150-436 Peoples and Languages of the Austronesian World

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to combined honours in Indonesian or fourth-year honours in anthropology.

Contact

Subject Description

This subject includes a survey of the anthropological and linguistic diversity of Southeast Asia and Oceania; notes on Southeast Asian prehistory, ecology and geography; linguistic classifications and typologies; linguistic change; semantic change. Mythic histories and hierarchy in social organisation, metaphor, ritual language and cultural classifications. Methodology in Austronesian comparative Advanced students of Indonesian, anthropology and linguistics will acquire a practical knowledge of problems and possibilities in combining linguistic and anthropological theories and methods. They will be acquainted with the complementarity of anthropological and linguistic methods and theory.

Assessment

Two written assignments totalling no more than 6000 words: (1) a paper on comparative methods in linguistics and ethnology and (2) a paper on a specific research problem in either Austronesian linguistics or Austronesian anthropology.

Prescribed Texts

Source material will vary from year to year but in all cases will include reports of recent Australian research on Austronesia.