Australian interests are intimately tied with those of Indonesia – how might a greater understanding of linguistics and cultural nuance help?
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Linguistics – Analysis and Comment
Language is traditionally associated with the left side of the brain. But Mandarin speakers are using the right side.
The Macquarie Dictionary last week named “mansplain” its word of the year for 2014. The Dictionary defines mansplain as: verb (t) Colloquial (humorous) (of a man) to explain (something) to a woman, in…
Selfies were so 2013. But vaping’s in: Oxford Dictionaries have announced vape as its international Word of the Year 2014. The runners up are bae, budtender, contactless, indyref, normcore and slacktivism…
Writer Will Self grabbed headlines earlier this week by referring to George Orwell as the “Supreme Mediocrity”. He wrote: The curious thing is that while during the post-war period we’ve had many political…
Some years back, award-winning British journalist Robert Fisk wrote an article in which he stated the apparent tautology that “murder is murder”. Fisk was writing on Israel’s policy of “targeted killing…
The rate at which children learn language varies substantially from child to child. Some children show rapid vocabulary growth before they go to school, while others learn so slowly that they can end up…
Making sense of what is happening in our own time requires sharp thinking. Today, however, catch-phrases and clichés abound. More specifically we rely on cliches about generations. Journalists, bestselling…
As you may have seen, the Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Blair ran a much-tweeted-about poll yesterday asking: “Who is Australia’s craziest left-wing frightbat?”. Leaving aside the backlash, which was considerable…
New York-based data scientist and designer Matt Daniels recently noted Shakespeare’s much touted vast vocabulary and charted how many different words Shakespeare used in comparison to contemporary hip-hop…
Recently on The Conversation, Baden Eunson argued that the current uses of “hopefully”, “literally” and “begs the question” were prime examples of “atrocities in English [that] are committed every day…
Tony Abbott isn’t the first pollie to get into trouble with a wink. He’s now in good company with American Tea Party darling Sarah Palin. Palin’s notorious winks left voters in the 2008 American campaign…
The annual federal budget speech is the one required speech of the Australian political calendar. And it goes all the way back to Federation. It’s Australia’s equivalent of the State of the Union address…
People often ask me why I study television dialogue. Behind such a question sometimes lie deep-seated assumptions about the low value of popular culture. Such underlying assumptions can extend not just…
Warning: this article contains copious swearing. Let me start with a confession: I swear. Not gratuitously, but once in a while it’s nice to let off steam with a well-placed “damnit” or two, when running…
Emoticons, punctuation and creative spelling have been debated, condemned, and regulated since the very beginning of online text-based communication. We’ve all seen “netiquettes” on how not to use ALL…
In 2005, Parliament House’s security guards were banned from using the address term mate. This decision was quickly rescinded when talkback got wind of the ban. The objection? “This is Australia, mate…
Rock and roll has always been a great liberating force in our culture. For many it has provided the soundtrack for all manner of acts of political rebellion and personal liberation. This spirit is captured…
We all know the story: Once upon a time there was a young girl who took a walk through the woods to visit her grandmother, carrying a basket of goodies. When she arrived she found her granny ill in bed…
We live in a society that is fascinated by the brain – how it works, how it differs across individuals or changes over our lifetimes and how it makes us different to other species. And over the years…
Next year, senior students in Victoria will be able to study a graphic novel, The Complete Maus, as part of the prescribed English curriculum. As a literary and artistic form, graphic novels combine the…
English is rapidly becoming a lingua franca in international communication for commerce and trade, education, science, international relations and tourism. It is the fastest growing language in the world…
My team and I recently ventured into the Brazilian Amazon to record the Tembé language and preserve some of its stories for future generations. This built on earlier work with our mobile phone app that…
Just about everyone has a personal stake in language, and many people — expert and amateur — feel entitled to an opinion. But linguists care more than most people, and when linguistics hit the media, linguists…
The village of Akazu’yw lies in the rainforest, a day’s drive from the state capital of Belém, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. Last week I went to Akazu’yw, carrying a dozen Android phones with a specialised…