Felicity Meakins | |
---|---|
Title | Professor |
Awards |
|
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | The development and function of case morphology in Gurindji Kriol, an Australian mixed language (2008) |
Doctoral advisor | Rachel Nordlinger |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Linguistics |
Sub-discipline | Australian Aboriginal languages,language revitalization,language documentation |
Institutions | University of Queensland |
Website | University of Queensland webpage |
Felicity Meakins FASSA FAHA is a linguist specialising in Australian Indigenous languages,morphology and language contact,who was one of the first academics to describe Gurindji Kriol. As of 2022,she is a professor at the University of Queensland and Deputy Director of the University of Queensland node of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. She holds an ARC Future Fellowship [1] focusing on language evolution and contact processes across northern Australia. [2] [3] [4]
Meakins received her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Master of Arts at the University of Queensland. She completed her master's thesis,Lashings of Tongue:A Relevance Theoretic Account of Impoliteness,in 2001. [5] Meakins earned her Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in 2008 for her work with the Aboriginal Child Language Project. [6] Rachel Nordlinger was main supervisor for Meakins' dissertation,Case-marking in contact:the development and function of case morphology in Gurindji Kriol,an Australian mixed language. [7]
A Professor at The University of Queensland,Australia, [2] Mekins also serves as a chief investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL). [8]
Meakins and Patrick McConvell were the first linguists to describe Gurindji Kriol,a mixed language which emerged in the Kalkarindji community of northern Australia post-1970s. [9] She has performed fieldwork and facilitated language revitalisation work in this region since 2001 [2] and published extensive documentation of languages in the Ngumpin-Yapa family,including a grammar of Bilinarra and dictionaries of Bilinarra and Gurindji. [10]
Meakins has publicly advocated for greater awareness of Australian Indigenous languages, [11] the benefits of bilingualism and bilingual education for Indigenous children, [12] and Gurindji history. [13] [14] She has published several articles in The Conversation [15] (one of which has been republished in German), [16] performed a TEDx talk [17] and collaborated with Karungarni Arts and rangers from the Murnkurrumurnkurru Central Land Council. Her work chronicling Gurindji oral histories in particular attracted media attention around the fiftieth anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off. [18] [19] [20]
In June 2017 Meakins was awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, [1] a four-year mid-career award of $896,163,to focus on language evolution and contact processes across northern Australia. [2] [3] [4] The purpose of Future Fellowships is "to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers". [21]
Meakins had previously received an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2014–2017) and two ARC Discovery Projects awards (2009–2013 and 2015–2018). [2]
In 2020 Meakins was elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA) [22] and in 2022,Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. [23]
The Kenneth L. Hale Award was awarded to Meakins in 2022,for her interdisciplinary work with Australian aboriginal communities in northern Australia,including helping with revitalization efforts. [24]
Meakins has authored and edited more than fifty publications as of 2018. [25]
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds,the precise number being quite uncertain,although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous language families and isolates,perhaps as many as 13,spoken by the Indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty,the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages",or the "Australian family".
The Wave Hill walk-off,also known as the Gurindji strike,was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen,house servants and their families,starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill,a cattle station in Kalkarindji,Northern Territory,Australia,and was led by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari.
A mixed language,also referred to as a hybrid language,contact language,or fusion language,is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that,whereas creoles/pidgins arise where speakers of many languages acquire a common language,a mixed language typically arises in a population that is fluent in both of the source languages.
Australian Kriol also known as Roper River Kriol,Fitzroy Valley Kriol,Northern Australian Creole or Aboriginal English is an English-based creole language that developed from a pidgin used initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales,Australia,in the early days of European colonisation. Later,it was spoken by groups further west and north. The pidgin died out in most parts of the country,except in the Northern Territory,where the contact between European settlers,the Chinese and other Asians,and the Aboriginal Australians in the northern regions has maintained a vibrant use of the language,which is spoken by about 30,000 people. Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary,it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar. It is a language in its own right and is distinct from Torres Strait Creole.
The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia,460 kilometres (290 mi) southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region.
Nicholas Evans is an Australian linguist and a leading expert on endangered languages. He was born in Los Angeles.
Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language which is spoken by Gurindji people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). It is mostly spoken at Kalkaringi and Daguragu which are Aboriginal communities located on the traditional lands of the Gurindji. Related mixed varieties are spoken to the north by Ngarinyman and Bilinarra people at Yarralin and Pigeon Hole. These varieties are similar to Gurindji Kriol,but draw on Ngarinyman and Bilinarra which are closely related to Gurindji.
Gurindji is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken by the Gurindji and Ngarinyman people in the Northern Territory,Australia. The language of the Gurindji is highly endangered,with about 592 speakers remaining and only 175 of those speakers fully understanding the language. There are in addition about 60 speakers of Ngarinyman dialect. Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language that derives from the Gurindji language.
Mudburra,also spelt Mudbura,Mudbarra and other variants,and also known as Pinkangama,is an Aboriginal language of Australia.
Port Jackson Pidgin English or New South Wales Pidgin English is an English-based pidgin that originated in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales in the early days of colonisation. Stockmen carried it west and north as they expanded across Australia. It subsequently died out in most of the country,but was creolised in the Northern Territory at the Roper River Mission (Ngukurr),where missionaries provided a safe place for Indigenous Australians from the surrounding areas to escape deprivation at the hands of European settlers. As the Indigenous Australians who came to seek refuge at Roper River came from different language backgrounds,there grew a need for a shared communication system to develop,and it was this that created the conditions for Port Jackson Pidgin English to become fleshed out into a full language,Kriol,based on English language and the eight different Australian language groups spoken by those at the mission.
Bilingara,also known as the Bilinarra,is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Bilinarra people of the Northern Territory.
Professor Gillian Wigglesworth is an Australian linguist,Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics,and former Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts at The University of Melbourne.
Rachel Nordlinger is an Australian linguist and a professor at The University of Melbourne.
The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages (LAAL) is a digital archive of literature in endangered languages of Australia,containing works in over forty Australian Aboriginal languages from the Northern Territory,Australia. The project to build the archive was initially funded in 2012 by the Australian Research Council,and was developed in collaboration with the Charles Darwin University as the lead institution,the Northern Territory Government and the Australian National University. Later partners include the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education,the Northern Territory Library and the Northern Territory Catholic Education Office.
The Ngarluma are an Indigenous Australian people of the western Pilbara area of northwest Australia. They are coastal dwellers of the area around Roebourne and Karratha,not including Millstream.
The Bilinarra,also spelt Bilingara and Bilinara,are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
The Mudburra,also spelt Mudbara and other variants,are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
The Karrangpurru are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. They suffered severe population loss very early on in the period of colonial expropriations of their land.
Elwyn Flint was an Australian linguist and academic,who undertook extensive surveys of English languages and dialects throughout Queensland,in particular Australian Aboriginal communities in the 1960s.
Ronnie Wavehill also known as Ronnie Wavehill Wirrpngayarri Jangala was a Gurindji stockman who was born at Wave Hill Station. He took part in the Wave Hill walk-off and he was a cultural storyteller,Indigenous cultural informant and singer.
Dr Meakins said the 2008 Northern Territory Government's decision to effectively end bilingual education flew in the face of all the research which clearly demonstrated the benefits of bilingualism for cognitive development.