Robert M. W. Dixon

Last updated

Robert M. W. Dixon
Born
Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon

(1939-01-25) 25 January 1939 (age 85)
Gloucester, England
OccupationLinguist
Spouse Alexandra Aikhenvald
Academic work
DisciplineLinguist
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Main interests Australian Aboriginal languages

Robert Malcolm Ward "Bob" Dixon (born 25 January 1939, in Gloucester, England [1] ) is a Professor of Linguistics in the College of Arts, Society, and Education and The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He is also Deputy Director of The Language and Culture Research Centre at JCU. [2] Doctor of Letters (DLitt, ANU, 1991), he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa by JCU in 2018. Fellow of British Academy; Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America, he is one of three living linguists to be specifically mentioned in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics by Peter Matthews (2014). [3]

Contents

Early life

Dixon was born in Gloucester, in the west of England, in 1939 and as a child lived at Stroud and later at Bramcote near Nottingham, where his father became principal of the People's College of Further Education. He was educated at Nottingham High School and then at the University of Oxford, where he took his first degree in mathematics in 1960, and finally at the University of Edinburgh, where he was a Research Fellow in Statistical Linguistics in the English department from July 1961 to September 1963. After that until September 1964 he did field work for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in north-east Queensland, working on several of the Aboriginal languages of Australia, but taking a particular interest in Dyirbal. [4]

Career

Research

Dixon has written on many areas of linguistic theory and fieldwork, being particularly noted for his work on the languages of Australia and the Arawá languages of Brazil. He has published grammars of Dyirbal, Yidiɲ, Warrgamay, Nyawaygi, and Mbabaram. He published a comprehensive grammar of Boumaa Fijian, a Polynesian language (1988), and Jarawara, an Arawá language from southern Amazonia (2004), for which he received the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award from the Linguistic Society of America.

Dixon's work in historical linguistics has been highly influential. Based on a careful historical comparative analysis, Dixon questions the concept of Pama–Nyungan languages, for which he argues sufficient evidence has never been provided. He also proposes a new "punctuated equilibrium" model, based on the theory of the same name in evolutionary biology, which is more appropriate for numerous language regions, including the Australian languages. Dixon puts forth his theory in The Rise and Fall of Languages, refined in his monograph Australian Languages: their nature and development (2002). Dixon is the author of a number of other books, including Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development and Ergativity. His monumental three-volume work Basic Linguistic Theory (2010–2012) was published by the Oxford University Press.

His further work on Australian languages was published in Edible gender, mother-in-law style, and other grammatical wonders: Studies in Dyirbal, Yidiñ and Warrgamay, 2015.

His further influential monographs include work on English grammar, especially A new approach to English grammar (1991, revised edition 2005), and Making New Words: Morphological Derivation in English (2014). His recent monograph Are Some Languages Better than Others (2016, paperback 2018) poses a question of efficiency and value of different languages.

His editorial work includes four volumes of Handbook of Australian Languages (with Barry Blake), a special issue of Lingua on ergativity, and, jointly with Alexandra Aikhenvald, numerous volumes on linguistic typology in the series Explorations in Linguistic Typology, the fundamental The Amazonian languages (1999), and The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology (2017).

His most recent book is The Unmasking of English Dictionaries (2018), which offers a concise history of English dictionaries unmasking their drawbacks, and suggests a new innovative way of dictionary making. [n 1]

His "We used to eat people", Revelations of a Fiji islands traditional village (2018) offers a vivid portrayal of his fieldwork in Fiji in the late 1980s. [n 2]

Academic positions

In 1996, Dixon and another linguist, Alexandra Aikhenvald, established the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at the Australian National University in Canberra. On 1 January 2000, the centre moved to La Trobe University in Melbourne. [1]

Both Dixon (the director of the centre) and Aikhenvald (its associate director) resigned their positions in May 2008. [5] In early 2009, Aikhenvald and Dixon established the Language and Culture Research Group (LCRG) at the Cairns campus of James Cook University. [6] This has been transformed into a Language and Culture Research Centre within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at JCU, Cairns, in 2011. Currently, Aikhenvald is director and Dixon deputy director of the centre. [7] [8] </ref>

Bibliography

(The list below is incomplete. [n 3] )

As author or coauthor

As editor or coeditor

References: [10] [11]

Pseudonymous publications

During the 1960s, Dixon published two science-fiction short stories under the name of Simon Tully, and in the 1980s two detective novels under the name of Hosanna Brown. [12]

Notes

  1. ↑ Cambridge University Press's page describing The Unmasking of English Dictionaries is here.
  2. ↑ McFarland's page describing "We used to eat people" is here.
  3. ↑ For a more complete list, see "Publications by: R.M.W. Dixon" at JCU.
  4. ↑ At least two compact lists of addenda were issued:
    Corrections and additions to Blues and gospel records, 1902–1943, 3rd edition. With John Godrich. Montreal: Canadian Collectors' Congress, 1984. OCLC   35978680.
    Further corrections/additions, Blues and gospel records (1902–1943), 3rd edition. With Roger Misiewicz. Montreal: Canadian Collectors' Congress, 1985. OCLC   35978688.

