Nick Evans, BSc(Hons), MA, PhD (ANU), FAHA
Head and Professor, Department of Linguistics, Division of Society and Environment
Email: nicholas.evans@anu.edu.au
Biographical Statement
Current projects: the way in which diverse grammars underpin social cognition (with Alan Rumsey and others); ongoing fieldwork on various Aboriginal languages of Northern Australia (Dalabon, Iwaidja, Marrku, Bininj Gun-wok, Kayardild); work on endangered song-language traditions of Western Arnhem Land (with Allan Marett, Linda Barwick and Murray Garde); a new fieldwork project on the little-known languages of the Morehead Region, Western Province, Papua New Guinea
Research Interests
Australian languages, Papuan languages, linguistic typology, historical and contact linguistics, semantics, the mutual influence of language and culture
Key Publications
- In press. Dying Words: what fragile languages can tell us. Oxford: Blackwell.
- 2006. With Ameka, Felix and Dench, Alan (eds.). Catching language: the standing challenge of grammar-writing. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- 2003. Bininj Gun-wok: a pan-dialectal grammar of Mayali, Kunwinjku and Kune. (2 vols). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- 2003. The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- 1997. With McConvell, Patrick (eds.). Archaeology and Linguistics: Global Perspectives on Ancient Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
- 1995. A Grammar of Kayardild. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Career Highlights
Lecturer, School of Australian Linguistics, Batchelor, Northern Territory (1985-1987); Lecturer, University of Melbourne (1988-2008); Visiting Fellow, University of Cologne (1997-1998; 2005); Visiting Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen); Leturer, intensive courses in Cagliari (Italy), Hermosillo (Mexico), OKMA (Guatemala), University of Buenos Aires (Argentina); Visiting Professor, University of Surrey (since 2002); External Deputy Director, LSA Institute (UCBerkeley), 2009; Professor and Head of Department of Linguistics, ANU (March 2008-).
