14 Annu a L Repo

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

14 Annu a L Repo 20 t R l Repo A 14 Annu The Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language is an ARC funded centre of excellence (CE140100041). College of Asia and the Pacifc The Australian National Unviersity H.C. Coombs Building Fellows Road, Acton ACT 2601 Email: [email protected] Phone: (02) 6125 9376 www.dynamicsofanguage.edu.au www.facebook.com/CoEDL © ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language 2014 Design: Sculpt Communications ARC Centre of excellence for the Dynamics of language Annual Report 2014 table of contents Section 1: The Centre 7 Section 2: People 25 Section 3: Research 49 Section 4: Education, Training and Mentoring 75 Section 5: Outreach and Engagement 81 Section 6: Outputs 90 Section 7: Financials 103 Section 8: Performance indicators 105 7 one on I t C e S 01tHe CentRe HEADING HEADING Introducing the ARC Centre of excellence for the Dynamics of language 8 Using language is as natural as breathing, and almost as important, for using language transforms every aspect of human experience. But it has been extraordinarily diffcult to understand its evolution, diversifcation, and use: a vast array of incredibly different language systems are found across the planet, all representing different solutions to the problem of evolving a fexible, all-purpose communication system, and all in constant fux. The ARC Centre of Excellence for the To achieve this transformation of the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) will shift language sciences and the fow-on the focus of the language sciences from the translational outcomes for the public and long-held dominant view that language is a end-users, we have assembled a team which static and genetically constrained system — makes surprising and bold connections to a dynamic model where diversity, variation, between areas of research that until now plasticity and evolution, along with complex have not been connected: linguistics, interactions between language-learning and speech pathology, psychology, anthropology, perceptual and cognitive processes, lie at the philosophy, bioinformatics and robotics. heart of language and its investigation. CoEDL will address the most critical questions about language: How do languages (and other adaptive self-organising systems) evolve? How different can languages be? How do our brains acquire and process them? How can technologies deal with the complexity and enormous variability of language in its central role in human information processing? What can Australia do to increase its linguistic abilities at a time of increasingly multilingual demands in trade and information? t – 2014 OR p E R AL COEDL Annu CoeDl in 2015 9 Since the announcement in December 2013 that our bid was successful, and our formal commencement of operations in September 2014, we have put in place the key elements to meet our ambitious goals. Organisationally, we have set up our Administrative team and Advisory Committee; designed, built and moved into purpose-built new premises on the ANU campus; recruited our frst batch of PhD Students and Postdocs; held a number of workshops; and mapped out our more detailed research plans at one-year and three-year rhythms. We are now ready to move, in detail, to meet Second Language Learning, in mainstream, the scientifc and social challenges that multi-lingual, and disadvantaged contexts. we will address over the next six years. A Finally, our basic research in language central part of this is to enhance Australia‘s evolution together with cutting-edge linguistic wealth – an underrated aspect of experiments in robotics will feed the our informational resources - and to help development of new educational technologies secure the linguistic and cultural heritage of as well as assistive devices (language Indigenous and regional communities. We prostheses) for conversational support for will translate this shift in conceptual focus those with language loss or dementia. into transformations of central importance to society, the public and end-users, through using and developing New Technologies and upskilling Australia‘s research workforce. A smart country requires smart solutions that transform our economy away from manufacturing into a high-technology future. Research developments in this Centre will have signifcant technological fow-throughs, not least from the large amounts of language data collected from a range of languages. The consequent databases, in addition to the benefts of the new technology to develop them, will provide the type of Big Data essential for automatic speech recognition systems with educational and clinical applications. Centre research on language processing and learning will provide data for informing better literacy outcomes and adult HEADING HEADING Director’s welcome 10 As Director of the newly-established ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, it is a special pleasure to write this introduction to our frst annual report. To all our readers, I hope this frst report will convey the excitement, ambition and urgency of our goals, as well as a feeling for how, over this founding period, we have set the Centre up to take us there. This is where we bump against the tip of that giant iceberg that starts with the world’s 7,000+ languages, and goes down to the many billion more variants found at the level of individual variation. This includes the ever-present changes in how we speak as we learn our frst and subsequent languages, and, at the other end of life, as we lose the power to communicate. It is the goal of our Language is central to everything we do Centre to take these two facts – the stunning – from reading this report, to talking with diversity of the world’s linguistic systems, friends and family, to following the latest and the fact that