A Description of the Verbal Morphology of Warta Thuntai
Lecture
Honours Thesis Presentation by Kyla Quinn. This thesis provides an overview of the verbal morphology of Wartha Thuntai, a Tonda language of Southern New Guinea. Verbs in Thuntai are the most complex of the word classes, inflecting for seven of the nine categories identified by Bybee (1985):…
The Event of Sexuality: (Un)Reading Eric Michaels’ Unbecoming
Lecture
Presented as part of the Literary Studies Seminar Series. This paper examines how we can understand the relationship between affect, memory, and sexuality in Australian AIDS life writing, namely Eric Michaels’ posthumously published memoir Unbecoming (1990). This research reflects my interest in…
Hindi teaching and the challenges of teaching on-campus and on-line
Lecture
Presented as part of the Language Teaching Forum. In this paper Peter Friedlander will argue that current developments in Hindi teaching on-campus and on-line have to be seen in relation to the history of how Hindi teaching has developed in Australia. He will contrast the demands for Hindi in terms…
‘Last Night I dreamt that I had gone to Hell’: Bloomsbury and the Myth of the Great War
Lecture
Presented as part of the HRC Seminar Series In this the centenary year of what could reasonably be described as the twentieth century’s ‘original sin’ of 1914, I shall examine the reaction of some Bloomsbury writersLytton Strachey especially, but also E.M. Forster, Maynard Keynes, Clive Bell &…
Linguistics Seminar: The idea of a ‘spoon’: semantics, prehistory, and cultural logic
Lecture
The invention of the spoon may not be quite as ground-breaking in human history as the invention of the wheel or the needle, but arguably it is also a significant conceptual (as well as technological) event. It has been claimed that “all people in the world use spoons”, that “spoons have been used…
Book Launch of ‘Imprisoned in English’ by Anna Wierzbicka
Lecture
Professor Catherine Travis, Head, School of Literature, Languages & Linguistics, invites you to the launch of ‘Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language’ by Anna Wierzbicka. The book launch will be immediately followed by a reception. All are welcome to attend. Copies…
Domesticating the Foreign: Globalization's Effects on the Place/s of Languages
Lecture
Foreign language education is deeply affected by globalization, destabilizing some of the central ideas that have helped form national languages, and, by contrast, foreign languages. This article traces the economic origins of contemporary globalization and the deep communication effects that arise…