School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemBridging Australian Indigenous language learner’s guides with SLA materials development frameworks(Taylor and Francis Group, 2022)The learner’s guide (LG) is a genre of pedagogical materials for Australian Indigenous languages, but LGs developed by field linguists are often questioned regarding their capacity to effectively facilitate language learning and, eventually, language revitalisation. This reflects a gap in the literature where applied linguistics perspectives are limited in Indigenous language studies, and vice versa. This study aims to address this gap by examining nine existing LGs published over the past four decades using a modified framework based on Tomlinson’s guidelines for second language acquisition (SLA) materials development. Findings show that the LGs are designed based on one of the three model types: (1) Type 1: non-communicative grammar-based, (2) Type 2: practice-integrated grammar-based, and (3) Type 3: text-driven meaning-based, among which the text-driven model has, theoretically speaking, the best potential to achieve pedagogical purposes. Yet, in general, existing LGs likely fail to equip learners with communicative competence. Other issues of greater complexity are also raised, including material comprehensibility and limited resources. A critical implication for the field is the necessity of empirical needs analyses for future LG development.
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ItemThe Typology of Reciprocal Constructions(Annual Reviews, 2023-01-17)Reciprocal constructions involve a complex mapping of semantics onto morphosyntax, requiring multiple propositions to be overlaid onto a single clause and the permutation of semantic roles within the set of participants involved. This complexity challenges the standard processes relating predicates to situations, and thus languages arrive at a great diversity of solutions for how reciprocal situations are encoded within a single clausal structure. Recent typological work has showcased this diversity from different perspectives, but further work is needed to determine how different morphosyntactic and semantic properties interact and what implicational connections and correlations exist with other parts of the linguistic system. Theoretical typologies highlight the importance of reciprocal constructions for our understanding of grammatical structure crosslinguistically.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSentence planning and production in Murrinhpatha, an Australian 'free word order' language(Linguistic Society of America, 2022-06-01)Psycholinguistic theories are based on a very small set of unrepresentative languages, so it is as yet unclear how typological variation shapes mechanisms supporting language use. In this article we report the first on-line experimental study of sentence production in an Australian free word order language: Murrinhpatha. Forty-six adult native speakers of Murrinhpatha described a series of unrelated transitive scenes that were manipulated for humanness (±human) in the agent and patient roles while their eye movements were recorded. Speakers produced a large range of word orders, consistent with the language having flexible word order, with variation significantly influenced by agent and patient humanness. An analysis of eye movements showed that Murrinhpatha speakers’ first fixation on an event character did not alone determine word order; rather, early in speech planning participants rapidly encoded both event characters and their relationship to each other. That is, they engaged in relational encoding, laying down a very early conceptual foundation for the word order they eventually produced. These results support a weakly hierarchical account of sentence production and show that speakers of a free word order language encode the relationships between event participants during earlier stages of sentence planning than is typically observed for languages with fixed word orders.
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ItemCategory Clustering and Morphological Learning(WILEY, 2022-02-01)Inflectional affixes expressing the same grammatical category (e.g., subject agreement) tend to appear in the same morphological position in the word. We hypothesize that this cross-linguistic tendency toward category clustering is at least partly the result of a learning bias, which facilitates the transmission of morphology from one generation to the next if each inflectional category has a consistent morphological position. We test this in an online artificial language experiment, teaching adult English speakers a miniature language consisting of noun stems representing shapes and suffixes representing the color and number features of each shape. In one experimental condition, each suffix category has a fixed position, with color in the first position and number in the second position. In a second condition, each specific combination of suffixes has a fixed order, but some combinations have color in the first position, and some have number in the first position. In a third condition, suffixes are randomly ordered on each presentation. While the language in the first condition is consistent with the category clustering principle, those in the other conditions are not. Our results indicate that category clustering of inflectional affixes facilitates morphological learning, at least in adult English speakers. Moreover, we found that languages that violate category clustering but still follow fixed affix ordering patterns are more learnable than languages with random ordering. Altogether, our results provide evidence for individual biases toward category clustering; we suggest that this bias may play a causal role in shaping the typological regularities in affix order we find in natural language.
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ItemPositional dependency in Murrinhpatha: expanding the typology of non-canonical morphotactics(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2021-01-27)Principles of morphotactics are a major source of morphological diversity amongst the world’s languages, and it is well-known that languages exhibit many different types of deviation from a canonical ideal in which there is a unique and consistent mapping between function and form. In this paper we present data from Murrinhpatha (non-Pama-Nyungan, northern Australia) that demonstrates a type of non-canonical morphotactics so far unattested in the literature, one which we call positional dependency. This type is unusual in that the non-canonical pattern is driven by morphological form rather than by morphosyntactic function. In this case the realisation of one morph is dependent on the position in the verbal template of another morph. Thus, it is the linearisation of morphs that conditions the morphological realisation, not the morphosyntactic feature set. Positional dependency in Murrinhpatha thus expands our typology of content-form interactions and non-canonical morphotactics with implications for our understanding of morphological structure cross-linguistically.
