School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemLanguage contact in North Sulawesi: Preliminary observations(Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa （ILCAA）, 2020-03-31)Categorised as a Pidgin Derived Malay ( PDM ), Manado Malay ( MM ) is spoken throughout northern Sulawesi and on islands to the south of the southern Philippines. After originally functioning as regional lingua franca, it is now well established as the first language of up to one million people. This paper examines the language-contact situation between MM and two indigenous languages with a long presence in the region. Despite centuries of continued close contact, an examination of a range of typological features reveals minimal shared features, almost none of which have arisen through borrowing. These results corroborate multiple theories relating to language-contact outcomes, in particular the availability of different structural features for borrowing, the likely direction of any transfer, and the effect of both linguistic and non-linguistic factors on the potential for intense bilingualism.
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ItemReflections on software and technology for language documentation( 2020-01-01)Technological developments in the last decades enabled an unprecedented growth in volumes and quality of collected language data. Emerging challenges include ensuring the longevity of the records, making them accessible and reusable for fellow researchers as well as for the speech communities. These records are robust research data on which verifiable claims can be based and on which future research can be built, and are the basis for revitalization of cultural practices, including language and music performance. Recording, storage and analysis technologies become more lightweight and portable, allowing language speakers to actively participate in documentation activities. This also results in growing needs for training and support, and thus more interaction and collaboration between linguists, developers and speakers. Both cutting-edge speech technologies and crowdsourcing methods can be effectively used to overcome bottlenecks between different stages of analysis. While the endeavour to develop a single all-purpose integrated workbench for documentary linguists may not be achievable, investing in robust open interchange formats that can be accessed and enriched by independent pieces of software seems more promising for the near future.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableTranshispanic Food Cultural Studies: Defining the Subfield(Taylor and Francis Group, 2020)This introductory article argues for making food central to a praxis of cultural studies in the transhispanic world and the importance of inserting Hispanist voices into the arena of food studies scholarship more broadly. Articles in this Special Issue illustrate that foodways of the transhispanic world are heterogeneous and conflicted. Yet, food discourses allow us to study how people think with food, using it to mark identities, to establish power relationships and to dispute them. Articles in this collection demonstrate how transnational forces condition the food cultures and discourses of this context. They also highlight culinary nationalism and the inextricable links communities and nation-states construct and sustain between food and national cuisines from within and outside of nation-states or state-less nations. Both critical frameworks, the transnational—which engages imperial expansion, neocolonialism, globalization and migration—, and the national—in which foodways change in the context of intercultural encounters, are essential to understanding food cultures and their discursive and textual forms in this context.
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ItemSchematic diagrams in second language learning of English prepositions: a behavioral and event-related potential study(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2020-09-01)In the current study of applied cognitive linguistics (CL), schematic diagrams that represent generalizations of physical-spatial experience were applied in a computer-based tutor that trained English prepositions for second language (L2) learners. Behavioral and electrophysiological (ERP) measures were used to examine whether schematic-diagram feedback provided by the tutor had an instructional advantage over the minimally informed correctness feedback. Behavioral results confirmed this prediction and further revealed that the treatment difference was more striking when the participants had a lower L2 proficiency. The ERP results also supported the prediction. Violation uses of prepositions yielded an N270 and an N400. Schematic-diagram feedback motivated significant changes in brain potentials, whereas correctness feedback failed to do so. Overall, our findings suggest that CL-inspired instruction of a relatively short duration led to significant improvements in learners’ behavioral productive performance and in their sensitivity to semantic violation of preposition use during online sentence processing. The study provided strong neurolinguistic evidence for CL-inspired pedagogy in supporting L2 learning.
