See the schedule for our linguistics seminars
The Department of Linguistics hosts research seminars regularly throughout the year.
You can hear from experts on a wide variety of topics. Join us on campus or online.
Seminars usually take place:
- on Fridays
- from 4pm to 5pm
- in the Delbridge Room (AHH 2.320) – unless otherwise specified.
Seminars will be presented both on campus and online. Join us using Zoom with password 612574.
Upcoming seminars
See our upcoming 2026 seminars below.
Seminars typically involve reports on empirical research and include clear descriptions of research methods. Seminar audiences are linguists working across a range of theoretical and methodological approaches and graduate research students.
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 August – download abstract | Joe Blythe (Macquarie University) and Bill Palmer (University of Newcastle) | Etic and emic approaches to research on Murrinhpatha spatial language | AHH 2.320/Zoom |
| 28 August – download abstract | Jing Fang (Macquarie University) | From managing turns to shaping actions: Exploring interpreter turn management | AHH 2.320/Zoom |
| 4 September – download abstract | Sender Dovchin (Curtin University) | Linguistic Discrimination and the Global South | AHH 2.320/Zoom |
Past seminars
See some of our previous seminars below.
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title |
|---|---|---|
| 31 July – download abstract | Sriram Boothalingam (Macquarie University) | Listening to the ear listen to the brain |
| 17 July – download abstract | John Augeri (Île-de-France Digital University) | (Re)definition of the learning territories: Global insights on the challenges and perspectives of the learning spaces and learning environments |
| 19 June – download abstract | Li Sheng (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) | Exploring mechanisms of novel classifier learning |
| 29 May – download abstract | Sophie Munte (Macquarie/Hamburg University) | Parent-school communication in linguistically diverse schools |
| 15 May – download abstract | Rob Mailhammer (Western Sydney University) | The shaping of Germanic language and culture through the contact with Punic: language, mythology and writing system |
| 1 May – download abstract | Miguel Jiminez Crespo (Rutgers University) | AI technologies in language access: Perspectives of language access professionals in the USA |
| 27 February – download abstract | Danielle Heinrichs Henry (Griffith University) | (Critical) Applied Sociolinguistic Approaches to Health Crisis Communication |
| 24 April – download abstract | Feng Xu (Macquarie University) | Beyond words: Prosody and discourse functions in Mandarin children with cochlear implants |
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title |
|---|---|---|
| 14 March – download abstract | Adrian Hemler (University of Konstanz) | Law and corpus linguistics – going beyond ordinary meaning |
| 21 March – download abstract | Masaki Shibata (Monash University) | Turning IELTS exercise into a lifeline for beach safety education |
| 11 April – download abstract | Esther Monzó-Nebot (Universitat Jaume I, Valencia) | Is there a culture war against professional (human) Translation and Interpreting? |
| 2 May – download abstract | Xin Wang and Bob McMurray | Lexical tone in spoken word recognition |
| 16 May – download abstract | Jessie Chen (Shandong University) | Points during lighthearted teasing in Mandarin-speaking interactions |
| 23 May – download abstract | Annabelle Lukin | People and place in UN resolutions on Palestine (1947-2020) |
| 6 June – download abstract | Natalie Skinner | Exploring agency and cultural and linguistic diversity for children with complex communication needs |
| 13 June – download abstract | Pam Peters and Adam Smith | Levels of Americanisation in world Englishes |
| 20 June – download abstract | Hannah White | Creaky voice in Australian English |
| 1 August – download abstract | Junjie Wu (Tianjin Normal University) | Do bilinguals need to inhibit their non-target language? |
| 8 August – download abstract | Alfredo Herrero de Haro (Wollongong University) | The Interactive Linguistic Atlas of Andalusian Accents (ALIAA): Methodology, first results, and how to adapt the software and methodology to other languages |
| 15 August – download abstract | Madeline Jenkins | Studying and understanding emotion in ancient Egyptian texts |
| 22 August – download abstract | Adam Chong (QMU London) | Prosodic prominence in Singapore English: stability and variation |
| 12 September – download abstract | Bill Palmer (University of Newcastle) | Factors in the interaction of environment, language and spatial cognition |
| 19 September – download abstract | Mark Harvey (University of Newcastle) | The Phonology of vowel systems in Australian languages |
| 10 October – download abstract | Tuende Szalay (Macquarie University/University of Sydney) | Making speech articulation visible: insights from MRI |
| 24 October – download abstract | Sophia Bello (University of Toronto) | Incorporating GenAI to empower learners and support instructors |
| 21 November – download abstract | Wenling Jiang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) | Hearing health management in older adults with age-related hearing loss: From screening to rehabilitation |
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title |
|---|---|---|
| 23 Feb – download abstract | Samantha Rarrick (Griffith University) | Eyeblinks, prosody, and mobilising sign language documentation |
| 5 Apr – download abstract* | James McElvenny (Universität Siegen) | Linguistic relativity and translation |
| 3 May – download abstract | Rod Gardner (University of Queensland) | How to subvert the turn-taking rules of conversation |
