Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Joe Blythe is an Interactional Linguist specialising in Australian Indigenous languages. He conducts field research on the Murrinhpatha language of the Northern Territory and on the Gija and Jaru languages from northern Western Australia. Along with Scott Barnes, he leads the Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab.
Joe is interested in the relationships between linguistic structure and social action, and what these relationships reveal about social cognition and culture. He is concerned with how interlocutors coordinate with each other in making themselves understood, and in how they package their talk, gaze and gestures, etc., as moves directed towards interactional goals. He is especially interested in what social interaction reveals about why words and constructions are structured the way they are. Thus, do particular structures reveal affordances for delivering particular actions? Are these structures better adapted than alternative structures for delivering the desired actions? Can constraints on language use be observed to be driving structural and semantic change?
Research interests
- Australian Aboriginal Languages
- Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics
- Gesture
- Kinship
- Child Language Acquisition
- Language Evolution
Currently funded research projects
An ARC Discovery Project, DP180100515: Dr Joe Blythe, Associate Professor Ilana Mushin, Professor Lesley Stirling, Associate Professor Rod Gardner
The CIARA project will provide the first large-scale exploration of conversational style in Australia. The project investigates everyday conversation, comparing social interaction across different languages, cultures and geographic locations. Using modern Conversation Analytic/Interactional Linguistic techniques, we aim to re-examine claims that Aboriginal Australians conduct conversations in different ways to Anglo-Australians. We will record and transcribe Australian English multiparty conversations in remote Kimberley and rural Victorian towns, and compare these with multiparty conversations conducted in four endangered Aboriginal languages (Gija, Jaru, Garrwa and Murrinhpatha) and in Kriol, from remote communities in WA and the NT. These corpora will provide a new evidence-base for investigating Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal conversational norms and contribute to the scientific study of social interaction.
- OzSpace: Landscape, language and culture in Indigenous Australia
An ARC Discovery Project, DP200101079: Associate Professor Bill Palmer, Associate Professor Alice Gaby, Dr Joe Blythe, Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
This project aims to determine how culture and social diversity interact with landscape in representing physical space in the minds and grammars of speakers of Australian Indigenous languages. The project will conduct the first Australia-wide survey of Indigenous spatial description correlated with landscape, and the first large-scale investigation of diversity in spatial behaviour among individuals within communities. The findings are expected to inform crucial debates on the formative role of landscape in language, and advance our knowledge of human spatial cognition. It will collect completely new experimental and natural data in six endangered languages, with significant benefits for the maintenance of Indigenous languages and cultures.
Previously funded research projects
- Multiparty conversation in Gija, an endangered language of the East Kimberley, WA
Originally funded by an MQNS funded project to build a video corpus of Gija conversation. The project continues as the CIARA project.
- Acquiring Kinship Terminology in an Australian Aboriginal Community.
This project investigates how Murrinhpatha speaking children acquire the lexicon and grammar of kinship. (originally funded by an ARC DECRA project DE130100399)
- Language Acquisition of Murrinhpatha.
This project studies the acquisition of the polysynthetic language Murrinhpatha (Wadeye, NT) by children from 2-6 years. (originally funded by an ARC Discovery project DP110100961, with Jill Wigglesworth, Barbara Kelly, Rachel Nordlinger).
Research student supervision
I am availalable for supervision of student projects focusing on Indigenous languages and/or social interaction
Current Students (as principal supervisor)
Caroline de Dear (PhD candidate): Content-question words in Gija conversations
Asheigh Jones (PhD candidate): Simultaneous production as an interactional phenomenon in cross-modal bilingual conversation
Jingyi Yang (MRes candidate): Reference to co-present participants in Mandarin conversation
Current Students (as associate supervisor):
Eman Alharbi (PhD candidate): Questions in Arabic conversations
Rona Pillay: Patient transfers in the operating theatre
Natalie Skinner: Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with complex communication needs
Teaching
In session 1 Joe convenes LING2213 Australia's Indigenous Languages and co-convenes LING1121 Language Myths and Realities.
In Session 2 he convenes LING3383 Morphosyntax of the World's Languages and SPHL3300 Language as Evidence
External positions
Vice-President (Conferences), Australian Linguistic Society
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MACQ LING CA LAB: Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab
Blythe, J., Barnes, S., Dahmen, J., De Dear, C., Jones, A., Alharbi, E., Skinner, N., Yang, J. & Tao, H.