Related Research Articles

In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions. English and other languages present number categories of singular or plural, both of which are cited by using the hash sign (#) or by the numero signs "No." and "Nos." respectively. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dyirbal language</span> Australian Aboriginal language

Dyirbal is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in northeast Queensland by the Dyirbal people. In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that there were 8 speakers of the language. It is a member of the small Dyirbalic branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It possesses many outstanding features that have made it well known among linguists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macro-Arawakan languages</span> Proposed language family

Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean centered on the Arawakan languages. Sometimes, the proposal is called Arawakan, and the central family is called Maipurean.

In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo-European languages. It has also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic languages. Ergative languages are classified into 2 groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative and those that—on top of being ergative morphologically—also show ergativity in syntax. No language has been recorded in which both the morphological and syntactical ergative are present. Languages that belong to the former group are more numerous than those to the latter. Dyirbal is said to be the only representative of syntactic ergativity, yet it displays accusative alignment with certain pronouns.

In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality. Languages with only a single evidential have had terms such as mediative, médiatif, médiaphorique, and indirective used instead of evidential.

An ambitransitive verb is a verb that is both intransitive and transitive. This verb may or may not require a direct object. English has many ambitransitive verbs. Examples include read, break, and understand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yidiny language</span> Australian Aboriginal language

Yidiny is a nearly extinct Australian Aboriginal language, spoken by the Yidinji people of north-east Queensland. Its traditional language region is within the local government areas of Cairns Region and Tablelands Region, in such localities as Cairns, Gordonvale, and the Mulgrave River, and the southern part of the Atherton Tableland including Atherton and Kairi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadahup languages</span> Daw language family of South America

The Nadahup languages, also known as Makú (Macú) or Vaupés–Japurá, form a small language family in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name Makú is pejorative, being derived from an Arawakan word meaning "without speech". Nadahup is an acronym of the constituent languages.

Alexandra Yurievna "Sasha" Aikhenvald (Eichenwald) is an Australian-Brazilian linguist specialising in linguistic typology and the Arawak language family of the Brazilian Amazon basin. She is a professor at the James Cook University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saaroa language</span> Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murui Huitoto language</span> Witotoan language of Peru and Colombia

Murui Huitoto is an indigenous American Huitoto language of the Witotoan family. Murui is spoken by about 1,100 Murui people along the banks of the Putumayo, Cara-Paraná and Igara-Paraná rivers in Colombia. In Peru it is spoken in the North alongside the Ampiyacu and Napo rivers by some 1,000 people. Some Murui speakers live also outside their territories, for instance the vicinity of Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia.

Willem F. H. Adelaar is a Dutch linguist specializing in Native American languages, specially those of the Andes. He is a Professor of Indigenous American Linguistics and Cultures at Leiden University.

The Yidiny, are an Aboriginal Australian people in Far North Queensland. Their language is the Yidiny language.

The Dyirbal, also called Jirrbal, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in northern Queensland, both one tribe and a group of related contiguous peoples included under that label as the Dyirbal tribes. They live on the upper Murray river of the Atherton Tableland. Their name is used as a generic term to refer specifically to one of eight groups, the others being Yidinji, Ngadyan, Mamu, Girramay, Wargamay, Waruŋu and Mbabaɽam.

Mbabaram or Mbabaɽam, often referred to as the Barbaram people, are an Indigenous Australian people living in Queensland in the rainforests of the Atherton Tableland.

The Madjandji, also known as the Majañji, are indigenous Australian people in the area south of Cairns in the state of Queensland.

The Wanyuru were an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland.

The Guŋgañji, also transcribed Gungganyji, Gunggandji, Kongkandji, and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland.

Hilary Chappell is a professor of linguistics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. Her research focuses on grammaticalization and the typology of the Sinitic languages.

References

  1. 1 2 Research Centre for Linguistic Typology: Ten Years' Achievements Archived 26 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine (2006).
  2. ↑ Professor R. M. W. Dixon Archived 30 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine (information page at the James Cook University site)
  3. ↑ Matthews, P. H. (2014). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, [ page needed ]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ ISBN missing ]
  4. ↑ Robert Dixon Archived 16 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine at research.jcu.edu.au, accessed 25 April 2015
  5. ↑ RCLT Newsletter, 2009, Latrobe.edu.au
  6. ↑ News from the newly established LCRG at James Cook University Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine (ALS newsletter, February 2009)
  7. ↑ [ dead link ]
  8. ↑ [ dead link ]
  9. ↑ Edward Komara. 1998. Review of: Blues and Gospel Records, 1890–1943 by Robert M. W. Dixon; John Godrich; Howard Rye. Notes, Second Series, Vol. 55, No. 2 (December 1998), pp. 361–363
  10. ↑ "Robert M. W. Dixon | Author | LibraryThing". Librarything.com.
  11. ↑ Dixon, Robert M. W. 1939– in libraries ( WorldCat catalog). Accessed 27 January 2018.
  12. ↑ R. M. W. Dixon: 'Skeleton' (pp.xv–xvii of Dixon's academic autobiography I am a linguist. Leiden: Brill. 2011.)
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