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ItemFrom body part to applicative: Encoding ‘source’ in Murrinhpatha(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2019)Murrinhpatha (non-Pama-Nyungan, Australia) is typologically unusual in having a single applicative construction with the semantics of source/malefactive, but never benefactive. In this paper I discuss the development of this applicative from an incorporated body part meaning ‘hand’. I show that the applicative developed from a reanalysis of the external possession construction; and that the applicative morphology developed from the incorporated body part, rather than from a verbal or adpositional source. This contributes to our understanding of the typology of applicative constructions and also highlights the value in exploring the complex verbal constructions of polysynthetic languages to inform our understanding of grammaticalisation possibilities.
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ItemLinguistic diversity in first language acquisition research: moving beyond the challenges(SAGE Publications (UK and US), 2015)The field of first language acquisition (FLA) needs to take into account data from the broadest typological array of languages and language-learning environments if it is to identify potential universals in child language development, and how these interact with socio-cultural mechanisms of acquisition. Yet undertaking FLA research in remote field-based situations, where the majority of the world’s languages are spoken and acquired, poses challenges for best-practice methodologies assumed in lab-based FLA research. This article discusses the challenges of child language acquisition research in fieldwork contexts with lesser-known, under-described languages with small communities of speakers. The authors suggest some modified approaches to methodology for child language research appropriate to challenging fieldwork situations, in the hope of encouraging more cross-linguistic acquisition research.
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ItemPossessor dissension: Agreement mismatch in Ngumpin-Yapa possessive constructions(Mouton de DeGruyter, 2017)Abstract In this article we describe a possessive construction in the Ngumpin-Yapa languages of Australia which has interesting implications for crosslinguistic models of agreement. In this “possessor dissension” construction, the possessor NP remains a modifier within the larger possessive NP, yet both the possessor and the possessum are cross-referenced with clause-level agreement morphology. Thus, there is a type of morphosyntactic disagreement (or dissension) between the syntactic position of the possessor as an NP-internal argument and its being agreed with at the clausal level as if it were a clausal argument. This phenomenon has had only limited mention in the typological literature, and has not previously been discussed for Australian languages. We discuss the properties of the construction, how it can be distinguished from other related construction types, and its implications for the typology of agreement.
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ItemThe impact of national standardized literacy and numeracy testing on children and teaching staff in remote Australian Indigenous communities(Sage Publications, 2019)All educational testing is intended to have consequences, which are assumed to be beneficial, but tests may also have unintended, negative consequences (Messick, 1989). The issue is particularly important in the case of large-scale standardized tests, such as Australia’s National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), the intended benefits of which are increased accountability and improved educational outcomes. The NAPLAN purpose is comparable to that of other state and national ‘core skills’ testing programs, which evaluate cross-sections of populations in order to compare results between population sub-groupings. Such comparisons underpin ‘accountability’ in the era of population-level testing. This study investigates the impact of NAPLAN testing on one population grouping that is prominent in the NAPLAN results’ comparisons and public reporting: children in remote Indigenous communities. A series of interviews with principals and teachers documents informants’ first-hand experiences of the use and effects of NAPLAN in schools. In the views of most participants, the language and content of the test instruments, the nature of the test engagement, and the test washback have negative impacts on students and staff, with little benefit in terms of the usefulness of the test data. The primary issue is the fact that meaningful participation in the tests depends critically on proficiency in Standard Australian English (SAE) as a first language. This study contributes to the broader discussion of how reform-targeted standardized testing for national populations affects sub-groups who are not treated equitably by the test instrument or reporting for accountability purposes. It highlights a conflict between consequential validity and the notion of accountability that drives reform-targeted testing.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAustralia Loves Language Puzzles: The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO)(Wiley, 2014-12-01)The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO) started in 2008 in only two locations and has since grown to a nationwide competition with almost 1500 high school students participating in 2013. An Australian team has participated in the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) every year since 2009. This paper describes how the competition is run (with a regional first round and a final national round) and the organisation of the competition (a National Steering Committee and Local Organising Committees for each region) and discusses the particular challenges faced by Australia (timing of the competition and distance between the major population centres). One major factor in the growth and success of OzCLO has been the introduction of the online competition, allowing participation of students from rural and remote country areas. The organisation relies on the goodwill and volunteer work of university and school staff but the strong interest amongst students and teachers shows that OzCLO is responding to a demand for linguistic challenges.