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ItemThe inconspicuous substratum Indigenous Australian languages and the phonetics of stop contrasts in English on Croker Island(John Benjamins Publishing, 2020-01-01)Descriptions of Australian Aboriginal English list the neutralisation of the Standard English contrast between so-called voiced and voiceless stops as one characteristic feature. This paper reports on the results of an acoustic analysis of data collected in a production task by monolingual speakers of Standard Australian English in Sydney, of Aboriginal English on Croker Island, Northern Territory, and bilingual speakers of Iwaidja/Aboriginal English and Kunwinjku/Aboriginal English on Croker Island. The results show that average values for Voice Onset Time, the main correlate of the “stop voicing contrast” in English, and Closure Duration collected from Aboriginal speakers of English do not significantly differ from that of speakers of Standard Australian English, irrespective of language background. This result proves that the stop contrast is not neutralised by these Aboriginal speakers of English. However, it can be shown that phonetic voicing manifesting itself in Voice Termination Time is a prevalent and characteristic feature of Aboriginal English on Croker Island. This feature aligns Aboriginal English on Croker Island with local Aboriginal languages and differentiates it from Standard Australian English.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAcoustic injustice: The experience of listening to indistinct covert recordings presented as evidence in court(University of Wollongong, 2020)Audio recorded by hidden listening devices can provide powerful evidence in criminal trials. Unfortunately these covert recordings are often indistinct, to the extent the court needs a transcript to understand the content. Australian law allows police to provide transcripts as ‘ad hoc experts’. Legal procedures incorporate safeguards intended to ensure the transcripts are not misleading. The problem is that these safeguards have been shown to be ineffective, with multiple examples of inaccurate transcripts being provided to ‘assist’ the jury in determining what is said and who is saying it. The present paper explains the problem, provides an accessible overview of the nature of speech and how speech perception works, and outlines the solution proposed by the Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence to the ‘acoustic injustice’ embodied in current legal procedures.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEditorial(ELSEVIER, 2020-08)
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ItemNo Preview Available'Northmen, Southmen, comrades all'? The adoption of discourse like by migrants north and south of the Irish border(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2020)The Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI) have recently become attractive migrant destinations. Two main dialectal varieties are recognised on the island, but little is known about their adoption by new speakers. Focusing on a panlectal feature, discourse like, we conducted a quantitative sociolinguistic investigation of its adoption by seventeen young Polish and Lithuanian migrants in Armagh (NI), and thirty-six Polish and Chinese adult migrants in Dublin (ROI), with comparator samples drawn from native speakers. Findings show that like rates in both cities diverge, but that migrants mirror local frequencies. Clause-final like is restricted primarily to native speakers, but is twice as frequent in Armagh than in Dublin. English proficiency has a significant effect on the likelihood of young migrants in Armagh adopting the clause-final variant. The article's significance also stems from the original contribution it makes to our understanding of how sociolinguistic competence is acquired in 'superdiverse' settings. (Discourse like, identity, migration, Northern Irish-English, Hiberno-English, Ulster English, Southern Irish-English).
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ItemInterpreter and Aboriginal Liaison Officer identity construction and positioning(John Benjamins Publishing, 2020)This study employs small story theory (Bamberg, 2006; Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008; Georgakopoulou, 2006, 2015, 2017) and narrative positioning analysis (Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008) to explore stories that are told by interpreters of Aboriginal languages and Aboriginal Liaison Officers (ALOs) when they discuss how they do their work and the challenges they face when interpreting for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients in hospital settings. Findings indicate that the interpreters and ALOs draw on stories to contribute their understanding of complexities of interpreting for Aboriginal patients and do so through the multiple, shifting positions they attribute to themselves as other social actors in the stories they narrate. These positions are reinforced in the ongoing interaction but are also located across the dataset, illustrating that capital-D discourses or master narratives are invoked to frame the role, skills and attributes of the professionals in this study.
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ItemPlaying with the long strings: A structural analysis of Arandic string figures.(ISFA Press, 2020)Australia is home to a rich and diverse range of Indigenous narrative practices and verbal art forms. These are highly valued and part of the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ of Indigenous Australians. Making string figures is one such practice, and early records from across the continent suggest that the tradition has a time span that stretches back, at least to the early days of colonization. In this paper we outline some of the sociocultural contexts of Arandic string games from central Australia, and then give a structural analysis of the figures recorded. We look at both similarities and differences in figure construction, comparing the Arandic figures to other records of string figures, both from within Australia and further afield in part of Oceania. We then apply a formal analysis, in the string figure tradition, to our collection of Arandic string figures and highlight some figures and methods of construction that appear to be unique to central Australia.
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