My research draws on two primary threads: meaning in language and language in contact.

I focus on issues related to semantic and pragmatic cross-linguistic variation, contact-induced grammatical change, contact languages, and sociolinguistics.

I am especially interested in the semantics and pragmatics of contact languages, and what the configuration of these domains can tell us about how meaning is transferred, retained, lost or innovated in situations of language contact and emergence.

My research also considers the description of contact languages in Australia, their histories and synchronic language ecologies, as well as ideologies about, and attitudes towards, these languages. 

Since 2019, I have been working closely with speakers of a variety of Northern Australian Kriol spoken in Kununurra, a small town located in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. More recently, I have begun working with Miriwoong, a critically endangered Jarragan language (non-Pama-Nyungan) of the East Kimberley region.  

Semantics, pragmatics, morpho-syntax, and their various interfaces.
Language variation, change and contact.

Contact languages and their linguistic ecologies, particularly in Australia.

Language activism for minoritised varieties. 

My work with Kriol and Miriwoong speakers in the East Kimberley has involved a range of community engagement in addition to my research.

I am currently involved with a revitalization program for the critically endangered Miriwoong language in Kununurra, adminstered by the local language centre Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring.

Since 2020 I have also been working with Kriol speakers in Kununurra and Frog Hollow Community to produce an orthography for their variety of Kriol, to be used in both publications and educational materials. The first edition of this orthography was released to the community in 2023.

In 2024 I co-produced Kriol-medium revitalisation materials for Miriwoong, working with Miriwoong community members and Henry Leslie-O'Neill (ANU).  

English

Northern Australian Kriol 

Miriwoong

Scottish Gaelic