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Program and Activities

LINGAD 2007
24 – 28 September 2007
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia

LINGAD2007 is a series of linguistics meetings held at the University of Adelaide in September 2007. LINGAD2007 includes: AUSTRALEX, Australian Linguistics Society (ALS), and Indigenous Languages (ILC) conferences. Wednesday 26 September 2007 was the shared day for ILC and ALS conferences. This day included a Panel discussion, presentations by keynote speakers, and a shared lunch.

Conference Program

Download the conference program

Download a complete list of ILC 2007 presentations with scheduled days and times

Plenary Speakers

Phillip Cash Cash

Phillip Cash Cash was born and raised on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeastern Oregon (USA) and is an indigenous Weyíiletpuu (Cayuse) and Nuumíipuu (Nez Perce) person.  In his homeland, Phillip is widely known by his traditional Weyíiletpuu (Cayuse) name: píitamyanon maqsmáqs “yellow hawk” (lit.: yellow striking).  Phillip is also a speaker of Nuumiipuutímt (Nez Perce) and a traditional religious practitioner and singer.  

Phillip Cash Cash is presently a PhD candidate in the Joint Program in Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson (USA).  Cash Cash is a recipient of a Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) fellowship from the National Science Foundation and National Endowment of the Humanities which enabled him to complete a year of language documentation research in five reservation communities in the southern Columbia Plateau of western North America.  His ongoing project, “A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Perce and Sahaptin,” focuses on two severely endangered sister languages: Nez Perce and Sahaptin. 

Phillip also teaches at the annual American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) at the University of Arizona (USA) in the areas of technology and language documentation.  In addition to his language work, he documents rock art in his southern Columbia Plateau homeland.   Phillip is currently completing his degree program and plans to continue his advocacy for endangered languages and endangered language communities through language documentation and teaching. 

Keynote Address:

“Documenting Language, Visualizing Culture: Shooting Digital Video in Two Endangered Language Communities in Western North America.”

Download Phil's PowerPoint presentations here:  ILC2007 & ALS2007

Webpage(s):

Personal
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cashcash/

Project-based
http://www.meadowlarkheart.org/
http://projects.ltc.arizona.edu/gates/TELR.html

Key Publications:

Carnie, A., and Cash Cash, P. (2006). Tree-Geometric Relational Hierarchies and Nuumiipuutímt (Nez Perce) Case. In D. Massam, A. Johns, and J. Ndayiragije (eds.), Ergativity.  Kluwer Academic Press.

Sadongei, A., and Cash Cash, P. (2006). Indigenous Value Orientations in the Care of Human Remains. In V. Cassman, N. Odegaard, and J. Powell (eds.), Human Remains: A Guide for Museums and Academic Institutions. Lanham, MD, Altimira Press.

Cash Cash, P. (2006). Tíim’enin: Indigenous Conceptions of Columbia Plateau Rock-Art. In J.D. Keyser, G. Poetschat, and M.W. Taylor (eds.), Talking With the Past: The Ethnography of Rock Art. Portland: The Oregon Historical Society Press. 

Cash Cash, P. (2005). Nez Perce (Niimiipuu) Religious Traditions. Entry in Encyclopedia of Religion, Edition 2. MacMillan Publishers.

Cash Cash, P. (2005). ke yóx hitamtáaycaqa c’íiqinpa (that which is reported in talk): reported speech in nez perce. Coyote Papers, 13. University of Arizona, Tucson. http://coyotepapers.sbs.arizona.edu/CPXIII.htm

Penfield, S. D., Cash Cash, P., and Roberts, C. (2004). Technology- Enhanced Language Revitalization. ILAT (Indigenous Languages and Technology Series), Volume 1 (172 pp.). Tucson: University of Arizona. http://projects.ltc.arizona.edu/gates/projects.html

Contact: 

Department of Linguistics
PO BOx 210028
The University of Arizona
Tucson AZ 85721-0028
USA

Email:

cashcash@u.arizona.edu
pasxapu@dakotacom.net

Te Haumihiata Mason

Of Tühoe, Te Arawa  and Ngäiterangi descent, Te Haumihiata was raised in Tühoe and is a native speaker of Mäori. While raising her children in her early thirties, she decided she should get an education. She graduated with a Bachelor of Education from Waikato University and a Diploma of Teaching from Hamilton Teachers’ College before joining the Mäori Department at Waikato University. During her six years there she lectured in Mäori language at an advanced level, before taking up the position of Language Standards Manager at Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Mäori (The Mäori Language Commission).

