A History of Linguistics at UNE
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I. The Steve Johnson period (1986-1990)
Steve Johnson was appointed to the university in 1986. An outstanding descriptive and theoretical linguist with very broad interests and a dynamic personality, Steve was the founder of the discipline at UNE. In earlier years, Bill Hoddinott of the old English Department had done some significant linguistic research into Aboriginal languages, and philology had been taught in the Classics Department, but it was Steve Johnson who brought linguistics in its modern form to UNE.
A Teaching Unit in Linguistics was established in 1987, in the School of Modern Languages, and student numbers quickly grew. In early 1988 Jeff Siegel joined the staff, bringing expertise in sociolinguistics and language contact studies. The university hosted the Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society.
The following year, Diana Eades was appointed to a half-time position. Her interests were sociolinguistics, Aboriginal English, language and the law. 1989 was also the year in which Libby Fitzgerald, our invaluable admin person, joined the Linguistics team. We’ve been blessed to have Libby with us since and this continuity, coupled with her detailed knowledge of all discipline matters, has made her one of the lynchpins of Linguistics at UNE. As of 1988, a full degree program in Linguistics was on offer. It was – and still is – the only full undergraduate to postgraduate program available by distance education in Australia.
1990 was an eventful year for Linguistics. Cliff Goddard joined the staff early in year, with interests in Aboriginal linguistics, grammatical description, and semantics; and so did Janet Baldwin, who tutored in phonetics and phonology, and in psycholinguistics. The Department of Linguistics was officially established in 1990. It was the year in which the first Honours student, Frances Huchet, completed her degree.
Tragically however, this was also the year of Steve Johnson’s death, which occurred on 27 August 1990. His colleagues and students were devastated by this sudden event, and at a practical level Steve’s death left an enormous gap in the Linguistics program. We were only able to continue due to tremendous support from linguistic colleagues around Australia.
II. Stabilisation and consolidation (1991–1995)
Over the next few years, Linguistics managed to stabilise and consolidate. Helen Fraser joined the staff in September 1990, bringing her interests in phonetics, phonology, and the philosophy of linguistics. Nick Reid came on board in January 1991, with a strong background in Aboriginal linguistics, grammatical description, typology and universals. Vicki Knox took up a position as a Research Assistant working with Cliff Goddard on a Large ARC project. Janet Baldwin left in January 1994. Jean Harkins joined the Department on a half-time research/teaching position. A Phonetics Laboratory was developed over 1991-94, and the Steve Johnson Library established. Teaching links were built up with psychology and philosophy. A long struggle was commenced to secure a Chair in Linguistics.
III. Professor Anne Pauwels (Sept 1995–June 1998)
In September 1995 Prof. Anne Pauwels was appointed as Foundation Chair in Linguistics at UNE. She had an outstanding background in sociolinguistics, language and gender studies, community languages, and applied linguistics. She also had excellent management skills, which were much needed as universities around the country began to experience funding and other difficulties due to government policies. Anne helped organise the incorporation of Linguistics into the current School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, of which she was the first Head. She left the university in June 1998.
Two landmarks occurred in 1997. Linguistics UNE hosted the Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference for the second time; and this was also the year of our first PhD completion, Michael Cooke’s (1998) study of Anglo-Yolngu miscommunication in legal contexts.
IV. The late Nineties (June 1998–2000)
After Anne Pauwels’ departure, funding constraints made it impossible to immediately re-appoint a Chair in Linguistics. There were some staff changes on account of permanent staff going on leave for various projects:
- Jennifer Peck taught with us between September 1998 and Dec 1999, bringing her valued expertise in sociolinguistics, especially in the area of language, gender and power studies.
- Jean Harkins took up a post as an ARC Research Fellow in 1997, but taught on a full-time basis in 1996 and in 1999. Her background included cross-cultural communication and semantics, as well as language typology. She subsequently moved to Newcastle University.
- Michael Dunn was on staff here for a year in 1998 and made a valuable contribution to teaching.
- Diana Eades resigned from UNE in July 1999 to take up a post at University of Hawai‘i, after ten years of invaluable service. (Five years later Diana re-joined the UNE discipline as an Honorary Fellow.)
