An anthropologist linguist. In addition to primary work recording the endangered indigenous languages of Australia & New Guinea, he has written widely on their implications for linguistics, cognitive science, anthropology, prehistory & other fields
Phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics, sociophonetics; language variation and change, speech and social meaning, media influence on language change; English, especially Scottish English/Scots and British Asian
Theoretical linguistics, especially morphosemantics, morphosyntax and typology; underdocumented languages, especially Afroasiatic, Kiowa-Tanoan and South Caucasian; writing systems, their linguistic structure and decipherment.
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