Language in the lab and language in the real world: Bridging research and practice

Language is all around us. It is integral to navigating one’s social world: it underlies how we communicate with those around us, impacts on our success in school and work, and affects the way we access information and make decisions in our daily lives. It is hard to imagine a domain of our lives that is not facilitated or affected by language.

Much of the language and linguistics research at WSU focuses on understanding the fundamental nature of the human capacity for language. At the same time, this research has implications for a wide variety of domains. Some examples of domains where language research can have impact include:

• Education: teacher training; multiple language support in early childcare settings; linguistics training at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels; language education in classrooms; multilingual classroom settings; maintenance of aboriginal languages; private language tuition/programs; standardised testing; classroom material and teacher language; translation and interpreter training; interactions with logic and mathematics; computational training
• Health: clinical health communications; medical training; public health messaging; speech language pathology and therapy
• Law: language in legal texts; courtroom language; linguistic biases in judicial contexts
• Advertising: language used in ads via different media; social media communications; advertising campaigns
• Technology: automated messaging apps; voice recognition; help ‘chat’ capabilities; computational training; programming; automated subtitle generation; translation via different media/programming
• Politics and policy writing: language used in the political sphere; policy wording; workplace policies and employee support

The Education and Work Research Theme invites interested researchers to an internal Theme Storm to discuss research capabilities and form collaborations across disciplines. Please RSVP your attendance via the provided Eventbrite registration link. Please also complete the following brief survey about your research interests by the 23rd of June to facilitate organisation of the event: https://surveyswesternsydney.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cOb0YnrKH6R2FVP(Opens in a new window)

Register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/language-in-the-lab-in-the-real-world-bridging-research-and-practice-tickets-109569547466(opens in a new window) Zoom details to be provided once you RSVP your attendance through Eventbrite. A

AGENDA

• 10.00am: Welcome
• 10.00am – 10.15am: Setting the landscape: possible areas of language research and collaboration
• 10.15am – 10.45am: Brief introductions: what research are we already conducting at WSU?
• 10.45am – 11.00am: What are others doing in this area? Who could we partner with?
• 11.00am – 11.20am: Breakout groups based on research interests
• 11.20am – 11.45am: Planning and next steps

Enquiries to: Dr Lyn Tieu (l.tieu@westernsydney.edu.au) Lyn Tieu, Danielle Tracey and Maria Estela Varua Education and Work Research Theme Fellow & Champions