they are dynamic systems scientifc or political developments. This constantly being reconfgured by their users makes CoEDL’s focus of interest, language – and forge a new approach to language and languages, something no one can afford which places diversity and dynamism at to ignore. Speaking and understanding come centre stage. so naturally to us, but this easy comfort Several tectonic shifts in the sciences of only lasts until we try to communicate with language make this approach timely. someone who doesn’t share our language, or suffer frustrating encounters with automatic One is a change in the way the science of voice recognition systems that don’t linguistics is conceived. Recent conceptual understand our words, or – an increasingly shifts (though by no means uncontroversial) common problem – witness the tragic decline move from an emphasis on a shared in older people’s ability to communicate ‘Universal Grammar’ with relatively superfcial with their carers, as a result of degenerative differences among languages, to a view that t – 2014 disorders like Alzheimer’s. At the level of emphasises the incredible diversity of the OR p E national and global politics, education or world’s languages on every level, and the R AL health, these communicative setbacks intricate two-way causal interactions between remind us that language is not always a language and thought, and language, perfectly tuned channel. society and culture. The great achievement COEDL Annu 11 of the Darwinian revolution in biology was A second conceptual shift, made more to show how the boundless diversity of the pressing by our realisation of how much world’s organisms can arise from general diversity has to tell us, is the looming principles of selection and their interaction catastrophe of language loss, proceeding with a wide range of ecological niches. more rapidly in Australia than on any other The ‘coevolutionary’ approach that informs continent. This mass extinction event is likely our Centre’s program aims to accomplish to see more than half the world’s languages a comparable revolution in the study of fall silent by the end of this century, many language. We are working towards a general completely unrecorded. Between them, the model of language evolution in which countries of our region contain around a ffth selection pressures give rise to a diversity of the world’s linguistic diversity: PNG ranks of linguistic structures. In this context, #1, Indonesia #2, India #4, Australia #5, the relevant ‘ecological’ settings may be Philippines #10 and Vanuatu #12 in terms cognitive, cultural, or technological. of numbers of local languages. Depending on the metric used, Vanuatu and PNG vie for To achieve this synthesis, CoEDL will supremacy as the world’s most linguistically approach the study of language through four diverse nations. interacting programs. Shape looks at the different ways languages are built, Learning Though there have been some notable examines what this means for the learning worldwide efforts over the last couple of of very different language types, Processing decades to record and safeguard this researches the way different language heritage, several key international programs structures demand different strategies are exhausting their funding with only for listening and thinking, and Evolution a fraction of the problem having been maps how a whole range of selectors build addressed. Renewing the impulse for and reshape each language and language the urgent effort to document the world’s variety. The varied backgrounds of our languages is a key part of the Centre’s brief. team of CIs span almost every feld needed A number of new academic appointments to build this new science of language – will be dedicated to the study of undescribed linguistics, psychology, computer science languages, and will develop new approaches and robotics, philosophy, anthropology, to archiving and technologies that speed speech therapy, and evolutionary and extend recording in the feld, and will bioinformatics. And the unique interweaving be developing global databases that can of four programs built into CoEDL’s structure be used for new types of comparison of is designed to maximise cross-fertilisation linguistic structures worldwide. around shared problems.
Recommended publications
  • Than One Way to Catch a Frog: a Study of Children's
    More than one way to catch a frog: A study of children’s discourse in an Australian contact language Samantha Disbray Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne December, 2008 Declaration This is to certify that: a. this thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD b. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all material used c. the text is less than 100,000 words, exclusive of tables, figures, maps, examples, appendices and bibliography ____________________________ Samantha Disbray Abstract Children everywhere learn to tell stories. One important aspect of story telling is the way characters are introduced and then moved through the story. Telling a story to a naïve listener places varied demands on a speaker. As the story plot develops, the speaker must set and re-set these parameters for referring to characters, as well as the temporal and spatial parameters of the story. To these cognitive and linguistic tasks is the added social and pragmatic task of monitoring the knowledge and attention states of their listener. The speaker must ensure that the listener can identify the characters, and so must anticipate their listener’s knowledge and on-going mental image of the story. How speakers do this depends on cultural conventions and on the resources of the language(s) they speak. For the child speaker the development narrative competence involves an integration, on-line, of a number of skills, some of which are not fully established until the later childhood years.