- Anna Ash was a Research Fellow in Linguistics in 1999-2000, mostly working on the Gamilaraay/Yuwaalaraay dictionary project
In 2000 Nick Reid received the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
V. The early MAAL years (2001-2003)
In July 2001, after two years preparatory work, we opened the doors on the MAAL - our fully online Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics. This is a 1-year full-time or 2-year part-time coursework degree that uses web technology to deliver state-of-the-art content materials. All assessment tasks and all interaction with fellow students and staff are conducted online. Within its first year, the MAAL had almost 100 students enrolled, many of them involved in teaching ESL, either in Australia or in many other countries around the world. The first cohort of graduates received their degrees in 2003. Developing the MAAL degree signalled a new positioning of our discipline. In many ways, postgraduate level applied linguistics became the core of our teaching program.
Over this busy period, we also had various staffing changes
- Karen Woodman took up the position of inaugural Coordinator of the Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics in late 2001. Karen came from Vancouver, Canada, bringing broad expertise in applied linguistics.
- Jeff Siegel went on a fractional appointment for some years to allow him to take up a position as Director of the Charlene Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole and Dialect Studies at the University of Hawai’i.
- Brett Baker joined us in February 2002. His strengths in formal phonology and morphology, as well in Aboriginal linguistics, were an important addition to the discipline.
- Andrea Schalley joined us in 2003 from Munich, Germany, initially as a Research Fellow in Cognitive Linguistics on the Vice-Chancellors Research Fellowship Scheme.
- In 2002 Cliff Goddard received the VC’s Award for Excellence in Research. In 2004 he was promoted to full Professor (Level E), with the result that Linguistics once again has a Chair in Linguistics.
VI. The middle 2000s (2004-2007)
These years saw important initiatives both in research and in teaching. In research, there was the development of the Language and Cognition Research Centre, in cooperation with colleagues in psychology, archaeology and philosophy. Many research activities (seminars, workshops, conferences, bringing distinguished scholars to UNE) have been organised under the auspices of the Centre. One "stand out" event was the International Language and Cognition Conference, held at Coffs Harbour in 2004. The LCRC organised the national Australian Linguistics Institute in Brisbane in July 2006.
In the teaching arena, Linguistics UNE continued to make the most of technological developments to enhance our distance education teaching. As well as devising numerous multimedia and web-based resources, we invested heavily in onlining most of our undergraduate and postgraduate units. This transformed the experience of our distance education students, giving them a wide range of content (including graphics and audio), unit-specific resources (such as IPA fonts for the web, searchable glossaries, tree drawing tools, etc.) and a sense of connectedness (through instant feedback on assignments, daily communication with staff, etc). The online MA in Applied Linguistics continued to go from strength to strength, with nearly 200 students studying in the degree program.
Among research highlights, Cliff Goddard received an ARC Discovery grant (2005-2008) to further his research into aspects of Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Dr. Andrea Schalley became an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow under this grant. Brett Baker and Nick Reid were also involved in ARC Discovery projects in collaboration with other universities. The discipline was delighted when in 2006 Sophie Nicholls, one of our PhD candidates, received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, to enable her to spend a half-year studying in the USA.
Staffing developments over these years included:
- Jeff Siegel retired after 15 years of invaluable service, but he quickly rejoined as an Honorary Research Fellow and continued to contribute to the research environment.
- Dr Liz Ellis joined us in 2004, with valuable expertise in applied linguistics and bilingualism studies.
- Dorothea Cogill spent a year as Postdoctoral Fellow in Cognitive Linguistics in 2005, after Andrea Schalley moved into the ARC Postdoctoral Fellow position. Dorothea continued in a teaching position for part of 2006.
VI. 2008 onwards
2007 saw a major re-structure of the University, which brought Linguistics into a new School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences. Though the linguistics staff regretted losing a strong organisational link with the language disciplines, we were enthusiastic about being brought into closer contact with colleagues in other empirical human science disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and human geography. The re-structure settled into place in 2008, but the year was still one of change for the Linguistics discipline, with the departure of long-standing staff members Helen Fraser and Karen Woodman, and Andrea Schalley's re-location to Griffith University.
On the positive side, we were joined in 2009 by Dr. Cindy Schneider and Dr. Anna Gladkova, who brought valuable strengths in language description and typology, applied linguistics, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural semantics, and bilingualism studies. This period also saw an expansion of our postgraduate program. With a number of talented young researchers working on a range of PhD projects, the on-campus research environment has never been bettter.