focused on the transgenerational impact of documenting, maintaining and reclaiming Indigenous languages, our research explores a) how languages (at the cross-cultural interface that is and creates our modern world) influence each other, and b) how they reflect the physical, social and cultural environments in which people live, systems of social organization, and worldviews. Our multidisciplinary research spans linguistics, social, cultural, and medical anthropology and public health.

A new series of seminars, ‘Communication, health, and social and cultural well-being: cross-disciplinary perspectives’, will start soon – watch this space!

Our news

Christoph Holz, a PhD student at CIHER (CQU), is working towards completing his PhD thesis ‘A grammar of Tiang, a language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea’. His supervisory committee are Alexandra Aikhenvald, Bob Dixon, Miriam Ham, Janya McCalman, and Michael Wood.

Dr Brigitta Flick is being appointed as a Language Documentation Assistant at CIHER, to work together with Christoph Holz, Alexandra Aikhenvald, and Bob Dixon.

Research is continuing on the ARC DP ‘The integration of language and society’ (2017-2021), CIs Aikhenvald, Dixon, and Nerida Jarkey (USyd).

Congratulations to Pema Wangdi

on the successful completion of his PhD ‘A grammar of Brokpa, a Trans-Himalayan language of Bhutan’!

Visiting Fellows in 2022

Professor Heronides Moura (PhD 1996, Unicamp, Brazil), Professor of linguistics at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, an expert on Portuguese and Romance linguistics is planning to visit CIHER in 2022, working on Portuguese in typological perspective (pending the borders reopening).

Remote fieldwork and community engagement

The COVID-19 crisis has made travel and face-to-face fieldwork next to impossible. Thanks for the presence of the internet connection access to WhatsApp in Brazilian Amazonia, Alexandra Aikhenvald has been able to conduct fieldwork with the extant speakers of the Wamiarikune dialect of Tariana in Iauaretê and São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Amazonas, Brazil), with a special focus on exploring patterns of talking about disease and well-being, and discovering new grammatical and lexical patterns emerging in talking about COVID-19. She is working closely together with the Tariana communities in providing materials for the Tariana achool Enu Irine Idakini in Iauaretê.

Bob Dixon is continuing his on-going engagement with the Dyirbal-speaking communities of North Queensland and with the descendants of the Yidiñ speakers.

Bob Dixon with Lillian, Lorraine, and Kaylene, the daughters of the late George Davies, an expert on the Yidiñ language.

Recent events

Linguistics as a discipline within the Research Hub at CIHER was launched during the Launch of Alexandra Aikhenvald’s general interest book I saw the dog: how language works (8 September 2021). This event celebrated the new beginnings of linguistics and investigation of the languages and cultures of the tropics at CQU, where they are justly valued. In the words of a local wit, the former Language and culture research centre slid into the grips of a rigor morgantis.

Earlier this year, Sasha was elected Member of Academia Europaea https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Aikhenvald_Alexandra). Some recordings of her recent lectures, in France and in India are available at https://www.canal-u.tv/producteurs/emma/colloques/evidentiality_and_modality_at_the_crossroads_of_grammar_and_lexicon; (on evidentiality); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqnqDacg0aU; on classifiers; and on endangered names – soon to be available via http://www.inalco.fr/evenement/langues-litteratures-minoritaires-enjeux-valorisation

Sasha and some of her books

New books published and forthcoming

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. 2021. I saw the dog. Why language matters. 2021. London: Profile Books.

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. 2021. The web of knowledge: evidentiality at the cross-roads. Series ‘Brill Research perspectives in linguistics’. Leiden: Brill. (https://brill.com/view/title/60441)

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. 2021. Serial verbs. Paperback edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, and Nerida Jarkey. eds. 2021. The integration of language and society: a cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (early November 2021).

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and Maitz, Péter. eds. 2021. Language contact and multilingual grammars. Special issue of Italian Journal of Linguistics 33:1, 2021 www.italian-journal-linguistics.com

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, ed. Forthcoming (2022). Classifiers in cross-linguistic perspective. Special issue of Asian Languages and Linguistics

R. M. W. Dixon. 2021. The essence of linguistic analysis: an integrated approach. Series ‘Brill Research perspectives in linguistics’. Leiden: Brill.

