When Distinguished Professor Sasha Aikhenvald was working in the East Sepik province of New Guinea she was fascinated to discover that the asset most prized by the people of the province was their name. In East Sepik, her name was important and valuable, but when she wanted to enrol in the classics department of Moscow State University in the old Soviet Union, her Jewish surname made her unacceptable.

Instead she chose linguistics for its mathematical rhythms, crossword puzzle complexities and cultural idiosyncrasies. The decision was the catalyst for a prolific body of research that included Berber languages of North Africa and Hebrew but focused on tropical languages, predominantly those of Amazonia, the Papuan languages of New Guinea and Aboriginal Australia.

Interests

Research

• The relationship between language and culture, and the ways in which language reflects cultural stereotypes
• Languages and cultures of Papua New Guinea, with a special focus on the Manambu language and the Ndu language family, from the East Sepik Province
• Language and cultures of Lowland Amazonia, focussing on languages from Arawak family, the largest familyspanning South and Central America, in particular Tariana, Bare, (Warekena of Xie and Baniwa of Icana
• The way languages influence each other in language contact, with a particular focus on language contact in Amazonia, and in the Sepik River Basin
• Analysis of categories of human languages, including classifiers and genders, the ways in which languages express information source, serial verbs, and many more

Research Disciplines

• Linguistics (2004)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Expanding Knowledge (9701)
• Communication (9502)

Fellowships

• 2015 - Fellow of Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2008 - Honorary member of Linguistic Society of America
• 1999 - Fellow of the Academy of the Humanities

Other

• 2010 to 2013 - Alexander von Humboldt Research Award

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Aikhenvald S (2019) Endearment, respect, and disdain through linguistic gender. ReVEL - Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem, 17 (16).

Book Chapters

• Aikhenvald A (2020) Language change in language obsolescence. In: The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Wiley Blackwell, Croydon, UK, pp. 447-467
• Aikhenvald A and Dixon R (in press) Words altogether. In: Phonological word and grammatical word: a cross-linguistic typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 260-284
• Aikhenvald A (in press) Word in Yalaku. In: Phonological word and grammatical word: a cross-linguistic typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 147-175
• Aikhenvald A, Dixon R and White N (in press) The essence of 'word'. In: Phonological word and grammatical word: a cross-linguistic typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 1-24
• Aikhenvald A (2020) Language contact and language change in the Sepik Region of New Guinea: the case of Yalaku. In: Dynamic Language Changes - looking within and across languages. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., Singapore, pp. 241-258
• Aikhenvald A (2020) Morphology in Arawak languages. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, New York, USA
• Aikhenvald A (2020) Language loss and language gain in Amazonia. In: Amazonian Spanish Language Contact and Evolution. Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam, NDL, pp. 7-34
• Aikhenvald A (2020) “Damn your eyes!” (not really): imperative imprecatives, and curses as commands. In: Swearing and Cursing � Contexts and Practices in a Critical Linguistic Perspective. Language and Social Life. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, pp. 53-78
• Aikhenvald A (2020) Language contact and endangered languages. In: The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 241-260
• Aikhenvald A (2019) Verb sequences in Transeurasian languages: a typological perspective. In: Ambiguous Verb Sequences in Transeurasian Languages and Beyond. Turcologica, ISSN 0177-4743 ; 120. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, Germany, pp. 13-29
• Aikhenvald A (2019) Noun categorization devices: a cross-linguistic perspective. In: Genders and Classifiers: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Explorations in Linguistic Typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 1-29

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 159+ research outputs authored by Prof Alexandra Aikhenvald from 2003 onwards.

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• The Hmong language of North Queensland (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• A Grammar of the Brokpa Language (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• My journey towards language: An Autoethnography of Wakka Wakka Reclamation (Masters , Secondary Advisor)
• A Comprehensive Grammar of Doromu-Koki (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• A Comprehensive Grammar of Tiang (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

Completed

• A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia (2017, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Decolonisation, interculturality, and multiple epistemologies: Hiwi people in Bolivarian Venezuela (2016, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• A grammar of Eibela: a language of the Western Province, Papua New Guinea (2017, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• A grammar of Umbeyajts as spoken by the Ikojts people of San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico (2017, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Slavery and feminism in the writings of Madame de Staël (2020, PhD , Advisor Mentor)
• A grammar of Ma Manda a Papuan language of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• A grammar of Munya (2020, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• A Grammar of Mursi, a Nilo-Saharan language (2020, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

These are the most recent metadata records associated with this researcher. To see a detailed description of all dataset records, visit the JCU Research Data Catalogue.

• Aikhenvald, A. (2012) Warekena of Xie, a North Arawak language, Xie River, northwest Brazil. James Cook University
• Aikhenvald, A. (2012) The endangered Tariana, the only Arawak language of the Vaupes River Basin, north-west Amazon, Brazil: a corpus of audio recordings and stories. James Cook University

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.