Chanted tales from Highland New Guinea: a comparative study of oral performance traditions and their role in contemporary land politics. In parts of Highland PNG there are flourishing traditions of epic-like chanted tales. Often dealing with relationships between people and land, these are a highly valued cultural resource. From the perspective of comparative poetics they are one of the clearest known examples of measured verse that has developed independently of alphabetic or syllabic writing. ....Chanted tales from Highland New Guinea: a comparative study of oral performance traditions and their role in contemporary land politics. In parts of Highland PNG there are flourishing traditions of epic-like chanted tales. Often dealing with relationships between people and land, these are a highly valued cultural resource. From the perspective of comparative poetics they are one of the clearest known examples of measured verse that has developed independently of alphabetic or syllabic writing. This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of investigators to analyse the wide range of styles in which these narratives are performed, and further the understanding of their implications for cross-cultural study of verbal art and the politics of land ownership in present-day Papua New Guinea.Read moreRead less
Placenames and Personal Names in Yolngu Society and Country Through Time. The Yolngu peoples’ land and sea Country in north-east Arnhem Land is densely named, as a consequence of the actions of ancestral beings who gave shape to Country and to Yolngu society in place. Placenames are sung in ceremony, and passed down through the generations as personal names. This project aims to document the placenames of two Yolngu regions and explore what they tell us about Yolngu society as a system that has ....Placenames and Personal Names in Yolngu Society and Country Through Time. The Yolngu peoples’ land and sea Country in north-east Arnhem Land is densely named, as a consequence of the actions of ancestral beings who gave shape to Country and to Yolngu society in place. Placenames are sung in ceremony, and passed down through the generations as personal names. This project aims to document the placenames of two Yolngu regions and explore what they tell us about Yolngu society as a system that has been in place for thousands of years. In consultation with Yolngu, it aims to create an interactive map and database archive to which Yolngu historians can add in the future, providing significant benefits for a community for who consider these names to be central to their identity and wellbeing – past, present and future.Read moreRead less
Skin and kin in Aboriginal Australia: linguistic and historical perspectives on the dynamics of social categories. Indigenous Australians have unique ways of talking about social relations, linking them over wide regions as family. This project will trace the history of these terminologies and the evolution of these relations. The results will reveal the dynamics of Indigenous societies and resolve long-standing questions about human society generally.
Values and ethics in a global world: a semantic perspective. The question: "How are we to live?" is of fundamental importance, on an individual, social and international level. Yet in an increasingly global and pluralist world it remains difficult to articulate any values that are intelligible, let alone acceptable, to everyone. Although the literature on the subject is constantly growing, the very language of the current debate suffers from ethnocentrism, with culture-specific English words lik ....Values and ethics in a global world: a semantic perspective. The question: "How are we to live?" is of fundamental importance, on an individual, social and international level. Yet in an increasingly global and pluralist world it remains difficult to articulate any values that are intelligible, let alone acceptable, to everyone. Although the literature on the subject is constantly growing, the very language of the current debate suffers from ethnocentrism, with culture-specific English words like "fairness", "autonomy" and "tolerance" being widely used as would-be neutral conceptual tools. A framework for discussing ethics and values in a universal, non-ethnocentric perspective is urgently needed. This project aims at providing such a framework and putting it to work.Read moreRead less
The Semantics of Canonical Parallelism: Oral composition among Rotinese poets, eastern Indonesia. The pairing of words, known in linguistics as parallelism, is a critical feature of the oral traditions of the world. This strict use of couplets for oral compositions is a characteristic of the vibrant traditions of verbal communication on all the islands of eastern Indonesia. This project focuses on the oral traditions of the island of Roti, Australia's closest Indonesian neighbour. Using new anal ....The Semantics of Canonical Parallelism: Oral composition among Rotinese poets, eastern Indonesia. The pairing of words, known in linguistics as parallelism, is a critical feature of the oral traditions of the world. This strict use of couplets for oral compositions is a characteristic of the vibrant traditions of verbal communication on all the islands of eastern Indonesia. This project focuses on the oral traditions of the island of Roti, Australia's closest Indonesian neighbour. Using new analytic techniques applied to an extensive recorded corpus, it seeks to identify underlying mechanisms of verbal composition that may be applied comparatively to other oral traditions throughout the world, thus locating Australia at the forefront of the international study of oral traditions.Read moreRead less