R. M. W. Dixon. 2021. English prepositions: their meanings and uses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

R.M. W. Dixon. Forthcoming. 2022. A new grammar of Dyirbal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sarvasy, Hanah and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. Forthcoming. Clause-chaining in the world’s languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anne Storch, Ana Deumert, Andrea Hollington and Alexandra Aikhenvald. Forthcoming. Linguistic fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

To enquire about the new developments in the Research Hub, write to Alexandra at a.aikhenvald@cqu.edu.au or a.y.aikhenvald@live.com, or to Bob at r.dixon2@cqu.edu.au or r.m.w.dixon@outlook.com.

Alexandra (Sasha) Aikhenvald

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News from the University of Melbourne

Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence (Helen Fraser)

The Faculty of Arts and The School of Languages and Linguistics at The University of Melbourne now have a Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence. This is led by Helen Fraser who is the Director, working closely with Research Fellow Debbie Loakes.  

Establishment of the Hub followed the success of the 2017 Linguistics Call to Action (seeking review and reform in the handling of indistinct covert recordings used as evidence in criminal trials), in which ALS played a lead role (see minutes from 2017 AGM) and the consultation with linguistics and law enforcement led by a judicial working party on 24 Oct 2019 (see ALS Newsletter Nov 2019).

You can learn more about the Hub via our website arts.unimelb.edu.au/language-forensics and our blog, which is regularly updated with our news: https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/language-forensics/. Feel free to email either of us for further information.

Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change (DiPVaC) Conference (Chloé Diskin-Holdaway)

Registration is now open for the fifth DiPVaC conference, to be held in hybrid format (online and in person at the University of Melbourne, restrictions permitting) from 14-16 December 2021.  

Registration is FREE for anyone wishing to attend. Plenary Speakers: 

• Derek Denis (University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada): Discourse-pragmatic innovation in one of the world's most multicultural cities 
• Janet Holmes (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand): Doing leadership in style: the contribution of pragmatic particles in New Zealand workplace interaction 
• Ilana Mushin (The University of Queensland, Australia) & Lesley Stirling (The University of Melbourne, Australia): Be in the moment: attending to interactional context in analysing discourse-pragmatic variation 
• Celeste Rodríguez-Louro (The University of Western Australia): The soul of language: Discourse-pragmatic variation and change in urban Aboriginal English 

With special workshops on The acquisition of discourse-pragmatic variation led by Alexandra D'Arcy (University of Victoria, Canada) and Integrating interactional methods into our analysis of discourse-pragmatic variation by Mirjam Eiswirth (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) 

Question about Syntax teaching (Brett Baker)

Brett would like to hear from colleagues who teach Syntax. Do you use a textbook? If so, what is it? What's the general approach? Do you pick a particular theory, or is it more a typological survey? We have used Kroeger's Analyzing Grammar but that only serves for about half the semester, and then we switch to Radford for X-bar theory. But this approach is looking a bit tired. I think there is general reluctance to use a Minimalist approach, but I'm interested to hear what other colleagues are doing.  

PhD scholarship

Ever wondered how speakers of polysynthetic languages put those long complicated words together? And how they understand them? Help us to find out!

Applications and enquiries are invited from qualified and motivated students wishing to pursue a PhD degree. The PhD is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (“1 potato, 2 wotatoes, 3 otatoes: Lexical access in Australian languages”) which examines issues of word processing, lexical access, and phonological and morphological theory in a range of Australian languages with very complex morphological systems.

The successful applicant will receive a PhD stipend (AU$31,200/year for 3 years), plus funding of fieldwork costs (travel, accommodation, payments to participants). The candidate will be based at the University of Melbourne, in the heart of one of the world’s most liveable cities. The University of Melbourne is consistently rated one of the best in Australia (#32 Times Higher Education ranking), and the Linguistics program is also one of the world's best (#22 QS Top Universities ranking), with specialists in Australian Indigenous Languages, speech science, and language acquisition.

The PhD project will involve fieldwork on a language of Maningrida with (depending on the candidate's interests) focus on areas such as phonology, morphology, and experimental psycholinguistics. All these languages are prefixing, non-Pama-Nyungan languages with a complex morpho-phonology. These languages are among a handful which are still being acquired by children, and with hundreds of speakers.

The PhD offers an opportunity to develop your interests in language documentation and description, in quantitative analysis, experimental design, psycholinguistics, language processing, speech science, and in evaluation of theories of the word. The successful candidate will join an energetic team whose combined expertise covers all of these research areas, and who can offer you training to develop your knowledge in these areas. The principal supervisor is A/Prof Brett Baker (https://unimelb.academia.edu/BrettBaker), with the collaboration of the other Chief Investigators A/Prof Mark Harvey (UNewcastle, Australia), A/Prof Robert Mailhammer (Western Sydney U), and Dr Rikke Bundgaard-Nielsen (WSU/Newcastle).

We welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds, who are keen to apply their skills to linguistic analysis, field work and experimental linguistics. In particular, the project is suitable for candidates with strong interests in applying new methods to empirical linguistics as well as phonetics and phonology.

The successful applicant should:

• Hold qualifications and experience of one of the following kinds (i) an Australian First Class Bachelor (Honours) degree, (ii) coursework Masters with at least 25% research component with a final result above 80%, (iii) Research Masters degree, or (iv) equivalent overseas qualifications.
• Demonstrate strong academic performance in linguistics.
• Have experience with or be willing to learn experimental approaches to language description, especially in phonetics/phonology and psycholinguistics.
• Be enthusiastic and highly motivated to undertake further study at an advanced level.

International applicants must also meet English language proficiency standards. (See https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2019/subjects/ling80001 for an overview of requirements for entry and completion).

Applications Deadline: 31-Oct-2021 (midnight, Australian Eastern Standard time).

Applicants should send initial enquiries to A/Prof Baker as listed below, with an outline of how they meet the requirements, accompanied by academic transcripts (statements of results, translated into English if necessary), and the names and contact details of 3 academic referees who can comment knowledgeably on their skills and experience.

bjbaker@unimelb.edu.au

Brett Baker

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News from Macquarie University

Investigating multilingual international students’ linguistics experiences at Macquarie University

Associate Lecturer Agi Bodis alongside a research team of seven undergraduate students from the Department of Linguistics is seeking to better understand the linguistic experiences of international students enrolled in Macquarie University courses.

The project is motivated by existing findings that describe linguistic invisibility in educational contexts with a ‘monolingual mindset’, an attitudinal climate that is in contrast with universities’ goal to achieve inclusivity in internationalized education. With international students featuring prominently in Macquarie University enrolments and plans underway to commence a phased return of international students to universities in New South Wales, the educational and social experiences of this student cohort is important to explore. The project focuses specifically on experiences related to students’ English language proficiency and language use as well as the use of their first and other languages.

The scope of this study is broadened through its connection with two similar studies at Brandeis University in the US, and the University of Birmingham in the UK. Leigh Swigart, the coordinator of the joint project and Director of the Ethics Center’s Program in International Justice and Society at Brandeis University, notes that “to best support these members of our community academically and socially, it is important that we understand the challenges that international students face and how the pandemic, in particular, affects how they choose to communicate in public.”

The three research teams all work with university student researchers to shed more light on the student perspective in the research process and build research capacity. “This is a unique opportunity for our student researchers to work on a truly interdisciplinary and international project,” says University of Birmingham team leader Prof. Karen McAuliffe. “Our joint project will shine a light on the experiences of international students across three continents.”

The joint research project continues well into 2022 and the researchers hope that the findings will help educational institutions to best accommodate and support this student group.

T&I program gains membership of CIUTI

Our Translation and Interpreting program has gained membership of CIUTI, the International Conference of University Institutes with T&I programs.

CIUTI was established in 1960 and is a group of currently 54 selected universities worldwide devoted to excellence in T&I training and research. Membership requires fulfilment of strict criteria and is a distinct seal of quality as well as an invaluable international recognition.

Being part of CIUTI will facilitate international cooperation and mobility in both T&I teaching and research, and it will give HDR students and academics the opportunity to collaborate with top researchers in the field. For more information about CIUTI: https://www.ciuti.org/

Publications

Australian Manual of Style (AMOS)  published by Macquarie University and Biotext

Countless questions of writing style and presentation – as well as up-to-date, research-based advice on communication issues such as accessibility, readability and usability – are covered in the new Australian Manual of Style (AMOS), developed in partnership by Macquarie University (Emeritus Professor Pam Peters) and Biotext Publishing (Dr Richard Stanford). 

AMOS is an Australian resource for anyone writing, editing or producing general or technical information. It has more than 650 online pages covering topics in communication, writing, editing and content design. It offers practical and expert guidance to help researchers, teachers and students in academia, and professional communicators in government and business.

The intended readership for AMOS (2021) is a good deal broader than that of the classic Australian Government Style Manual, which aimed to support  “authors, editors and printers” generally through its six editions (1966-2002). AMOS takes on issues in print publishing as well as online delivery of information.  It embraces the different forms of presentation used by researchers and professional communicators, including journal articles, reports, powerpoint presentations and press releases. It contains a major section on graphic displays of information: how to create effective tables and graphs, and the issues in data visualisation.

