TIM MCNAMARA ON RADIO NATIONAL BIG IDEAS: PODCAST

March 8, 2012 – 4:38 pm

Is it possible to obtain justice in a language or dialect that is not your own?

A panel of linguistic and legal experts discuss language and the law.

At the very best of times courts can be confusing but if you don’t understand spoken English it can be overwhelming whether you are a victim, suspect or  a witness . The rituals and the language used are not ones that most of us are familiar with and as one of our guests today’s put it “The monolithic immovable smug nature of the legal system, which sits there expecting people to come to it on its terms “ doesn’t help.

So if English is not your first language can justice be denied?

The podcast of this discussion can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/language-and-the-law/3832062

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Leanne Hinton of the University of California to present a public lecture on rebuilding languages. Wednesday 7 March 2012

February 28, 2012 – 9:50 am

Leanne Hinton, Professor emerita, University of California at Berkeley and Consulting member of the board of Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, will be presenting a public lecture at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday 7 March. The talk will be co-hosted by the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity and the University of Melbourne School of Languages and Linguistics.

This paper will focus on two models that have been developed in California for revitalization of moribund languages – the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program, and the Breath of Life Workshops for languages without speakers. Both these programs were developed by a Native-run organization, the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. In the Master-Apprentice Program, the elderly speakers team up with younger learners, and the teams are taught how to transmit the language from elder to younger through immersion while living their daily lives together. For Breath of Life workshops, Native participants explore the massive language archives at the University of California and learn the fundamentals of linguistics with the goal of utilizing the materials they find their for purposes of language teaching, learning and revitalization. Both these programs have spread both nationally and internationally and found to be highly effective in communities that put them to use.

Leanne is the founder of the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program, and will talk about ways that the method has been used in North America to rebuild American Indian and Canadian First Nations speaker communities. Leanne will be in Australia to facilitate two intensive Master-Apprentice workshops which will train 36 Aboriginal and TSI people from 27 language groups to become trainers in the MALLP method. This talk will precede those workshops, and Leanne will expand on potential applications for the method in Australia.

6.00pm-7.30pm
Wednesday 7 March
North Lecture Theatre
Old Arts Building
Parkville

This is a free public lecture.

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House of Representatives Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities, SOLL member giving evidence

February 17, 2012 – 8:48 am

Nick Thieberger gave evidence to the House of Representatives Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities in his role as Co-Director of the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity. (16/2/2012)

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Books in hand

January 13, 2012 – 3:31 pm

Paul has co-authored two books that were published recently — ‘How to Write a Better Thesis’ (MUP, 2011) and ‘Blending Technologies in the Second Language Classroom’ (Palgrave Mcmillan, 2012). Nice to have ‘em in hand …

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Melbourne Voice features Languages and Linguistics

January 11, 2012 – 5:14 pm

The monthly showcase of all that is good at Melbourne University, the Voice, has featured SOLL in its January issue, titled ‘Language and cultural diversity‘.  Jennifer Green, explains sand story performances based on her PhD research. Matthew Absalom talks about teaching Italian.

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Lauren Gawne is the latest recipient of an Awesome Ottawa grant

January 9, 2012 – 9:09 am

Local Philanthropists Fund Project to Save Dying Language

Lauren Gawne, a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Melbourne, is the latest recipient of an Awesome Ottawa grant. Gawne first encountered Kagate while working in Nepal on the unrecorded language Lamjung Yolmo, for which she has published a small dictionary. http://ottawastart.com/story/15939.php

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Linguistics PhD students in Canberra Times

December 12, 2011 – 4:18 pm

Research on language and identity in LOLcats by PhD candidates Lauren Gawne and Jill Vaughan has been covered in the Canberra Times. Lauren and Jill presented a paper entitled ‘I can has language play: Construction of Language and Identity in LOLspeak‘ at LangFest at ANU last week. Check out the article here!

