Research Interests of the Department

Dr Toni Borowsky

• All kinds of Theoretical Phonology especially issues of lexical phonology in Optimality Theory.
• The formalization of phonological variation in OT
• Articulatory phonetics
• Language acquisition

Prof. William Foley

• syntactic theory from a lexicalist approach
• the role of semantics in syntax
• the usefulness of modern syntactic theories in the insightful description of the Austronesian and Papuan languages of the Pacific
• fieldwork in Pacific area languages, specifically in the Papuan languages of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, such as Yimas, Watam and Mambuwan, as well as some Austronesian languages like Palauan, Fijian and Tagalog.
• anthropological linguistics
• the Boasian/Humboldtian question of the relationship between language and thought and recent empirical approaches to investigate this
• ethnopoetics, the specific linguist practices cultures use to create various verbal genres like narratives, proverbs, songs, poetry, etc and the aesthetic value and social role speakers ascribe to these.

Prof. James Martin

• Systemic theory, functional grammar, discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, focussing on English and Tagalog - with special reference to the transdisciplinary fields of educational linguistics and social semiotics.

Dr Jane Simpson

• working with Gillian Wigglesworth and Patrick McConvell, Samantha Disbray, Felicity Meakins, Karin Moses and Carmel O'Shannessy on ACLA, a project on child language acquisition in indigenous communities in Central and Northern Australia, funded by the Australian Research Council
• working with some colleagues from the Australian National University (Harold Koch, Luise Hercus and David Nash) on comparison and reconstruction of languages spoken in the centre of Australia.
• working with Christopher Manning on a computer interface for the Warlpiri Dictionary Project being coordinated by Mary Laughren, including compiling an image bank
• working with Robert Amery (University of South Australia) on a book of materials of Kaurna, the indigenous language spoken around Adelaide. This includes a grammar and comparative word-lists.
• a grammar and dictionary of Warumungu, a language spoken around Tennant Creek. A Learner's Guide has been published by IAD Press.
• working with Luise Hercus and Flavia Hodges on indigenous place-names of Australia. We have edited a book, The Land is a Map.
• syntax, especially Lexical-Functional Grammar
• working with colleagues on digital archiving, and on establishing PARADISEC, an archive of Pacific and regional language and endangered culture material, directed by Linda Barwick with Nick Thieberger.
• language maintenance. I have a long-standing connection with Papulu Apparr-kari, the Tennant Creek Language Centre.
• Australian English. David Nash and I have compiled a database of hypocoristics of Australian English words, including placenames