A special feature of AMOS is the range of academic and professional subject areas it includes: economics and finance, humanities, law, mathematics, science, social science, among others.  Each is treated in terms of its intellectual purpose, characteristic style and structure for different vehicles of publication, as well as some of its special challenges. 

In writing for general audiences e.g. government communication, AMOS (2021) discusses the need to consider diverse readerships, including first- and second-language readers of English. Their variable abilities to decode and understand semi-technical information, e.g. in health care, is the focus of current Macquarie University research on readability.

AMOS (2021) draws on Macquarie University’s established strengths in publishing, authoring and contributing to Australia’s major language references, including the Macquarie Dictionary, the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage, and six chapters of the former Australian Government Style Manual (6^th ed. 2002). It draws on Biotext’s original Australian Manual of Scientific Style (online 2016), and its expertise in scientific publishing.

A tour of the key features of AMOS (2021) at  stylemanual.com.au can be taken from Look Inside tab.

Exploring the Ecology of World Englishes in the Twenty-first Century

Edinburgh University Press has just published a new book on World Englishes co-edited by Pam Peters (Macquarie University) and Kate Burridge (Monash University). It showcases the work of members of the VEIP p project  (Varieties of English in the Indo-Pacific), an international collaboration between researchers that also includes Macquarie academics Loy Lising and Adam Smith.

The book highlights the adaptability of English in contact with other languages, cultures and societies and in diverse regional habitats including South Africa, the Cocos Island, Singapore, Uganda, China, the Philippines, Micronesia, Australia and New Zealand. For more details, please visit the publisher's website

Joe Blythe

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Job: Lecturer, The University of Newcastle

The Discipline of Linguistics at The University of Newcastle (Australia) invites applications for an ongoing Lecturer (Level B) position commencing in January 2022.

Preferrable Commencement Date: January 2022

*Subject to change based on travel restrictions by Australian government

Application closing date 8 November 2021.

Essential Qualification:

• PhD in linguistics (or evidence of imminent completion)

Desirable Qualifications:

• Research experience in at least one of the following: computational linguistics, corpus construction and analysis, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and/or quantitative methods.
• Experience in teaching/supervising undergraduate/graduate students.
• A track record of scholarly publications and/or grant application writing.
• Proficiency in either Mandarin Chinese or Arabic.
• Interest in developing interdisciplinary research projects, including in cognitive science, and/or in endangered or Indigenous languages.

Teaching responsibilities will include:

• Introductory and advanced linguistics courses for undergraduate students.
• Courses in the Master of Translation Studies program.
• Supervision of projects for Honours, Master of Translation Studies, and PhD theses.
• Research opportunities in the post include:
• Access to UoN College of Human and Social Futures internal funding for pilot studies and for early career development
• Collaboration on Master of Translation Studies Database Construction Project
• Collaboration on the Australian Research Council-funded Landscape, language and culture in Indigenous Australia project on spatial language and spatial cognition in in Indigenous language communities.
• Collaboration on the Australia Research Data Commons-funded Time-Layered Cultural Map of Australia 2.0 project.

Further information about the position and application procedure is available at: https://uniofnewcastle.secure.force.com/academicint/apex/ts2__jobdetails?jobId=a0N5g000000IkHKEA0&isdtp=p1

Contact:

Kiwako.ito@newcastle.edu.au
Kiwako Ito, PhD
Associate Professor of Linguistics, Discipline Liaison

or:

bill.palmer@newcastle.edu.au
Bill Palmer
Associate Professor of Linguistics
The University of Newcastle, Australia

Bill Palmer

About ALS

The Australian Linguistic Society is the national organization for linguists and linguistics in Australia. Its primary goal is to further interest in and support for linguistics research and teaching in Australia. Further information about the Society is available by clicking here.

The ALS Newsletter is issued three times per year, in March, July and October. Information for the Newsletter should be sent to the Editor, Joe Blythe (alsonline-at-als.asn.au) by the end of the first week of March, July or October. There is a list of people who are automatically advised that it is time to contribute material; if you wish to be added to that list, send Joe an email.

Membership of ALS includes free subscription to the Australian Journal of Linguistics, which publishes four issues per year. Members are entitled to present papers at the annual conference. ALS membership is handled through the ALS website https://als.asn.au/.

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