| 10 May – download abstract** | Charles Chang (Boston University) | Examining language knowledge through the multilingual repertoire |
| 24 May – download abstract | Camilla Di Biase-Dyson | Colour, emotion and the universality/relativity debate. A perspective from languages of the Ancient Near East |
| 7 June – download abstract** | Lucie Ménard (Université du Québec à Montréal) | Multisensory integration in speech production and perception: the case of French-speaking children and adults |
| 14 June – download abstract* | Sari Pietikäinen (University of Jyväskylä) | Connecting discursive and material elements in the heating Arctic: A critical assemblage analysis |
| 21 June – download abstract** | Marco Santello (University of Turin) | On decoupling migrants' individual resourcefulness and communicate success: questions from the field |
| 5 July – download abstract* | Liesa Rühlmann (Bielefeld University) | Linguistic racism and speaker positionality in Germany’s schools |
| 12 July* | Book Launch | Life in a new language |
| 30 July – download abstract | Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer (Chemnitz) | From the Grimms’ fairy tales to Star Wars: How linguistics investigates the language of popular culture with corpora |
| 9 Aug – download abstract | Joe Blythe | The primordial centre of everything |
| 16 Aug – download abstract | Shiwei Fu | Characterisation in literary translation: A systemic functional approach to the English translation of legends of the condor heroes |
| Mark Johnson | Large language models and the changing face of computational linguistics | |
| 6 Sept – download abstract | Lauren Reed | A pragmatic typological survey of backchannelling in sociolinguistically diverse sign languages |
| 13 Sept – download abstract | Caroline de Dear | Content-question words in Gija conversations |
| 20 Sept – download abstract | Peter Siemund (University of Hamburg) | Convergence on dominant language constellations: World Englishes in their local multilingual ecologies |
| 4 Oct – download abstract | Richard Savery | Robotic musicianship |
| 11 Oct – download abstract | Raphaël Millière | A philosophical introduction to LLMs |
| 25 Oct – download abstract | Anastasia Pattemore (University of Groningen) | The multilingual turn in studies on learning from subtitled audiovisual input |
| 15 Nov** – download abstract | Christine Mooshammer (Humboldt University) | Phonaesthetics of fictional languages |
*Co-hosted by Language on the Move. **Co-hosted with CLaS.
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title |
|---|---|---|
| 17 Mar – download abstract* | Jean Cho | No vegemite and toast for breakfast: cultural and linguistic challenges in healthcare interpreting |
| 31 Mar – download abstract* | Ingrid Piller and Agi Bodis | Language testing in university admission procedures |
| 21 Apr – download abstract* | Alice Duan | Mutilingual abilities and poverty in Southwest China |
| 28 Apr – download abstract | Mike Proctor | The truth is out there, but you might not find it: multidimensional signals and analytic flexibility |
| 12 May – download abstract | Jessie Chen | Touches in Mandarin-speaking interaction: Managing participation and sequence organisation (Abstract) |
| 19 May – download abstract | Andreea Deleanu (University of Surrey) | Improving access to audiovisual narratives for cognitively diverse audiences |
| 26 May – download abstract | Nick Williams (University of Potsdam) | Grammar and Interaction in Indonesian: state of the art and prospects |
| 9 June – download abstract | Dariush Izadi (Western Sydney University) | Exploring the phenomenology of shopping as social practice: An inquiry into the multimodal and linguistic repertoires in markets in Sydney |
| 16 June – download abstract | Ashleigh Jones (HDR candidate) | The Multiple Worlds of Enactment in Cross-modal Auslan and English interactions |
| 23 June – download abstract** | Erich Round (UQ/Surrey) | From a split second in the mind to millennia of persistence: How conjugation classes and declensions emerge and survive |
| 28 July – download abstract | Stafford Lumsden (University of Sydney) | Social Semiotic Approaches to Examining Online Learning Environments |
| 4 Aug – download abstract** | Adina Camelia Bleotu & Mara Panaitescu (University of Bucharest) | Insights into scales and relevance from disjunction in child Romanian |
| 11 Aug – download abstract | Mitchell Browne & Tom Ennever | The functions of the locative case in Pama-Nyungan languages |
| 1 Sept – download abstract | Harvey Dillon | Separating the causes of listening difficulty in children |
| 15 Sept – download abstract | Yeong-Ju Lee (HDR Candidate) | Language learners’ creative uses of TikTok for informal language learning (Abstract) |
| 22 Sept – download abstract* | Hanna Torsh | Ten years on: how has family language policy changed between 2012 and 2022? |
| 29 Sept – download abstract** | Aude Noiray | How does phonological awareness impact on the development of spoken and reading fluency? |
| 6 Oct – download abstract | Amir Sheikhan (University of Queensland) | Conversational humour in intercultural interactions: Bridging interactional and cognitive perspectives |
| 13 Oct – download abstract | Peter Collins (UNSW) | Exploring World Englishes with GloWbE |
| 20 Oct – download abstract | Lisa Petersen (HDR candidate, Griffith University) | Documenting and analysing phonology and variation in HSL |
| 27 Oct – download abstract | Michael Haugh (University of Queensland) | Analysing the unsaid in social interaction |
| 10 Nov – download abstract | Josh Penney | Ladz in the hood: Features of Pasifika English in drill rappers from Western Sydney? |
*Co-hosted by Language on the Move. **Co-hosted with CLaS.
