Linguistics highlights

Lab for Applied Language Science

The University’s Lab for Applied Language Science (LALS) is open for anybody who is interested in language development and language use. We aim to offer opportunities for novel interdisciplinary collaborations among linguists, language teachers, psychologists, speech pathologists, educational tool developers, engineers, etc. and to provide trainings for researchers and students who wish to develop skills in experimental approaches to language science.

Associate Professor Kiwako Ito directs the lab.

Endangered Languages Documentation, Theory and Application (ELDTA)

Linguistics research strengths include a number of important projects. Our Endangered Languages Documentation, Theory and Application (ELDTA) Research Program, focuses on documenting, describing, and investigating indigenous languages of Australia and the Pacific region. Secondly, we specialise in applied linguistics with particular emphasis upon second language acquisition and bilingualism. Our history of success in achieving competitive national and international grants enables us to offer PhD scholarships in endangered languages research. PhD and Masters by Research students benefit from working with researchers who have extensive expertise in all aspects of endangered language research. This includes: documentation; fieldwork and recording techniques; linguistic annotation tools; digital archiving; linguistic analysis and grammar writing; investigation of aspects of issues of wider scientific and socio-cultural significance in the endangered languages of our region.

Courses

Linguistics staff teach courses in a number of undergraduate, honours and postgraduate programs with options to study through to PhD level. We've also recently launched a new Master of Translation Studies degree program. Please see our CLSHS course highlights page for further details on recent offerings.

Higher Degrees by Research (HDR)

Our linguistics staff supervise a range of research thesis topics for Ph.D. and M.Phil. degrees in their specialist areas of expertise. We encourage students to discuss criteria and topics with their potential supervisors well in advance of their application.

Learn more about thesis guidelines

Research topics

PhD and Masters by Research proposals are invited in the following areas:

  • Language documentation and description
  • Australian and Pacific descriptive language projects
  • Second Language Acquisition
  • Bilingualism
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Linguistics people

Associate Professor Kiwako Ito

Associate Professor Kiwako Ito

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Linguistics

Expertise: eye tracking for studying language processing; language acquisition; psycholinguistics; speech signal processing

Dr Jayden Macklin-Cordes

Dr Jayden Macklin-Cordes

Lecturer - Linguistics
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Lingustics

Expertise: Australian Indigenous languages; historical linguistics; linguistic phylogenetics; linguistic typology; morphology; phonology; quantitative methods

Dr Catriona Malau

Dr Catriona Malau

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Linguistics

Expertise: Language description and documentation; Oceanic languages of the Pacific, focussing on Vanuatu

Professor Bill Palmer

Professor Bill Palmer

Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Linguistics

Expertise: language description and documentation; Oceanic languages of Pacific, focussing on Bougainville and Solomon Islands; syntax