Her work there included translation and translation checking and contributing to publications such as He Muka (the Commission’s quarterly publication), Te Matatiki (a glossary of new words) and He Kohinga Kïwaha (a collection of Mäori idiom and colloquialisms). After 6 years in this job she left to set up a private Mäori language consultancy. During this time she ventured into the world of television, working primarily on Mäori language programmes catering for Mäori youth, including a Mäori language quiz show and a magazine show.

In 2001 Te Haumihiata was brought in to help kick-start Te Mätäpuna, the monolingual Mäori dictionary produced by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Mäori, and continued on as one of the first writers. After a couple of years she was drawn back into the world of Mäori television, working on Körero Mai, an award-winning programme which incorporated the teaching of Mäori language into a drama series. She was then lured back to Te Mätäpuna as an editor. She is currently still working on the dictionary and sincerely hopes that her role on the project is over before she attends the International Languages Conference in Adelaide to talk about the project.

Although her work on the dictionary leaves little time to pursue other interests, other things dear to her heart include the conservation of native flora and fauna, fishing, watching rugby and playing pool.

Keynote Address:

''THE INCORPORATION OF MÄTAURANGA MÄORI OR MÄORI KNOWLEDGE INTO TE MÄTÄPUNA, THE FIRST MONOLINGUAL MÄORI DICTIONARY FOR ADULTS.''

Webpages:

Project-based
www.matapuna.org
www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz  

Jane Simpson

Jane Simpson studied linguistics at the Australian National University (ANU) in the 1970s, and there she wondered why so little was known about the Indigenous language of Adelaide, where she had grown up.   This started off a lifelong interest in Kaurna. Since then she has been delighted to see how valuable the linguistic work of the nineteenth century has been to the Kaurna of today in their work to reclaim the language.  She studied linguistics and the Central Australian language Warlpiri at MIT with the late Ken Hale.  This led to Tennant Creek and working with Warumungu speakers on their language, including language maintenance projects, which resulted in a Learners Guide to Warumungu.

She has a long interest in dictionaries, and in how to make them useful and useable for speakers, as well as in ensuring the preservation of the work that speakers have done in working with linguists on their languages.  In this vein she co-founded what became AIATSIS's ASEDA archive of digital data of Australian languages, and later PARADISEC (the Pacific and Regional Archive for digital sources in endangered cultures).

For the last five years she has been part of the Aboriginal Child Language Acquisition Project, which has been working in several communities, studying the language landscapes in which Aboriginal children learn to speak, use and understand languages.

Keynote Address:

"Language landscapes of children in remote Australia"

Download Jane's PowerPoint presentation here. 

Webpage(s):

Personal
http://www-personal.arts.usyd.edu.au/jansimps/js.html

Project-based
http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/research/projects/ACLA/
http://paradisec.org.au/

Group blog: "Transient Languages and Cultures"
http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/

Selected Publications:

In press. Expressing pragmatic constraints on word order in Warlpiri. In Architectures, rules, and preferences: A festschrift for Joan Bresnan, eds. Annie Zaenen, Jane Simpson, Christopher Manning and Jane Grimshaw. Stanford CA: CSLI.

(with Miriam Corris, Christopher Manning, and Susan Poetsch). 2004. How useful and usable are dictionaries for speakers of Australian Indigenous languages? International Journal of Lexicography 17:33-68.

2002. A learner's guide to Warumungu: Mirlamirlajinjjiki Warumunguku apparrka. Alice Springs: IAD Press.

(with Luise Hercus and Flavia Hodges) eds. 2002. The land is a map: Placenames of indigenous origin in Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics and Pandanus Press.

(with David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin, and Barry Alpher) eds. 2001. Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages. Pacific Linguistics 512. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

(with Luise Hercus) eds. 1998. History in portraits: biographies of nineteenth century South Australian Aboriginal people. Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph Series 6.