    [Show full text]
  • Endangered Songs and Endangered Languages
    Endangered Songs and Endangered Languages Allan Marett and Linda Barwick Music department, University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia [[email protected], [email protected]] Abstract Without immediate action many Indigenous music and dance traditions are in danger of extinction with It is widely reported in Australia and elsewhere that songs are potentially destructive consequences for the fabric of considered by culture bearers to be the “crown jewels” of Indigenous society and culture. endangered cultural heritages whose knowledge systems have hitherto been maintained without the aid of writing. It is precisely these specialised repertoires of our intangible The recording and documenting of the remaining cultural heritage that are most endangered, even in a traditions is a matter of the highest priority both for comparatively healthy language. Only the older members of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Many of the community tend to have full command of the poetics of our foremost composers and singers have already song, even in cases where the language continues to be spoken passed away leaving little or no record. (Garma by younger people. Taking a number of case studies from Statement on Indigenous Music and Performance Australian repertories of public song (wangga, yawulyu, 2002) lirrga, and junba), we explore some of the characteristics of song language and the need to extend language documentation To close the Garma Symposium, Mandawuy Yunupingu to include musical and other dimensions of song and Witiyana Marika performed, without further performances. Productive engagements between researchers, comment, two djatpangarri songs—"Gapu" (a song performers and communities in documenting songs can lead to about the tide) and "Cora" (a song about an eponymous revitalisation of interest and their renewed circulation in contemporary media and contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded from Brill.Com09/30/2021 10:48:31PM Via Free Access
    journal of language contact 11 (2018) 71-112 brill.com/jlc The Development of Phonological Stratification: Evidence from Stop Voicing Perception in Gurindji Kriol and Roper Kriol Jesse Stewart University of Saskatchewan [email protected] Felicity Meakins University of Queensland [email protected] Cassandra Algy Karungkarni Arts [email protected] Angelina Joshua Ngukurr Language Centre [email protected] Abstract This study tests the effect of multilingualism and language contact on consonant perception. Here, we explore the emergence of phonological stratification using two alternative forced-choice (2afc) identification task experiments to test listener perception of stop voicing with contrasting minimal pairs modified along a 10-step continuum. We examine a unique language ecology consisting of three languages spo- ken in Northern Territory, Australia: Roper Kriol (an English-lexifier creole language), Gurindji (Pama-Nyungan), and Gurindji Kriol (a mixed language derived from Gurindji and Kriol). In addition, this study focuses on three distinct age groups: children (group i, 8>), preteens to middle-aged adults (group ii, 10–58), and older adults (group iii, 65+). Results reveal that both Kriol and Gurindji Kriol listeners in group ii contrast the labial series [p] and [b]. Contrarily, while alveolar [t] and velar [k] were consis- tently identifiable by the majority of participants (74%), their voiced counterparts ([d] and [g]) showed random response patterns by 61% of the participants. Responses © Jesse Stewart et al., 2018 | doi 10.1163/19552629-01101003 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing cc-by-nc license at the time of publication.
    [Show full text]
  • How Understanding the Aboriginal Kinship System Can Inform Better
    How understanding the Aboriginal Kinship system can inform better policy and practice: social work research with the Larrakia and Warumungu Peoples of the Northern Territory Submitted by KAREN CHRISTINE KING BSW A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Social Work Faculty of Arts and Science Australian Catholic University December 2011 2 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP AND SOURCES This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. All research procedures reported in the thesis received the approval of the Australian Catholic University Human Research Ethics Committee. Karen Christine King BSW 9th March 2012 3 4 ABSTRACT This qualitative inquiry explored the kinship system of both the Larrakia and Warumungu peoples of the Northern Territory with the aim of informing social work theory and practice in Australia. It also aimed to return information to the knowledge holders for the purposes of strengthening Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing. This study is presented as a journey, with the oral story-telling traditions of the Larrakia and Warumungu embedded and laced throughout. The kinship system is unpacked in detail, and knowledge holders explain its benefits in their lives along with their support for sharing this knowledge with social workers.
