Language Documentation at University of Melbourne
Linked on this Page
- Staff
- Current postgraduate students with fieldwork based research.
- Recent graduates
- Master's Dissertations in field linguistics
- Other linguists involved in language documentation
- Links
Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne has a long tradition of supporting fieldwork-based research on endangered languages. Topics range from descriptive grammars of little known languages to more specific investigations of phonetics, morphology, semantics, discourse, lexicography etc.
To those University of Melbourne students obtaining scholarship support for the Linguistics and Applied Linguistics PhD program, financial support for fieldwork through the Faculty Fieldwork Scheme is available (currently up to around AUD $6000); in many cases further support from particular research projects is also available.
Undergraduate students can take field methods classes which may trigger an interest in the language studied that results in further research on that language. Languages that have been studied in the field methods course in recent years have included Ganalbingu (Australian), Golin (Papuan), Tetun Dili, Lau, Sasak, Bugis and Acehnese (Austronesian).
The section offers two regular courses on Australian Aboriginal languages, and a further course involving the study of a particular language family (this year: the Aslian languages of the Malay Peninsula). In 2006 we are offering a course (175-428) in topics in language documentation with a focus on software tools to support linguistic analysis.
Staff:
- Linda Barwick - (Visiting Fellow) Iwaidja (Northern Australia) - VW Dobes project
- Nick Evans - Iwaidja (Northern Australia)
- Also work on Dalabon, Kayardild, and the Reciprocals project.
- Murray Garde - Dictionary of Bininj Gun-wok.
- Janet Fletcher - Phonetics of Australian languages; intonation and prosody
- Barb Kelly - Sherpa (Nepal)
- Nicole Kruspe - Semelai, Mah Meri, Ceq Wong (Malaysia)
- Robert Mailhammer - Amurdak (Northern Arnhem Land)
- Jean Mulder - Coast Tsimshian, Sm'algyax (Canada)
- Rachel Nordlinger - Murriny Patha (Northern Australia), and the Reciprocals project
- Lesley Stirling - Kala Kawaw Ya (Torres Strait)
- Nick Thieberger (U.Melbourne staff until 2007, now at the University of Hawaii) - South Efate / Lelepa (Central Vanuatu)
- Jean-Christophe Verstraete (Visiting Fellow) - Cape York Language Documentation Project; Kaanju, Kuku Thaypan/ Awu Alaya, Kuuk Thaayorre, Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u - Lockhart River 'Sandbeach' language, Umpithamu, Umbuygamu
Graduate students with fieldwork-based research currently enrolled (2008) are:
- Isabel Bickerdike - Kunbarlang language and song. (Northern Australia)
- Bruce Birch - Topics in Iwaidja prosody. (Northern Australia)
- Amanda Brotchie - Narrative in Dirak. (Vanuatu)
- Samantha Disbray - Locational expressions in Wumparrarni English narratives (Warumungu and Kriol). (Northern Australia)
- Jenny Green - Integrating gesture, sand diagrams and speech in Alyawerre. (Central Australia)
- Robyn Loughnane - Oksapmin. (Papuan, PNG)
- Karin Moses - Child directed questions in Yakanarra (Kriol and Walmajarri). (Western Australia)
- Hitomi Ono - The semantics and pragmatics of kinship in Gui, a Khoisan language. (Khoisan, Botswana)
- Hywel Stoakes - Phonetics of Bininj Gun wok. (Northern Australia)
Recent graduates are:
- Yon Mahyuni (2004) - Speech styles and cultural consciousness in the Sasak community, Lombok. (Indonesia)
- Judith Bishop (2002) - Aspects of intonation and prosody in Bininj Gun-wok: an autosegmental-metrical analysis. (Northern Australia) (now working for APPEN in Sydney)
- Domenyk Eades (2003) - A grammar of Gayo: a language of Aceh, Sumatra. (Now working at the Sultan Qaboos Univerity, Oman)
- Nick Enfield (2000) - Linguistic epidemiology: on the polyfuctionality of 'acquire' in mainland South East Asia. (Now working at the Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen)
- Sebastian Fedden (2007) - A grammar of Miyan. (Papuan, PNG)
- Alice Gaby (2006) - A grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre (Cape York, Northern Australia)
- Anthony Jukes (2007) - A grammar of Makassarese. (Indonesia)
- Nicole Kruspe (1999) - Semelai. (Now working at the University of Melbourne)
- Felicity Meakins (2007) - Case marking in Gurindji Kriol. (Northern Australia)
- Adam Saulwick (2004) - The verb in Rembarrnga, a polysynthetic language. (Now working in Adelaide)
- Ruth Singer (2006) - Topics in Mawng agreement. (Northern Australia)
- Nicholas Thieberger (2004) - Topics in the grammar and documentation of South Efate, an Oceanic language of Central Vanuatu. (Now working at the University of Hawai'i)
- Tonya Stebbins (1999) - Issues in Sm'algyax (Coast Tsimshian) Lexicography. (Canada) (Now working at LaTrobe University)
- Rachel Nordlinger (1993) Now working at the University of Melbourne.
Master's students in field linguistics:
- Bell, Jeanie (2003). A sketch grammar of the Badjala language of Gari (Fraser Island). (Now working at the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages)
- Bow, Cathy (1999). The vowel system of Moloko. Previously working at the University of Melbourne, now working at the Bourke Muda Aboriginal Language Centre.
- Eva Fenwick - Beja. (Sudan)
- Nordlinger, Rachel (1993). A grammar of Wambaya. (Now working at the University of Melbourne)
Other linguists at the University of Melbourne include:
- Mike Ewing - Endangered Moluccan Languages: Eastern Indonesia and the Dutch Diaspora
- Yun-ji Wu - The Waxiang language in Western Hunan (China)
- John Hajek - Indigenous languages of Eastern East Timor: description and contact studies
- Sander Adelaar - Dialect variation in Javanese: an integrated historical-linguistic and typological analysis
- Steven Bird - Open Language Archives Community (among others)
- Yongxian Luo (Chinese studies) - Tai linguistics, semantics, lexicography