| Date | Speaker/s | Seminar title |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb – download abstract | Alex Walker (James Cook University) | Building a Bridge: Creating a Pidgin for Indigenous Language Revitalisation |
| 4 Mar – download abstract | Gearóidín McEvoy (Birmingham Law School) | The Créatúr and the Slíbhín: Tropes about Irish speakers and Deaf people in the Criminal Justice System |
| 25 Mar – download abstract | Chavalin Svetanant, Jasna Novak Milic and Patricia Koromvokis | Multilingual Challenges: Building bridges between classrooms and communities |
| 1 Apr – download abstract | Tom Ennever (Monash University) | One nose walking: Semantic and morphosyntactic aspects of body part terms in two languages of the Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia |
| 22 Apr – download abstract | Phil Benson | Assemblage theory and language mobility: How come some languages can’t keep still, while others barely move at all? |
| 29 Apr – download abstract | William Forshaw (University of Melbourne) | Prosodic Licensing of Early Verbs in Murrinhpatha |
| 6 May – download abstract | Adam Smith | Attitudes to immigration in Australian Hansard: 1970-2020 |
| 13 May – download abstract | Mike Proctor | Pealing lips and leaping pills: new insights into lateral approximants |
| 20 May – download abstract | Rob Mailhammer (Western Sydney University) | Variation and grammar: natural enemies? Lessons from Croker Island |
| 27 May – download abstract | Lila San Roque (University of Sydney) | I smell the salt lovely: Talking about olfactory experience with children |
| 17 Jun – download abstract | Sue Ollerhead | What can Australian classrooms learn from Ubuntu translanguaging? Enhancing epistemic access for multilingual students |
| 24 Jun – download abstract | Li Sheng | The fine-grained effects of bilingualism on children’s lexical-semantic development |
| 8 Jul – download abstract | Patrick Wong (Chinese University of Hong Kong) | Predicting Individual Differences in Language Learning Across Populations |
| 5 Aug – download abstract | Samuel Calder | Morphosyntax and the Efficacy of Explicit Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Disorder |
| 12 Aug – download abstract | Peter Roger | Telehealth Interactions in General Practice: An interdisciplinary approach |
| 19 Aug | Luke Alexander | ‘HR-speak’ and ‘ticking boxes’: Using metalanguage to analyse workplace discourse |
| 26 Aug – download abstract | Pieter Siemund (University of Hamburg) | The impact of heritage language proficiency on English as an additional language: Disentangling language and cognition |
| 9 Sep – download abstract | Bob McMurray (University of Iowa) | The Slow Development of Real Time Spoken and Written Word Recognition |
| 30 Sep – download abstract | Robyn Moloney and The Very Reverend Dr Fr Shenouda Mansour | The languages of religion/spirituality supporting community well-being |
| 14 Oct – download abstract | Alice Chik | Developing Language-inclusion index |
| 4 Nov – download abstract | Felicity Cox, Joshua Penney and Andy Gibson | Towards a unified and inclusive model of Australian English |
| 11 Nov – download abstract | Trinidad Fernandez (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid) | An Online Multilingualised Dictionary of Terms in Building Construction: ArchiTermFinder |
| 25 Nov – download abstract | Keith Axelbaum (University of Iowa) | Continuity in Speech Perception: Moving Away from Tasks that Assume Categorical Perception |
| 9 Dec – download abstract | Senne M Van Hoecke | Subtitles and asynchronous, online education: The impact on the student and what to consider as a lecturer |
Seminar organisers
| Name | |
|---|---|
| Adam Smith | adam.smith@mq.edu.au |
| Joshua Penney | joshua.penney@mq.edu.au |
| Mitchell Browne | mitchell.browne@mq.edu.au |