    [Show full text]
  • SCOPIC Design and Overview
    Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication No. 12 Social Cognition Parallax Interview Corpus (SCOPIC) ed. by Danielle Barth and Nicholas Evans, pp. 1–21 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/sp12 1 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24742 SCOPIC Design and Overview Danielle Barth and Nicholas Evans Australian National University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language This paper provides an overview of the design and motivation for creating the Social Cognition Parallax Interview Corpus (SCOPIC), an open-end- ed, accessible corpus that balances the need for language-specific annota- tion with typologically-calibrated markup. SCOPIC provides richly anno- tated data, focusing on functional categories relevant to social cognition, the social and psychological facts that place people and others within an interconnected social context and allow people to interact with one an- other. By ‘parallax corpus’ we mean ‘broadly comparable formulations resulting from a comparable task’, to avoid the implications of ‘parallel corpus’ that there will be exact semantic equivalence across languages. We describe the data structure of the corpus and the language functions being annotated, and provide an example of a typological analysis using recursive partitioning, a modern statistical technique. The current paper should be seen as the introductory chapter of an open-ended special issue of LDC whose goal is to make available both the original corpus, the evolving annotated versions, and analyses coming from them, so that any investigator can examine the corpus with their own questions in mind. A range of new papers, linked to the evolv- ing corpus, will be added to this special issue over time.
    [Show full text]
  • 2011 Census Definitions and Output Classifications
    2011 Census Definitions and Output Classifications December 2012 Last Updated April 2015 Contents Section 1 – 2011 Census Definitions 6 Section 2 – 2011 Census Variables 49 Section 3 – 2011 Census Full Classifications 141 Section 4 – 2011 Census Footnotes 179 Footnotes – Key Statistics 180 Footnotes – Quick Statistics 189 Footnotes – Detailed Characteristics Statistics 202 Footnotes – Local Characteristics Statistics 280 Footnotes – Alternative Population Statistics 316 SECTION 1 2011 CENSUS DEFINITIONS 2011 Census Definitions and Output Classifications 1 Section 1 – 2011 Census Definitions 2011 Resident Population 6 Absent Household 6 Accommodation Type 6 Activity Last Week 6 Adaptation of Accommodation 6 Adult 6 Adult (alternative classification) 7 Adult lifestage 7 Age 7 Age of Most Recent Arrival in Northern Ireland 8 Approximated social grade 8 Area 8 Atheist 9 Average household size 9 Carer 9 Cars or vans 9 Catholic 9 Census Day 10 Census Night 10 Central heating 10 Child 10 Child (alternative definition) 10 Children shared between parents 11 Civil partnership 11 Cohabiting 11 Cohabiting couple family 11 Cohabiting couple household 12 Communal establishment 12 Communal establishment resident 13 Country of Birth 13 Country of Previous Residence 13 Current religion 14 Daytime population 14 Dependent child 14 Dwelling 15 Economic activity 15 Economically active 16 Economically inactive 16 Employed 16 2011 Census Definitions and Output Classifications 2 Section 1 – 2011 Census Definitions Employee 17 Employment 17 Establishment 17 Ethnic
    [Show full text]
  • Commonwealth of Australia
    COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 Warning This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of The Charles Darwin University with permission from the author(s). Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander THESAURUS First edition by Heather Moorcroft and Alana Garwood 1996 Acknowledgements ATSILIRN conference delegates for the 1st and 2nd conferences. Alex Byrne, Melissa Jackson, Helen Flanders, Ronald Briggs, Julie Day, Angela Sloan, Cathy Frankland, Andrew Wilson, Loris Williams, Alan Barnes, Jeremy Hodes, Nancy Sailor, Sandra Henderson, Lenore Kennedy, Vera Dunn, Julia Trainor, Rob Curry, Martin Flynn, Dave Thomas, Geraldine Triffitt, Bill Perrett, Michael Christie, Robyn Williams, Sue Stanton, Terry Kessaris, Fay Corbett, Felicity Williams, Michael Cooke, Ely White, Ken Stagg, Pat Torres, Gloria Munkford, Marcia Langton, Joanna Sassoon, Michael Loos, Meryl Cracknell, Maggie Travers, Jacklyn Miller, Andrea McKey, Lynn Shirley, Xalid Abd-ul-Wahid, Pat Brady, Sau Foster, Barbara Lewancamp, Geoff Shepardson, Colleen Pyne, Giles Martin, Herbert Compton Preface Over the past months I have received many queries like "When will the thesaurus be available", or "When can I use it". Well here it is. At last the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Thesaurus, is ready. However, although this edition is ready, I foresee that there will be a need for another and another, because language is fluid and will change over time. As one of the compilers of the thesaurus I am glad it is finally completed and available for use.
