Language engineering in the field: preserving 100 endangered languages in New Guinea. Efforts to preserve the world's endangered linguistic heritage are labour-intensive, and unable to keep up with the pace of language loss. This project investigates a new approach to language preservation, using techniques from language engineering, and leveraging the labour of mother-tongue speakers.
How languages differ and why. When languages interact, they become similar in certain ways. This project will explore the reasons for this, by examining why there are many languages of diverse structures in certain regions, focussing on New Guinea, Amazonia and north-east Queensland. The project will assist with understanding how language helps and hinders inter-ethnic communication.
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.
The grammar of knowledge: a cross-linguistic view of evidentials and epistemological expressions. How does a speaker know that what they say is correct? Some languages have obligatory marking for stating 'information source' ('seen', 'inferred', or 'reported'). In others a source is optional - 'the (reported) theft'. This cross-linguistic investigation will advance our understanding of human interaction and the expression of knowledge.
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL120100116
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,416,141.00
Summary
How gender shapes the world: a linguistic perspective. This project will seek to understand and explain gender roles in Australian society, and in nearby nations. Emphasis is placed on training researchers with an immigrant or minority background, working towards the empowerment of women researchers. This will enhance our nation's capacity to interpret and manage gender roles in multicultural contexts.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101954
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Discovering Trans-New Guinea: revealing the prehistory of New Guinea. The third largest language family in the world is Trans-New Guinea spoken throughout New Guinea. The origins of this family are unknown. This project will uncover the history of these peoples by applying computational phylogenetic methods to data from these languages, leading to a deeper understanding of human prehistory in the Pacific.
Small stones can break big canoes: Securing records of the world's indigenous languages. Fragile records of the world’s Indigenous languages are at risk of being lost. Better research methods that can benefit not only academics but also the general public aim to be developed in this project and used to train new researchers and community members in creating better records. Collaborating across Australia and the Pacific in building tools that will result in better research practices, it will incr ....Small stones can break big canoes: Securing records of the world's indigenous languages. Fragile records of the world’s Indigenous languages are at risk of being lost. Better research methods that can benefit not only academics but also the general public aim to be developed in this project and used to train new researchers and community members in creating better records. Collaborating across Australia and the Pacific in building tools that will result in better research practices, it will increase knowledge of what research has been done, and will target areas for future focus. Modelling new fieldwork methods, building reusable datasets, and curating long-term collections of language records will all be part of this project, as will outreach to support similar work both in linguistics and in the broader community.Read moreRead less