Body, Language and Socialisation across Cultures. This project aims to advance the understanding of how people learn languages, and in the process become socialized into particular cultures and communities. To that end, it will bring together an international team of leading experts in the field, and focus in new ways on the interplay of speech and sign with other bodily forms of communication in a wide variety of cultures. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of multimodal communica ....Body, Language and Socialisation across Cultures. This project aims to advance the understanding of how people learn languages, and in the process become socialized into particular cultures and communities. To that end, it will bring together an international team of leading experts in the field, and focus in new ways on the interplay of speech and sign with other bodily forms of communication in a wide variety of cultures. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of multimodal communication and language socialization, and enhancement of Australian research capacity in these fields. This should lead to significant practical benefits, improving Australia's ability to adapt to cultural diversity and to counteract its disadvantages in schools and everyday life.Read moreRead less
Waves of words: mapping and modeling Australia’s Pacific ties. This project aims to determine the extent and nature of ancient contact relationships between first peoples of Australia and the Pacific by exploring linguistic interactions. The project will use complementary sets of methods and expects to discover what kinds of social configurations underlie different linguistic outcomes in language contact situations. This will improve our understanding of the relationship between language change ....Waves of words: mapping and modeling Australia’s Pacific ties. This project aims to determine the extent and nature of ancient contact relationships between first peoples of Australia and the Pacific by exploring linguistic interactions. The project will use complementary sets of methods and expects to discover what kinds of social configurations underlie different linguistic outcomes in language contact situations. This will improve our understanding of the relationship between language change and socio-cultural change, which will have significant impact on linguistic and anthropological theory.Read moreRead less
Children's language learning and the development of intersubjectivity. How do children learn languages? How do they learn to understand the intentions and perspectives of others, and coordinate their own with them? Based on research in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, this project will answer these questions, showing how the two processes are related to each other by studying them in a cross-cultural way.
Aboriginal song cycles from the Simpson Desert and the Cooper: an integrated linguistic and musicological study. The project will produce a detailed linguistic analysis of four previously undocumented Wangkangurru song cycles from the Simpson Desert, recorded by the applicant in the nineteen sixties, including a study of the singer's comments on esoteric meanings. It also involves similar work with the Nguninta ?travelling ceremony? from the upper Cooper. Integrated with this will be an ethno-m ....Aboriginal song cycles from the Simpson Desert and the Cooper: an integrated linguistic and musicological study. The project will produce a detailed linguistic analysis of four previously undocumented Wangkangurru song cycles from the Simpson Desert, recorded by the applicant in the nineteen sixties, including a study of the singer's comments on esoteric meanings. It also involves similar work with the Nguninta ?travelling ceremony? from the upper Cooper. Integrated with this will be an ethno-musicological study aimed particularly at showing the distribution of song-styles and the way songs were transmitted.Read moreRead less
Tracing change in family and social organisation in Indigenous Australia, using evidence from language. This project provides new approaches to knowing the ancient heritage of Australia and its first people through the distinctive ways in which they managed and talked about their family and social relationships. These relationships are the key to how they have survived, winning a livelihood from a difficult environment. The project has practical application in Native Title and land management, a ....Tracing change in family and social organisation in Indigenous Australia, using evidence from language. This project provides new approaches to knowing the ancient heritage of Australia and its first people through the distinctive ways in which they managed and talked about their family and social relationships. These relationships are the key to how they have survived, winning a livelihood from a difficult environment. The project has practical application in Native Title and land management, and in understanding the changes in Indigenous family structures which impact on their health and well-being. For the mainstream population too, confronted by influences destabilising the family, this study will also help us understand how and why family organization changes.Read moreRead less