A longitudinal study of the interaction of home and school language in three Aboriginal communities. The importance of language skills cannot be underestimated, and contribute to 'a healthy start to life'. In multilingual Indigenous communities, children must negotiate the complexities of different languages used for different purposes. This project will provide detailed insights into how children manage differences between home and school language, the kinds of problems they encounter when the ....A longitudinal study of the interaction of home and school language in three Aboriginal communities. The importance of language skills cannot be underestimated, and contribute to 'a healthy start to life'. In multilingual Indigenous communities, children must negotiate the complexities of different languages used for different purposes. This project will provide detailed insights into how children manage differences between home and school language, the kinds of problems they encounter when they enter the school system, and how their languages develop over the first four crucial years of school which provide the foundation for the children's future education. Their ability to manage the language of school underpins their ability to lead successful and engaged lives as adults. Read moreRead less
Change in language, culture and identity in a small isolated speech community: Palmerston Island English. This project will investigate language variation and change through a case study of Palmerston Island, a small, isolated community in the Cook Islands, where a new dialect of English has developed. The relationship between social networks, cultural identity and linguistic variation will be explored.
Reconstructing Eastern Himalayan Histories: languages, plants, and people. This project combines linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork to produce documentations of Bhutan's East-Bodish (Tibeto-Burman) speaking peoples, with an ultimate aim to reconstruct the social history of this group. The linguistic fieldwork will focus on different semantic domains, including religion, agriculture, and ethnobotany and grammatical features as different lenses into the past. The anthropological research will b ....Reconstructing Eastern Himalayan Histories: languages, plants, and people. This project combines linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork to produce documentations of Bhutan's East-Bodish (Tibeto-Burman) speaking peoples, with an ultimate aim to reconstruct the social history of this group. The linguistic fieldwork will focus on different semantic domains, including religion, agriculture, and ethnobotany and grammatical features as different lenses into the past. The anthropological research will bring new ethnographic light in to supplement the linguistic picture of the past, including religious practices and social organisation. Situated squarely within the eastern Himalayas, this project will provide new and crucial insights into the prehistory of Asia.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.
The language of consciousness. This project aims to study language used to describe states of consciousness. It will bring the machinery of modern philosophy of language and linguistics to bear on semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of the language of consciousness, as it is used both every day and in the technical contexts of the philosophy and science of consciousness. The project expects to fill a gap in philosophical and scientific study of consciousness, widely regarded both inside an ....The language of consciousness. This project aims to study language used to describe states of consciousness. It will bring the machinery of modern philosophy of language and linguistics to bear on semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of the language of consciousness, as it is used both every day and in the technical contexts of the philosophy and science of consciousness. The project expects to fill a gap in philosophical and scientific study of consciousness, widely regarded both inside and outside the academy as a major test case for contemporary knowledge.Read moreRead less
The Long-term Dynamics of Higher Order social Organisation in Aboriginal Australia. The two principal aims of the project are to show: that the Holocene prehistory of Australia was dynamic, involving significant expansion and migration of language groups; and, that in such expansion, migration, and resistance to them, higher-order social groupings were formed: the ‘nations’ reported by earlier anthropology and the ‘cultural blocs’ of recent anthropology. Evidence will come from comparative lingu ....The Long-term Dynamics of Higher Order social Organisation in Aboriginal Australia. The two principal aims of the project are to show: that the Holocene prehistory of Australia was dynamic, involving significant expansion and migration of language groups; and, that in such expansion, migration, and resistance to them, higher-order social groupings were formed: the ‘nations’ reported by earlier anthropology and the ‘cultural blocs’ of recent anthropology. Evidence will come from comparative linguistics, anthropology, and the role of geography in the distribution of social groupings, principally in subtropical Eastern Australia but also in the Victoria River district and Tanami Desert, Northern Territory. This project challenges the dominant view of static Indigenous Australia pre-colonially, and will benefit Native Title anthropology.Read moreRead less
Indigenous languages of eastern East Timor: description and contact studies. Both Austronesian and Papuan languages from eastern East Timor have undergone substantial changes which have presumably resulted from communal bilingualism in both sorts of languages. The project aims to document and explain these changes. Language contact has traditionally been a neglected area in historical linguistics and the East Timor situation will provide valuable material for a general theory of language chan ....Indigenous languages of eastern East Timor: description and contact studies. Both Austronesian and Papuan languages from eastern East Timor have undergone substantial changes which have presumably resulted from communal bilingualism in both sorts of languages. The project aims to document and explain these changes. Language contact has traditionally been a neglected area in historical linguistics and the East Timor situation will provide valuable material for a general theory of language change. Book length grammars of an Austronesian and a Papuan language, further grammatical sketches, and a number of papers on language contact will be produced as a result of the project.Read moreRead less
Languages in Deep Time: the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia and their wider relationships. With its natural focus on the islands of the Southwest Pacific, and the associated mainland of New Guinea, the project has particular relevance for the understanding of the origins of our nearest neighbours. It is envisaged that the results of this project will generate considerable interest outside specialist circles, demonstrating Australian achievements in science on the international stage.
Quality and the Culture of Hierarchy, Governance and Socialization in Contemporary China. China is a key country for Australia in terms of economic, military, and cultural exchange, and mutual cooperation on regional issues. By contributing to understandings of the social and cultural bases of Chinese governance, this project will enhance the abilities of Australians involved in Chinese affairs in all fields. Understanding the dynamics of social hierarchy and local governance in China will als ....Quality and the Culture of Hierarchy, Governance and Socialization in Contemporary China. China is a key country for Australia in terms of economic, military, and cultural exchange, and mutual cooperation on regional issues. By contributing to understandings of the social and cultural bases of Chinese governance, this project will enhance the abilities of Australians involved in Chinese affairs in all fields. Understanding the dynamics of social hierarchy and local governance in China will also contribute to the project of imagining more equitable forms of governance in Australia. Finally, the project involves the training of two Australian postgraduate students in the severely under-represented sub-discipline of the anthropology of China.Read moreRead less
Linguistic Typology and the Demise of Morphological Case: The Development of the Genitive in the Germanic Languages. This project will investigate how changes to the case marking systems of the Germanic languages affected the expression of the relationships originally encoded by genitive case. New data will be gathered concerning changes in Dutch and English. The investigation will then be extended to the other Germanic languages. A primary aim of the project is to present a case study of how ....Linguistic Typology and the Demise of Morphological Case: The Development of the Genitive in the Germanic Languages. This project will investigate how changes to the case marking systems of the Germanic languages affected the expression of the relationships originally encoded by genitive case. New data will be gathered concerning changes in Dutch and English. The investigation will then be extended to the other Germanic languages. A primary aim of the project is to present a case study of how closely related languages can diverge significantly while undergoing a similar shift from one overall ?type? to another, adding to our understanding of what sort of changes the human language capability allows in the transmission of language across generations.Read moreRead less