    [Show full text]
  • A PDF Combined with Pdfmergex
    !"#$%&'("$)!"*)+$%&$,+*+%)-&$,#&,+.) ) OGMIOS The message on a postcard advocating for the protection of language rights in Australia’s Northern Territory (Page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he Austronesian Languages......................................... 19! LW'()#$*+#%6 3! Immersion – a film on endangered languages ............... 19! Cover Story: Northern Territory’s small languages sidelined from schools ...................................................... 3! RW'\6%/4"'$*'2*'*&'$74'S41 20! NW! =4T46*:M4&$'*@'$74'A*.&)%$#*& 4! Irish upside down............................................................ 20! Resolution of the FEL XIII Conference, Khorog, Tajikistan, OW'A*+$7/*M#&2'4T4&$" 21! 26, September, 2009 ........................................................ 4! HRELP Workshop: Endangered Languages, endangered FEL and UNESCO Atlas partnership................................ 4! knowledge & sustainability.............................................
    [Show full text]
  • LSA 2016 Annual Meeting Handbook.Pdf
    Meeting Handbook Linguistic Society of America American Dialect Society American Name Society North American Association for the History of the Language Sciences Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas The Association for Linguistic Evidence 90th Annual Meeting Marriott Marquis Washington, DC 7-10 January, 2016 NATIVE AMERICAN ANALYZED ORAL TEXTS NOW AVAILABLE DOWNLOADABLE PDF e-BOOKS – $10 EACH Available titles: Mayan Texts I, II, and III; Louanna Furbee (1976, 1979, 1980) Otomi Parables, Folktales, and Jokes; H. Russell Bernard and Jesús Salinas Pedraza (1976) Yuman Texts ; Margaret Langdon (1976) Caddoan Texts ; Douglas R. Parks (1977) Northern California Texts ; Victor Golla and Shirley Silver (1977) Northwest Coast Texts ; Barry F. Carlson (1977) Coyote Stories; William Bright (1978) Crow Texts ; Dorothea V. Kaschube (1978) Northern Iroquoian Texts ; Marianne Mithun and Hanni Woodbury (1980) Coyote Stories II; Martha B. Kendall (1980) ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.PRESS.UCHICAGO.EDU INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS Editors: David Beck and Donna Gerdts IJAL is a world forum for the study of all languages native to North, Central, and South America. SSILA member rate now available at www.ssila.org SIGNS AND SOCIETY – OPEN ACCESS Editor: Richard J. Parmentier Signs and Society is a new multidisciplinary journal in the humanities and social sciences focusing on the study of sign process (or semiosis) in the realms of social action, cognition, and cultural form. www.journals.uchicago.edu
    [Show full text]
  • Final Report
    final report knowledge for managing Australian landscapes Kantri is for Laif (Country is for Life) A Strategy for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge and the Development of Indigenous Livelihoods on the Remote north Australian Indigenous Estate. A Land & Water Australia, CRC-TSM and NAILSMA Project Initiative Published by Land & Water Australia Product Code PN30198 Postal address GPO Box 2182, Canberra ACT 2601 Office location Level 1, The Phoenix 86 Northbourne Avenue, Braddon ACT 2612 Telephone 02 6263 6000 Email [email protected] Internet www.lwa.gov.au © Commonwealth of Australia, July 2009 Disclaimer The information contained in this publication is intended for general use, to assist public knowledge and discussion and to help improve the sustainable management of land, water and vegetation. It includes general statements based on scientific research. Readers are advised and need to be aware that this information may be incomplete or unsuitable for use in specific situations. Before taking any action or decision based on the information in this publication, readers should seek expert professional, scientific and technical advice and form their own view of the applicability and correctness of the information. To the extent permitted by law, the Commonwealth of Australia, Land & Water Australia (including its employees and consultants), and the authors of this publication do not assume liability of any kind whatsoever resulting from any person’s use or reliance upon the content of this publication. Kantri is for Laif (Country is for Life) Na‐ja narnu‐yuwa narnu‐walkurra barra, wirrimalaru, barni‐wardimantha, Barni‐ngalngandaya, nakari wabarrangu li‐wankala, li‐ngambalanga kuku, li‐ngambalanga murimuri, li‐ngambalanga ngabuji, li‐ngambalanga kardirdi kalu‐kanthaninya na‐ja narnu‐yuwa, jiwini awarala, anthaa yurrngumantha barra.
