Adjunct Associate Professor Nick Reid

Biography

After 28 years at UNE, Nick retired in March 2019, but remains in an active Adjunct role as a researcher and supervisor of higher degree students.

Qualifications

BA (Hons), PhD (ANU)

Research Interests

Nick’s main linguistic specialisation has been the study of Australian Aboriginal languages of the Daly River region (NT). He has published grammars, dictionaries, and text collections, of the two languages, Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngan'giwumirri, and is currently involved in developing teaching resources for those languages for the Ngan’gi Schools Network.

His descriptive work has fuelled other research interests, primarily within the areas of morphological and syntactic typology, language description, historical linguistics and ethnomusicology. He is particularly interested in systems of nominal and verbal classification, and has co-edited a book on nominal classification in Australian languages. 

In addition to ongoing documentary linguistic projects in the Daly River region, Nick takes active interest in the maintenance and revival of Aboriginal languages in NSW, and the phonetics of Australian English. He is currently engaged in collaborative research with Patrick Nunn looking at the use of scientifically derived sea level rise chronologies as a way of dating Aboriginal oral traditions about coastal inundation around the Australian coastline.

At UNE Nick was a pioneer and driver of online teaching from 1997. He has developed extensive multimedia teaching resources, and was an early adopter of online audio and video delivery, enhanced podcasting and web-based assessment. He was one of the founders of UNE's highly successful online Master of Applied Linguistics degree, and served as the coordinator of that degree for many years.

Publications

2019. Reid, N. and L. Sams. The Sounds of Ngan’giwumirri. Primary curriculum resource. Australian Linguistics Press, Armidale.

2019. Reid, N. and L. Sams. Ngan’gi Miyi Milalirr: Edible plants book. Primary curriculum resource. Australian Linguistics Press, Armidale.

2019. Reid, N. and L. Sams. Ngan’gi Dengini Nayin: Our Bodies book. Primary curriculum resource. Australian Linguistics Press, Armidale.

2019. Reid, N. and L. Sams. Ngan’gi Gagu: Ngan’gi Animals book. Primary curriculum resource. Australian Linguistics Press, Armidale.

2017. Morgan, A. Reid, N and P, Freebody. Literacy and Language Education in Australian Schools: History, Challenges and Lessons. In Verhoeven, L., & Pugh, K., & Perfetti, C (eds), Cross-linguistic perspectives on literacy education. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

2016. Patrick D. Nunn , Nicholas J. Reid. Aboriginal Memories of Inundation of the Australian Coast Dating from More than 7000 Years Ago. Australian Geographer Vol. 47, Iss. 1.

2015. Djanba, Wangga and Lirrga: using musical innovation to renegotiate social contracts, rebuild social strength and recreate community. In Christopher Moseley ed. Proceedings of the FEL XIX - FEL NOLA conference, 7-10 October 2015. Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.

2015. Ancient Aboriginal stories preserve history of a rise in sea level. In Christopher Moseley ed. OGMIOS Newsletter 58. December 2015. ISSN 1471C0382

2014. Reid, Nicholas and Patrick Nunn and Margaret Sharpe. Indigenous Australian Stories and Sea-Level Change. In Patrick Heinrich and Nicholas Ostler, eds. Indigenous Languages and their Value to the Community. Proceedings of the 18th Foundation for Endangered Languages conference, Okinawa, Japan.

2011. Reid, Nicholas. Ngan'gityemerri: a language of the Daly River region, Northern Territory of Australia. Amsterdam: Lincom Europa.

2011. Reid, Nicholas. Social identity and recurrent themes in the Djanba repertory. In M. Harvey, B. Baker and R. Gardener eds. Language and identity in indigenous communities. Papers in Honour of Michael Walsh. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

2010. Reid, Nicholas. Maintenance and revival strategies for Indigenous languages: Lessons from Australia. In Sengupta, K. ed. Proceedings of the 2009 Symposium on Intangible Cultural Heritage. New Delhi: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

2010 Reid, Nicholas. English influence on the pronunciation of Aboriginal languages in the context of language revival and revitalisation. In Hobson, J. and S. Poetsch, eds.  Re-awakening languages: Theory & practice in the revitalisation of Australia's Indigenous languages. NSW Education Department, Board of Studies.

2008. Reid, Nicholas and Patricia McTaggart. Ngan'gi Dictionary. Australian Linguistics Press: Armidale.

2005. Reid, Nicholas. Aboriginal Languages. Microsoft. Encarta Encyclopedia, World English Edition.

2005. Reid, Nicholas. Languages of the World: Ngan'gityemerri. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics II. Oxford: Elsevier.

2005. Reid, Nicholas and Ian Green. Murrinh-Patha and the Daly Languages. Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol 2. ed. Philipp Strazny. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn.

2004. Reid, Nicholas and Ian Green. Murrinh Patha and the Daly Languages. Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.

2004. Reid, N. Phonetics: An Interactive Introduction. CD ROM Program. Teaching and Learning Centre, University of New England. ISBN 1 86389 609 0.

2003. Reid, N. Phrasal Verb to Synthetic Verb: Recorded morphosyntactic change in Ngan'gityemerri. In Evans, N. ed, The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: Comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region. Pacific Linguistics: Canberra. (28 pages).

2002. Reid, N. and C. McLoughlin. Designing online quiz questions to assess a range of cognitive skills. In Barker, P. and S. Rebelsky eds. Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (1267 - 1272). Denver: AACE. ISBN 1-880094-45-2.

2002. Reid, N. Sit right down the back: Serialized posture verbs in Ngan'gityemerri and other Northern Australian languages. In Newman, J. ed. The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing and Lying. John Benjamins: Amsterdam.

2002. Reid, N. Applied philology: Creating placenames in Armidale city. In Simpson, J. and F. Hodges eds. The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous origin in Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

2002. Reid, N. 'Ken Hale would just love this': Finding the 31st Ngan'gityemerri finite verb. In Simpson, J. and Nash, D. and Laughren, M. and Austin, A. and Alpher, B. eds. Forty Years On: Ken Hale and Australian Languages. Pacific Linguistics: Canberra.

2000. Reid, N. Complex Verb Collocations in Ngan'gityemerri: A non-derivational mechanism for encoding valency alternations. In Dixon, R.M.W. and A. Aikenvald eds Changing Valency: Case studies in transitivity Studies in Language Series. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. (37 pages).

1997. Reid, Nicholas. Class and Classifier in Ngan'gityemerri. In Reid, Nicholas and Mark Harvey. eds. Noun Classification in Australian Languages. John Benjamins: Amsterdam.

Recent Conference Papers and Seminars

2018. Reid, Nicholas and John Mansfield. Epistemic Stance in Murrinh-Patha and Ngan’gi. Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, Adelaide University December 11th 2018.

2017. Reid, Nicholas and Paddy Tobias. Improving the online profile of the Ngan’gi Language Collection. 11th eResearch Australasia Conference, South Brisbane October 16-20th 2017.

2017. Reid, Nicholas, Ian Green and Rachel Nordlinger. Ordering of Coverb and Classifier Verb Stems in the Southern and Western Daly Languages. Australian Languages Weekend Conference, Marysville, VIC March 22nd-24th 2017.

2016. Reid, Nicholas. Aboriginal memories of the inundation of the Australian coast. Research Unit for Indigenous Language, Public Seminar Series, University of Melbourne, 25th of May 2016.

2015. Reid, Nicholas. Aboriginal memories of inundation of the Australian coast dating from more than 7000 years ago. Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University, People, Policy, Place Seminar Series, 1st September 2015.

2015. Djanba, Wangga and Lirrga: using musical innovation to renegotiate social contracts, rebuild social strength and recreate community. FEL XIX - FEL NOLA conference, 7-10 October 2015. Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.

2014. Reid, Nicholas. Oral traditions about Sea-Level Rises: Aboriginal cultural transmission over great time depths. BCSS Seminar Series, University of New England, November 26th 2014.

2014. Reid, Nicholas. Aboriginal Oral Traditions and Sea-Level Change. School of Languages and Linguistics, Seminar Series, Griffith University, November 18th 2014.

2014. Reid, Nicholas. Indigenous Australian Stories and Sea-Level Change. Foundation for Endangered Languages conference, Okinawa, Japan, September 19th 2014.

2012. Reid, N. Maintaining dialectal variation in a high endangerment scenario: Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngen'giwumirri.  NWAV Asia-Pacific 2 Conference, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, August 1-4.

2011. Reid, N. Indigenous languages and the monolingual mindset: exploring attitudes to Aboriginal languages in the public domain.  Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Language in Public seminar series. Canberra.

2010. Reid, N. Pronunciation and authenticity in reawakened Aboriginal languages. Linguistics Seminar Series, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England. 24th of June, 2010.

2009. Reid, N. Maintenance and revival strategies for Indigenous languages: Lessons from Australia. Symposium on Intangible Cultural Heritage. New Delhi: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. October 23rd, 2009.

2009. Reid, N. English influence on the pronunciation of reawakened Aboriginal languages. AIATSIS Conference. Manning Clarke Centre, Australian National University. October 1st 2009.

Further Information

Sample Multimedia Developments

• The Ngan’gi Language website: a collection of text, photo and video resources for Ngan’gikurunggurr and Ngan’giwumirri
• Phonetics: an Interactive Introduction - a web-based resource for learning Phonetics
• Screenprinting at Nauiyu - a sample video developed as part of ELDP documentation of Ngan'gi.

Awards

Nick's active role in the uptake and application of multimedia and online technologies to teaching and learning has been recognised through many significant awards and reviews, including;

• In 2006 he received a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.
• In 2000 he was awarded UNE's Vice-Chancellors Award for Excellence in Teaching, in recognition of his online and other multimedia material development.
• In 2000 Nick's CD Phonetics: An Interactive Introduction was awarded the prize for the Best CD-ROM Project: Exemplary Use of Electronic Technologies in Teaching and Learning in Tertiary Education by ASCILITE in 2000, and was short-listed for the Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing.

Chair of Linguistics

UNE Linguistics lost its Chair in 1998, with little hope of replacement in the foreseeable future. To rectify this Nick built the Chair of Linguistics in 2009, originally on display at the Canberra School of Art, but now in use in the UNE Linguistics dept.