Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage the ....Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage these challenges. Over 170,000 Australians die each year, most from serious illness. This project should provide significant benefits to future initiatives for enhancing communication about advance care planning, especially in relation to young Australians, older Australians, and Australians with disabilities.Read moreRead less
Bilingualism in the bush: reconceptualising 'speech community' in immigrant family language maintenance in regional Australia. This project will investigate how immigrant families in regional Australian centres maintain their children's home language(s) in the absence of the critical mass of speakers, networks and resources found in metropolitan areas. It will establish how such families can best be supported through community and educational services to ensure that children grow up bilingual, w ....Bilingualism in the bush: reconceptualising 'speech community' in immigrant family language maintenance in regional Australia. This project will investigate how immigrant families in regional Australian centres maintain their children's home language(s) in the absence of the critical mass of speakers, networks and resources found in metropolitan areas. It will establish how such families can best be supported through community and educational services to ensure that children grow up bilingual, with the attendant benefits of improved cognitive, social and academic skills. The project will examine home practices and the interface between home and early childhood services. Outcomes will include a better understanding of successful family language planning practices in isolated regions and a reconceptualisation of 'speech community' through communications technologies.Read moreRead less
Metrolingual language practices in four urban sites: talking in the city. Metrolingualism has recently been coined as a term to describe the use of multilingual resources in urban contexts. Through detailed analysis of language use in four urban sites, this project will develop our understanding of metrolingual language practices as well as our understanding of the ways in which urban spaces are managed linguistically.
Postoccidental Englishes and Rap. This project examines the conjunction between new Englishes and rap music. Applied linguistic research on world Englishes has focused predominantly on newly emergent standardized national varieties, and thus has tended to overlook the changing oral codes in domains such as popular music. By looking at the global spread of rap in relationship to the global spread of English, this project has great significance for 1.Expanding our knowledge about the implications ....Postoccidental Englishes and Rap. This project examines the conjunction between new Englishes and rap music. Applied linguistic research on world Englishes has focused predominantly on newly emergent standardized national varieties, and thus has tended to overlook the changing oral codes in domains such as popular music. By looking at the global spread of rap in relationship to the global spread of English, this project has great significance for 1.Expanding our knowledge about the implications and processes of this spread; 2. Developing a model of postoccidental Englishes that goes beyond current frameworks; and 3. Creating educational materials that can engage with student interests and desires.Read moreRead less
Success and failure in second language learning (SLL). Why do some people succeed in learning a second language to very high levels and others fail miserably despite the fact that both groups may have set out with similarly positive attitudes and high levels of motivation? This research project focuses on the social contexts in which second language learning takes place. It aims to provide an insider account of what it is like to be a successful or unsuccessful L2 user. It will describe the ling ....Success and failure in second language learning (SLL). Why do some people succeed in learning a second language to very high levels and others fail miserably despite the fact that both groups may have set out with similarly positive attitudes and high levels of motivation? This research project focuses on the social contexts in which second language learning takes place. It aims to provide an insider account of what it is like to be a successful or unsuccessful L2 user. It will describe the linguistic and discursive resources language learners have access to, and the ways in which such access is structured in the communities they participate in.Read moreRead less
Communicating with people who have limited English proficiency. This sociolinguistic project aims to investigate how fluent English speakers interact with people who have limited proficiency. In contemporary Australia such mundane interactions may determine employment, education or health outcomes. While research into language barriers has mostly focused on the experiences of migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds, this project will investigate how English speakers deal with increasing l ....Communicating with people who have limited English proficiency. This sociolinguistic project aims to investigate how fluent English speakers interact with people who have limited proficiency. In contemporary Australia such mundane interactions may determine employment, education or health outcomes. While research into language barriers has mostly focused on the experiences of migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds, this project will investigate how English speakers deal with increasing linguistic diversity. Expected outcomes include an understanding of the role of majority members in facilitating the integration of newcomers. This will provide significant socioeconomic benefits for institutions and individuals as they navigate everyday intercultural communication.Read moreRead less
The Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Functional and Corpus Analyses. The project promotes original, innovative research in Australia into Biblical Hebrew linguistics. Advancement in the knowledge of linguistics increases our understanding of language and its central role in cognition, social interaction, and culture. Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Hebrew Bible, a text sacred to Judaism and Christianity, and of interest to the wider Australian public. The Hebrew Bible is inextricably bound to ....The Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Functional and Corpus Analyses. The project promotes original, innovative research in Australia into Biblical Hebrew linguistics. Advancement in the knowledge of linguistics increases our understanding of language and its central role in cognition, social interaction, and culture. Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Hebrew Bible, a text sacred to Judaism and Christianity, and of interest to the wider Australian public. The Hebrew Bible is inextricably bound to these two religious traditions that continue to influence substantially Australian society and societies across the world. This project furthers Australia's capacity to contribute to the vital task of interpreting the Hebrew Bible in contemporary, responsible ways and translating it into the world's languages.Read moreRead less
Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus. Australia's relationship with Indonesia is of great significance. The need for good relationships founded on appreciation of the range of societies and views in modern Indonesia is widely acknowledged. A better knowledge of the languages is essential for this, and so are fast, efficient information gathering systems for processing multilingual sources (including Indonesian text), that can analyse large volumes ....Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus. Australia's relationship with Indonesia is of great significance. The need for good relationships founded on appreciation of the range of societies and views in modern Indonesia is widely acknowledged. A better knowledge of the languages is essential for this, and so are fast, efficient information gathering systems for processing multilingual sources (including Indonesian text), that can analyse large volumes of text. The skills to build such systems exist internationally. Through collaboration with established international teams, we plan to transfer cutting-edge skills in the development of machine-useable grammars to Australian researchers, and to create the language resources essential for understanding Indonesian.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing Australia’s linguistic past: Are all Australian languages related to one another? This project addresses a central question about Australia’s past. Are all the languages of Australia related, deriving from a common source language: Proto-Australian. The project will examine the implications of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer for analyses of Australian prehistory, and for general analyses of human prehistory. The project involves extensive documentation of an endangered language Yanyuwa, ....Reconstructing Australia’s linguistic past: Are all Australian languages related to one another? This project addresses a central question about Australia’s past. Are all the languages of Australia related, deriving from a common source language: Proto-Australian. The project will examine the implications of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer for analyses of Australian prehistory, and for general analyses of human prehistory. The project involves extensive documentation of an endangered language Yanyuwa, because of the significance of Yanyuwa data in deciding between a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer. The project will provide a descriptive grammar of Yanyuwa, a book evaluating the Proto-Australian hypothesis, and articles discussing the significance of the success or failure of the hypothesis for theories of the general human past.Read moreRead less
The Indigenous grammar of Aboriginal English: implications for contact linguistics. This project will investigate how Australian Indigenous languages have shaped Aboriginal English, a major variety of Australian English. The project will significantly advance the knowledge base of linguistics and make a key contribution to improving the social opportunities of Indigenous Australians.