    [Show full text]
  • 2 Sociohistorical Context
    2 Sociohistorical context 2.1 Introduction This chapter presents sociohistorical data from the Roper River region from the 1840s to the 1960s. The aim of this chapter is to determine when and how a creole language evolved in the Roper River region and what role the pastoral industry may have played. Chapter 2 expands on Harris (1986), which is to date the most comprehensive sociohistorical study of pidgin and creole emergence in the Northern Territory. This work complemented Sandefur (1986) and provided background to other studies such as Munro (2000). Harris (1986) uses sociohistorical data from the 1840s-1900s from the early settlements in the vicinity of present day Darwin and the coastal regions in contact with the Macassans to describe the development and stabilisation of Northern Territory Pidgin (NT Pidgin) by the 1900s. Harris (1986) also describes the cattle industry invasion, as well as the establishment of the Roper River Mission (RRM), which led to the suggestion that abrupt creole genesis occurred in the RRM from 1908. The information in this chapter will contribute to the application of the Transfer Constraints approach to substrate transfer in Kriol in three ways. Firstly, it will provide evidence of which substrate languages had most potential for input in the process of transfer to the NT Pidgin, and ultimately then Kriol. Secondly, the sociohistorical data should suggest how much access to English, as the superstrate language, the substrate language speakers had. And finally, the description of each phase will allow for accurate identification of the timeframes within which transfer and levelling (as discussed in chapter 1) occurred.
    [Show full text]
  • Fricative and Stop Perception in Gurindji Kriol, Roper Kriol, and Standard Australian English
    ...................................ARTICLE Fickle fricatives: Fricative and stop perception in Gurindji Kriol, Roper Kriol, and Standard Australian English Jesse Stewart,1,a) Felicity Meakins,2,b) Cassandra Algy,3 Thomas Ennever,4 and Angelina Joshua5 1Department of Linguistics, University of Saskatchewan, 916 Arts Building Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5, Canada 2ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language & School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Gordon Greenwood Building, Room 434, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia 3Karungkarni Arts, Kalkaringi via Katherine, Northern Territory 0852, Australia 4School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Gordon Greenwood Building, Room 434, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia 5Ngukurr Language Centre, Ngukurr via Katherine, Northern Territory 0852, Australia ABSTRACT: This paper uses a 2AFC identification task experiment to test listener perception of voiceless fricative-stop contrasts with minimal pairs modified along a 10-step continuum. Here, the authors focus on the uniqueness and near- uniformity of the phonological systems found in Australia. The languages involved in this study include Roper Kriol (an English-lexifier creole language), Gurindji Kriol (a mixed language derived from Gurindji and Kriol), with Standard Australian English (Indo-European) used as a baseline. Results reveal that just over 50% of the Roper Kriol and Gurindji Kriol listeners identified differences in the stop-fricative pairs with a high degree of consistency while nearly a quarter consistently identified the fricative-like stimuli as such, but showed random responses to the stop-like stimuli. The remaining participants showed a preference toward the fricatives across the entire continuum. The authors conclude that the fricative-stop contrast is not critical to the functionality of the phonologies in Roper Kriol or Gurindji Kriol, which could explain the high degree of variability.
    [Show full text]