John Kinder

Associate Professor (Italian Studies)

Arts Building, Room 2.06
Ph: +61 (8) 6488 2192
Fax: +61 (8) 6488 1182
john.kinder@uwa.edu.au

Teaching and Research Interests

Italian language and linguistics, with special focus on the external history of language in Italy. I also teach in Italian sociolinguistics and dialectology.

I am the academic contact person for exchanges with the University di Bologna and the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan.

Selected Publications

• Learning in Two Languages: models of bilingual education (with C. Barrett-Pugh, M.P. Breen and M. Rohl). Canberra: Language Australia (National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia). 1997.

• Using Italian: a guide to contemporary usage (with Vincenzo M. Savini). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

• CLIC: Cultura e Lingua d'Italia in Cd-rom / Culture and Language of Italy on Cd-rom. Novara: Interlinea Edizioni, 2008.

• "Auxiliary verbs, dictionaries and the late evolution of the Italian language". Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Series S, 18 (2004): 115-132.

• "La variazione nell'insegnamento dell'italiano a stranieri: riflessioni dall'Australia". Lingua Italiana D'Oggi. 1 (2004): 175-187.

• "Languages of migration and settlement". In J. Gregory and J. Gothard (eds), Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia. Perth, University of Western Australia, in press (2008).

Complete Publications List

Current Project

I am also working on an ARC-supported three-year project entitled Enduring diversity: a history of multilingualism in Italy. The aim of the project is to use the findings of the sociology of language to compile a picture of language choice and language mixing throughout Italy. While traditional studies of the major European languages take the emergence of the national language as the logical focus of language history, this project will complement such studies by studying the diversity of language usage which endured over two millennia even while a national language was being developed. The resulting volume will pose a number of questions for further research into language history.