1991. Warlpiri morphosyntax: a lexicalist approach: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Michael Walsh

Since 1972 Michael has carried out fieldwork in the Top End of the Northern Territory, mainly in the Darwin-Daly region, pursuing academic research and engaging in consultancies relating mainly to Aboriginal land issues.

Since 1979 Michael has undertaken consultancies with a range of bodies including Biosis Research (NSW heritage consultancy), the Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales, the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (Northern Territory), the Northern Land Council, the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia, the NSW Board of Studies, the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

From 1999 Michael has been involved in the revitalization of Aboriginal languages in NSW. From 1982 up until the end of 2005 he was part of the teaching staff of the Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney. Since then, as an Honorary Associate, he has continued his research interests, especially through a large ARC grant involving a team of linguists and musicologists running from 2004 to 2008.

Research interests:
Australian Aboriginal languages; lexical semantics; cross-cultural pragmatics; language and law; linguistic geography; language revitalization; song language and other expressive uses of language.

Keynote Address:

"Is saving languages a good investment?"

Webpage:

http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/linguistics/staff/mwalsh.shtml

Key Publications:

Walsh, M. (2002). Teaching NSW's Indigenous languages: lessons from elsewhere. Paper commissioned by the NSW Office of the Board of Studies. Available here.

Walsh, M. (2003). Raising Babel: language revitalization in NSW, Australia. In J. Blythe & R. M. Brown (Eds.) Maintaining the links. Language, identity and the land. Proceedings of the seventh conference presented by the Foundation for Endangered Languages. Broome, Western Australia, 22-24 September 2003 (pp.113-117). Bath: Foundation for Endangered Languages.

Walsh, M. (2005a). Learning while revitalizing: Aboriginal languages in New South Wales, Australia. In May, S., Franken, M., & Barnard, R. (eds.) (2005), LED2003: Refereed conference proceedings of the 1st international conference on language, education and diversity. Hamilton: Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato.

Walsh, M. (2005b). Indigenous Languages of Southeast Australia, Revitalization and the Role of Education. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. 28(2): 1-14.

Walsh, M. (2005c). Will Indigenous languages survive? Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 293-315.
ARA has asked the author to add this proviso:
I am pleased to provide you complimentary one-time access to my Annual Reviews article as PDF file, for your own personal use. Any further/multiple distribution, publication or commercial usage of this copyrighted material would require submission of a permission request addressed to the Annual Reviews Permissions Department, email permissions@annualreviews.org.

Contact:

Michael Walsh
Department of Linguistics
University of Sydney
NSW, 2006
(02) 9351 4228; (02) 9351 4348 (message)
(02) 9351 7572 (fax)

Email:

mjw@mail.usyd.edu.au
micwalsh@arts.usyd.edu.au

Conference Recommendations

A set of recommendations was proposed at the conference. These recommendations (and others) were discussed in the meeting held on Thursday 27th September:

1. That Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages be recognised as Official Languages of Australia
2. That the Federal Government recognise that speaking an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language is not a cause of social dysfunction. In fact, addressing the communication needs of Indigenous Australians goes a long way to addressing such problems.
3. That the government and its agencies take Indigenous languages seriously. Communication about government business (health, social security, policing etc.) and education are most effective if conducted using people’s first language.
4. This conference does not endorse the claims made by Noel Pearson that Aboriginal languages do not belong in schools (see article in The Australian)
5. That Indigenous languages and linguistics courses be given serious consideration within VET curriculum
6. That Australia develop a National Indigenous Languages Policy
7. That the government support regional language centres rather than one
   centralised language centre.

This is just a start. Please contribute your suggestions for additional recommendations and ideas for refinement of recommendations listed above through this link.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plenary Panel

The Plenary Panel consisted of:

• Dr Alitya Wallara Rigney (local Kaurna Elder, signatory of Kaurna Warra Pintyandi and ex-Principal of Kaurna Plains School)
• Raymattja Marika - Yirrkala Community School, NT representative
• Leonora Adidi - Batchelor Institute; Torres Strait Islander representative
• Jeanie Bell - Batchelor Institute; Queensland representative
• John Atkinson – Vice-Chairperson FATSIL
• Lorraine Injie - Wangka Maya Language Centre, WA representative

If you have any queries about LINGAD 2007, please contact the organizers via email at ilc2007@adelaide.edu.au.