The relationship between speech production and perception in Australian language speakers: implications for speech development and learning in Aboriginal children. Chronic ear infection blights the life of at least 50% of Aboriginal Australians. In a vicious cycle that extends from generation to generation, it leads to hearing loss, educational disadvantage, socio-economic disadvantage and environmental depredation, which once again leads to ear (and many other) infections. This is a unique atte ....The relationship between speech production and perception in Australian language speakers: implications for speech development and learning in Aboriginal children. Chronic ear infection blights the life of at least 50% of Aboriginal Australians. In a vicious cycle that extends from generation to generation, it leads to hearing loss, educational disadvantage, socio-economic disadvantage and environmental depredation, which once again leads to ear (and many other) infections. This is a unique attempt by researchers across academic disciplines to study the role of language in educational disadvantage and whether this disadvantage might be made worse for Aboriginal children by the early use of English at school. We ask whether, on purely acoustic or linguistic grounds, communicating in an Aboriginal language might offer improved educational and health outcomes for Aboriginal children in the early years.Read moreRead less
Linguistic analysis of Ngarrindjeri texts. The Ngarrindjeri language of the Lower Murray of South Australia was richly documented in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The largest body of texts (163 texts in Berndt and Berndt, 1993) is a treasure-trove of language and cultural knowledge from the 1940s, but has received little linguistic attention, because of difficulties in interpreting writing conventions and because of the inadequate translations provided. Through systematic linguisti ....Linguistic analysis of Ngarrindjeri texts. The Ngarrindjeri language of the Lower Murray of South Australia was richly documented in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The largest body of texts (163 texts in Berndt and Berndt, 1993) is a treasure-trove of language and cultural knowledge from the 1940s, but has received little linguistic attention, because of difficulties in interpreting writing conventions and because of the inadequate translations provided. Through systematic linguistic analysis and reconstructions, this project aims to shed light on how Ngarrindjeri changed over the 100 years since first documentation, how clan languages differed, and how Ngarrindjeri texts and sentences were structured. It is expected to provide important insight into the variation expected in language contact situations.Read moreRead less