ALS 2025 Plenary Speakers

Professor Chris Davis obtained a PhD in psycholinguists at Monash University; undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Complutense University of Madrid (investigating bilingual processing) and was employed in the Psychology Department of The University of Melbourne until he joined The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University. He studies human communication and is the leader of the MARCS Institute's "Multisensory Communication" research area. He is also the leader of the international Auditory-visual speech association (avisa.loria.fr). He has a particular research interest in the speech perception difficulties experienced by some groups in challenging listening situations.

Title: Understanding spoken conversation barriers: Does language science have a role?

Click here to view the abstract

Felicity Meakins (FASSA, FAHA) is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland. She is a field linguist who specialises in the documentation of First Nations languages in northern Australia and the effect of English on these languages. She has worked as a community linguist as well as an academic for over 20 years, facilitating language revitalisation programs, consulting on Native Title claims and conducting research into First Nations languages. She has compiled a number of dictionaries and grammars, and has written numerous papers on language change in Australia.

Talk Title: "Social salience as a driver of language change"

Click here to view the abstract.

Marianne Mithun is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interests include morphology, syntax, discourse, prosody, language change, language contact, and their interactions, as well as language documentation and revitalization. She works with and has worked with a number of groups, particularly in North America (Mohawk, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Seneca, Oneida, and Onondaga (Iroquoian); Central Pomo (Pomoan); Central Alaskan Yup'ik; Navajo (Dene); Barbareño Chumash (Chumashan); Lakhota (Siouan); and Cree (Algic); as well as Austronesia (Selarayese, Kapampangan, Hiligaynon). She has served as President of the Linguistic Society of America, the Societas Linguistica Europeae, and the Association for Linguistic Typology.

Talk Title: "The place of prosody in the greater scheme of things"

Click here to view the abstract.