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LangFest 2011

December 12, 2011 – 4:08 pm

The Linguistics department was well-represented at the annual Applied Linguistics Association Australia and Australian Linguistics Society conferences at LangFest held at ANU in November/December! Plenaries were given by Tim McNamara (‘Language analysis in the determination of origin of asylum seekers: A perspective from language testing’) and Janet Fletcher (‘It’s all in the timing: Looking for the temporal signatures of prosodic structure in Australian languages’). Papers presented were:

Joe Blythe, Barbara Kelly, Rachel Nordlinger, Jill Wigglesworth: The acquisition of Murrinh-Patha

Patrick Caudal, Rachel Nordlinger: A Murrinh-Patha view of counterfactuality and the irrealis

Samantha Disbray, Debbie Loakes: Writing Aboriginal English & English-based Creoles: Considerations and Reflections

Mai Duong: The developmental approach as an answer for issues in portfolio assessment: A case of Vietnamese EFL students’ writing portfolios

Cathie Elder et al.: How might real achievement in language learning be documented?

Janet Fletcher, Ruth Singer: Fronting, discourse and intonational cues in Mawng

Lauren Gawne, Jill Vaughan: I can haz language play: The construction of language and identity in LOLspeak

Lauren Gawne, Barbara Kelly: What we know people know about gesture

Nazanin Ghodrati, Paul Gruba: Critical thinking in asynchronous discussion forums: The case of ESL students in higher education

Barbara Kelly: Telling who intentionally does what in Sherpa

Kamran Khan: ‘Life in the UK’: Becoming bilingual, becoming British

Ute Knoch, Neomy Storch et al.: Expanding directions in the assessment of writing

Henry Mera, Paul Gruba: A survey of program-wide assessments of modern languages

Jean Mulder, Cara Penry Williams, Sandra Thompson: A Further Word on Final Particle but in Australian English Conversation

Jean Mulder et al.: Situating Linguistics in the Evolving Australian Curriculum

Simon Musgrave, Nick Thieberger: Grammar and hypertext: Nunggubuyu as a case study

Ikuko Nakane: The impact of interpreter mediation on questioning in police interviews

John Pill, Luke Harding: Defining the language assessment literacy ‘gap’: A case study

Sally O’Hagan, John Pill, Cathie Elder, Tim McNamara, Robyn Woodward-Kron: Are linguistic assessment criteria defensible for LSP assessment?

Marie-Eve Ritz, Lesley Stirling: Temporal distinctions around the present in Kala Lagaw Ya

Carsten Roever, Saad Al-Gahtani: Development of L2 Arabic request: The case for U-shaped development

Amir Rouhshad: Nature of task-based negotiation in same-proficiency dyads of second language learners in computer-mediated and face-to-face modes

Alice Rouse: Doctor-patient discourse: A multimodal investigation

Alice Rouse, Barbara Kelly: Boy Talk — A multimodal investigation

Ruth Singer: Nominal classifiers mediate selectional restrictions: motivations for nominal classifications systems with a strong semantic basis

Phuong Tran: The consequential aspect of the validity of the University Entrance Examination English test to the Vietnam National University

Sabina Vakser: Means and motives of mixing: the case of Russian in Melbourne

Van Tran: L2 advice: A sequence organisation perspective

Congrats to all!

 

 

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Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork launched

December 9, 2011 – 9:21 am
Professor Andy Pawley launched this volume, edited by Nick Thieberger, at the Australian Linguistic Society Conference in Canberra on December 4th. As the blurb here says, it is a comprehensive resource for linguistic and cultural fieldwork that provides a practical guide to linguistic data management and draws on the experience of world-class scholars and researchers. This book offers a state-of-the-art guide to linguistic fieldwork, reflecting its collaborative nature across the subfields of linguistics and disciplines such as astronomy, anthropology, biology, musicology, and ethnography. Experienced scholars and fieldworkers explain the methods and approaches needed to understand a language in its full cultural context and to document it accessibly and enduringly. They consider the application of new technological approaches to recording and documentation, but never lose sight of the crucial relationship between subject and researcher. The book is timely: an increased awareness of dying languages and vanishing dialects has stimulated the impetus for recording them as well as the funds required to do so. The handbook is an indispensible source, guide, and reference for everyone involved in linguistic and cultural fieldwork.
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PhD candidate Lauren Gawne published in The Age

November 29, 2011 – 10:53 am

PhD candidate Lauren Gawne has had an article published in The Age discussing our obsession with the way politicians speak.

In the past couple of years there has been an increase in commentary on the way our political leaders speak. This may be correlated with the rise to power of a prime minister who has a very distinct voice, but it stems from our deep interest in how people use language and what that might tell us about them.
[...]
But constant fussing over how politicians speak only detracts from the discussion about what they’re actually saying.

Check it out here!

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