See also

Publications

Dr Patrick McConvell

Dr Patrick McConvell worked on Australian Indigenous languages for many years, especially in the west of the Northern Territory, and the Kimberleys and Pilbara of Western Australia.

Patrick

Apart from grammar and dictionary work, he is interested in the maintenance of languages, and in the shift to Kriol, code-switching and mixing of languages. He has been involved with the setting up of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre; working in bilingual schools; and training of Indigenous language workers at Batchelor.

Dr McConvell taught linguistic and social anthropology at Northern Territory (now Charles Darwin) and Griffith Universities. His major research interests include the relationship between language, society and culture, interdisciplinary prehistory, and kinship.

He has also acted as principal anthropologist in six land claims under the Northern Territory Land Rights Act and three Native Title claims in the Northern Territory and Queensland.

Former research focus

• Gurindji Grammar and Dictionary compilation

• The Aboriginal Children’s Language Acquisition ARC project with Sydney and Melbourne Universities – investigating how children are currently learning languages in four Central Australian communities.

• The DoBeS (Documentation of Endangered Languages) Project on languages and cultures of the Victoria River District, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation

• Linguistic prehistory of Australia and investigating the past with the aid of linguistic evidence.

• Developing AUSTLANG, the web Indigenous Languages database with Kazuko Obata.