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
How Strict is the Mother Tongue? Using Dialects to Probe Early Speech Perception and Word Recognition. This project will 1)advance knowledge of toddler word representations and their developmental precursors; 2) contribute to theories of phonological vs phonetic properties of spoken language; 3) explain how experience with the ambient language shapes children's phonological and lexical development. Moreover, the findings will 4) offer crucial new insights into sources of developmental disorders ....How Strict is the Mother Tongue? Using Dialects to Probe Early Speech Perception and Word Recognition. This project will 1)advance knowledge of toddler word representations and their developmental precursors; 2) contribute to theories of phonological vs phonetic properties of spoken language; 3) explain how experience with the ambient language shapes children's phonological and lexical development. Moreover, the findings will 4) offer crucial new insights into sources of developmental disorders (language delay, dyslexia) leading to improved early diagnosis and treatment; 5) bear on issues of second language learning; and by understanding the process by which young learners handle dialect variability, 6) provide insights into how automatic speech recognition systems can be made more robust to dialectal and foreign accent differences.
Read moreRead less
Development of second language phonetic and phonological categories. The majority of the world's population speaks two or more languages, yet we know little about how multiple languages are accommodated within a single speaker. Why do children appear to learn a second language 'like a native' but adults invariably develop a clearly perceptible foreign accent? This project investigates a little-known fact - adult second language speakers also 'hear' with a foreign accent. As Australia becomes inc ....Development of second language phonetic and phonological categories. The majority of the world's population speaks two or more languages, yet we know little about how multiple languages are accommodated within a single speaker. Why do children appear to learn a second language 'like a native' but adults invariably develop a clearly perceptible foreign accent? This project investigates a little-known fact - adult second language speakers also 'hear' with a foreign accent. As Australia becomes increasingly multilingual increasing our understanding of the human capacity for language learning would strengthen Australia's social and economic fabric by leading to improved educational practices, work prospects for migrants and, most importantly, understanding between cultures.Read moreRead less
New languages seen with new eyes: Evidence for the emergence of grammar in signed languages using new methodologies and technologies. This project will ensure that the education of signing deaf children and the scientific study of human language are based on descriptions of sign language vocabulary and grammar that are supported by empirical evidence from representative samples of naturalistic language. The knowledge is essential for developing assessment and teaching tools for deaf children, fo ....New languages seen with new eyes: Evidence for the emergence of grammar in signed languages using new methodologies and technologies. This project will ensure that the education of signing deaf children and the scientific study of human language are based on descriptions of sign language vocabulary and grammar that are supported by empirical evidence from representative samples of naturalistic language. The knowledge is essential for developing assessment and teaching tools for deaf children, for improving the training of sign language interpreters, and for understanding the results of research into human cognition and the processing of language-spoken, written or signed-in the brain. The internet accessible digital video corpus will be an important cultural archive, educational resource and scientific dataset for the on-going research.Read moreRead less
Phonological development in child speakers of mixed language. In Northern Territory Aboriginal communities where traditional languages are mostly spoken fluently by older people, the home language for many children is a kind of mixed language combining elements of traditional languages, Kriol and English. This project will document for the first time the sound system of this language, and investigate how children's background knowledge of this sound system prepares them to learn words in English ....Phonological development in child speakers of mixed language. In Northern Territory Aboriginal communities where traditional languages are mostly spoken fluently by older people, the home language for many children is a kind of mixed language combining elements of traditional languages, Kriol and English. This project will document for the first time the sound system of this language, and investigate how children's background knowledge of this sound system prepares them to learn words in English and traditional languages. This information is important because it can help parents, teachers and speech pathologists assess and teach Aboriginal children from mixed language backgrounds.Read moreRead less
Voice, indexicality and the mediation of diversity on Australian television. Multicultural Australia is a country of many voices, although concern has been expressed about the under-representation of those voices in the media. This project investigates how the voices of minority groups are represented on mainstream Australian television, when they do appear. It examines a substantial body of TV data, from four types of programming: news, sports, advertising and drama. It focuses on minority ethn ....Voice, indexicality and the mediation of diversity on Australian television. Multicultural Australia is a country of many voices, although concern has been expressed about the under-representation of those voices in the media. This project investigates how the voices of minority groups are represented on mainstream Australian television, when they do appear. It examines a substantial body of TV data, from four types of programming: news, sports, advertising and drama. It focuses on minority ethnic voices and on voices linked to different social classes. Close analysis of media processes will be supplemented by consulting professionals and TV viewers. The findings will provide a new perspective on the media’s role in promoting or curtailing cultural literacy and linguistic diversity.Read moreRead less
Enhancing language learning via auditory training and parent-infant interaction. This project aims to improve adult language learning. Most adults struggle to pronounce foreign speech, because their native processing skills cannot process foreign sounds. During infancy, native sound perception is tuned through listening to variants of speech sounds while interacting with care-givers. This project aims to show that adults can reprogram their processing skills if placed in the rich environment ava ....Enhancing language learning via auditory training and parent-infant interaction. This project aims to improve adult language learning. Most adults struggle to pronounce foreign speech, because their native processing skills cannot process foreign sounds. During infancy, native sound perception is tuned through listening to variants of speech sounds while interacting with care-givers. This project aims to show that adults can reprogram their processing skills if placed in the rich environment available to infants. Rigorous testing will show whether auditory training improves processing of foreign speech sounds in adults and children and leads to successful understanding and pronunciation of foreign words. This project could benefit many Australian monolingual families who have not fully engaged with neighbouring cultures due to a language barrier.Read moreRead less
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
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. Language is central to human existence and to the flow of information. The Centre will address the most critical questions about language: How do languages evolve? How different can languages be? How do our brains acquire and process them? How can technologies deal with the complexity and enormous variability of language in its central role in human information processing? What can Australia do to increase its linguistic abilities at a time ....ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. Language is central to human existence and to the flow of information. The Centre will address the most critical questions about language: How do languages evolve? How different can languages be? How do our brains acquire and process them? How can technologies deal with the complexity and enormous variability of language in its central role in human information processing? What can Australia do to increase its linguistic abilities at a time of increasingly multilingual demands in trade and information? The Centre will also secure language heritage, develop new language technologies, connect policy with indigenous and migrant communities, and build strategies to help 1st and 2nd language learning and those isolated by language difficulties.Read moreRead less
Thinking and talking about atolls: the role of environment in shaping language and our understanding of physical space. This project investigates the role of environment in shaping how we think about physical space. By comparing how people in the highly specialised environment of the atoll talk about space in different parts of the world we will gather new data to test ideas on the roles of language and environment in shaping how we understand the physical world.