Linguistics Research
On this page:
- About Linguistics Research
- Discourse Analysis
- Morphology
- New Zealand English
- New Zealand Sign Language NZSL
- Phonetics and Phonology
- Psycholinguistcs
- Sociolinguistics
- Syntax
- Text Analysis
About Linguistics Research
Linguistics is the systematic study of the structure of language and the way it is used.
Researching the structure of language involves several areas. Phonetics and Phonology focuses on the sounds of human languages and the ways they pattern in particular languages. Morphology examines the internal structure of words, and Syntax is concerned with describing and accounting for the ways words are grouped into larger structure.
Sociolinguistic research the uses of language. It examines the relationship between language, its users and its uses. At Victoria this research extends to the study of New Zealand English.
Studying language use also involves Text Analysis and Discourse Analysis which focus on extended written and spoken texts to identify how language is used to convey social meaning. Research into the cognitive implications of the analysis of language structure, learning and use are the concern of Psycholinguistics.
Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is the study of language in use, both in spoken and written contexts (see also Text Analysis, Sociolinguistics). The School has extensive involvement in research in this field, including through the Language in the Workplace Project, in classrooms (see also Classroom Based Research), and, through current PhD research, on and off the sports field.
Thesis research in these areas is supervised by Professor Janet Holmes, Dr Meredith Marra, Dr Jonathan Newton and Dr Elaine Vine.
Morphology
The School’s work in Morphology has mostly been carried out by Professor Laurie Bauer and his students, though Associate Professor Paul Warren has an interest in the psycholinguistic study of the lexicon. In particular, work on the descriptive study of English morphology, on compounding and on morphological universals are areas of interest.
New Zealand English
The distinctive nature of the New Zealand variety of English has been a prominent area of research within the School for many years. Databases of New Zealand lexis have been developed in the School’s New Zealand Dictionary Centre (NZDC) and the research database of Spoken New Zealand English (NZSED) is held in the School.
Members of the Group Researching in New Zealand English (GRINZE) are involved in research projects which include:
- sociolinguistics
- phonology and phonetics
- lexis, and
- corpora studies.
Research in these areas is supervised by Professor Laurie Bauer, Professor Janet Holmes, Associate Professor Paul Warren, and Dr Dianne Bardsley.
New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL)
At Victoria, students can learn to converse in a three-dimensional, visual language mode. NZSL, the preferred language of the Deaf community in New Zealand, was officially recognised by parliament in 2006 as unique and important to this country.
DEAF courses at 100 and 200 level emphasise hands-on mastery of NZSL communication skills, and provide an introduction to the cultural characteristics of the Deaf community. Language classes are interactive; teaching is in the medium of sign language, and a state-of-the-art Audio-Visual lab enables students to use digital media for language practice and assessments.
NZSL teaching and learning at Victoria is supported by a programme of research in the Deaf Studies Research Unit. Postgraduate research on sign language related topics is supervised by Dr Rachel McKee and Dr David McKee.
The programme Certificate in Deaf Studies: Teaching NZSL offers training for fluent NZSL signers (generally, Deaf community members) in language teaching methodology.
Phonetics and Phonology
The School’s strong tradition in research in phonetics and phonology includes descriptive work on New Zealand English (NZE) and on Oceanic Languages. The School has developed a research database of Spoken New Zealand English (NZSED), and has hosted projects on the intonation of NZE and other varieties (SPOT).
In 2008 the School hosted the 11th international conference on Laboratory Phonology. Thesis research in these areas is supervised by Professor Laurie Bauer and Associate Professor Paul Warren.
Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental representations and processes used in the production and comprehension of language. The School has hosted several projects in this area. These include:
- a project looking at production and perception aspects of sound change in language (eg the merger of the EAR and AIR vowels in NZ English)
- an investigation of the psycholinguistic aspects of morphological productivity
- the use of prosodic information in the resolution of sentence ambiguity, and
- the interpretation of syntactic ambiguity by non-native speakers of English.
Current PhD projects in this area include a study of the use of sublexical information and language selection in word recognition in bilinguals and a study of the developing phonological system of second language learners. Associate Professor Paul Warren welcomes enquiries from prospective research students in the area of psycholinguistics.
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistic research examines the way language is used in different social contexts.
There have been several large scale projects in the School over the past three decades representing our strengths in Sociolinguistics. These include:
- the Wellington Social Dialect Project (aka the Porirua Project), an investigation of New Zealand English in the Wellington area taking a social dialectology approach
- studies of language maintenance and shift in a number of New Zealand speech communities (including the Samoan, Tongan, Greek, Cantonese, Gujarati, Fiji Hindi, and Dutch communities in Wellington)
- the Wellington Spoken Corpus of New Zealand English (WCSNZE) and New Zealand's contribution to the International Corpus of English (ICE NZ)
- the Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) investigating effective communication in New Zealand workplaces using a discourse analysis approach.
Each of these research projects has also incorporated consideration of issues of ethnicity and gender, and the International Gender and Language Association Conference (IGALA) was hosted by the School in July 2008. Thesis research in these areas is supervised by Professor Janet Holmes and Dr Meredith Marra.
Syntax
Syntax is the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences. Prospective PhD students wishing to research in this area are invited to contact Dr Elizabeth Pearce. Dr Pearce’s own research has focused on the syntactic structures of Romance and Austronesian languages.
Text Analysis
Text Analysis is the systematic study of language in written or visual form. School staff are interested in various aspects of text analysis, including semiotics, language as a sign system, rhetoric, ways in which texts explain and persuade, stylistics, the functions of sentence structure and word choice in producing different effects, and genre, the conventions of different text-formats and methods for developing text typologies.
In addition, staff research in text analysis informs the courses offered in the Writing Programme. Staff interested in supervising research in this area include Dr Derek Wallace and Dr Sky Marsen.