ABOUT

Peter AustinProfessor Peter Austin

SOAS, University of London

Peter K. Austin is Märit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics and Director of the Endangered Languages Academic Programme at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has worked at SOAS since October 2002. He previously held a Humboldt Prize at Frankfurt University, and was Foundation Professor of Linguistics at the University of Melbourne (1996-2002).

Peter's research interests cover descriptive, theoretical and applied linguistics. He has 30 years of fieldwork experience on Australian Aboriginal languages, and since 1995 has been researching Sasak and Samawa, Austronesian languages from Lombok and Sumbawa islands, eastern Indonesia. His theoretical research is mainly on syntax and focuses on Lexical Functional Grammar, morpho-syntactic typology, theory and practice of language documentation and computer-aided analysis of endangered languages. He has also published on historical and comparative linguistics, typology, and Aboriginal history and biography. For further details, including a list of publications see the Hans Rausing website

Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,000 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute nearly a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. See Arts & Humanities Research Council website.