25/01/24 → …
Project: Research
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Mobile Eyetracking Laboratory
Halbert, C., Kruger, J., Boisvert, I., Pachman, M., Kotze, H., Blythe, J., Benders, T., Fang, J., Badcock, N., Brooks, K., Caruana, N. & Mitchison, D.
1/01/17 → …
Project: Research
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Multiparty conversation in Gija, an endangered language of the East Kimberley, WA.
1/01/17 → …
Project: Research
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UNewc Led: OzSpace: Landscape and language in Indigenous Australia.
Palmer, W., Gaby, A., Blythe, J. & Ponsonnet, M.
23/11/20 → 22/11/23
Project: Research
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Multilingualism Research Centre
Benson, P., Barnes, S., Blythe, J., Burridge, A., Chang, M., Chappell, P., Chik, A., Chu, H. E., Djonov, E., Evans, T., Falloon, G., Forrest, J., Garde, U., Gorfinkel, L., Guo, S., Hanley, J., Keith, S., Kruger, J., Kim, J., Li, P., Moloney, R., Murray, J., Ollerhead, S., Orlando, M., Parr, N., Roger, P., Xu Rattanasone, N., Svetanant, C. & Yates, L.
1/07/19 → 30/06/22
Project: Research
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A satellite view of spatial points in conversation
Blythe, J., Possemato, F., Dahmen, J., de Dear, C., Gardner, R. & Stirling, L., 2024, Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis in motion: emerging methods and technologies. Haddington, P., Eilittä, T., Kamunen, A., Kohonen-Aho, L., Oittinen, T., Rautiainen, I. & Vatanen, A. (eds.). Abingdon: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, p. 171-198 28 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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Competitive points in Mandarin-speaking multiparty interaction: speakership and epistemics
Chen, J., Barnes, S. & Blythe, J., May 2024, In: Journal of Pragmatics. 225, p. 120-138 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile22851 Downloads (Pure) -
Tactile engagement of prospective next speakers in Indonesian multiparty conversations
Blythe, J., Hamdani, F. & Barnes, S., Sept 2024, In: Language in Society. 53, 4, p. 671–705 35 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Are you my mother? Learning to discern who’s who within a universal kinship system
Blythe, J., 2023, (Accepted/In press) Projecting voices: studies in language and linguistics in honour of Jane Simpson. O'Shannessy, C., James, G. & Angelo, D. (eds.). Asia-Pacific LinguisticsResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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Discourse and social interaction
Blythe, J. & Mushin, I., 13 Jun 2023, The Oxford guide to Australian languages. Bowern, C. (ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, p. 538–547 10 p. (Oxford Guides to the World's Languages).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
Datasets
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Calibrating recipiency through pronominal reference / Supplementary video files
Dahmen, J. (Owner) & Blythe, J. (Contributor), Macquarie University, 7 May 2023
DOI: 10.25949/17294816.v1
Dataset: Audiovisual
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A satellite view of spatial points in conversation / Supplementary video files
Blythe, J. (Contributor), Possemato, F. (Contributor), Dahmen, J. (Owner), de Dear, C. (Contributor), Gardner, R. (Contributor) & STIRLING, L. (Contributor), Macquarie University, 12 Oct 2023
DOI: 10.25949/18133682.v1
Dataset: Audiovisual
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Using a geospatial approach to document and analyse locational points in face-to-face conversation / Supplementary video files
Possemato, F. (Contributor), Blythe, J. (Contributor), de Dear, C. (Contributor), Dahmen, J. (Owner), Gardner, R. (Contributor) & STIRLING, L. (Contributor), Macquarie University, 24 Dec 2021
DOI: 10.25949/17211686.v1
Dataset: Audiovisual
Activities
- 3 Invited talk
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Preparing field data for conversation analysis
Joe Blythe (Speaker) & Francesco Possemato (Speaker)
28 Jun 2023Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Using Conversation Analysis to address the needs of other scholarly and professional disciplines
Scott Barnes (Speaker) & Joe Blythe (Speaker)
2 Nov 2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk