This course is an introduction to Austronesian languages, exploring the history, and the linguistic and socio-cultural-political diversity of the Austronesian world. Austronesian is the world's largest language family in terms of geographical spread, spanning more than half the globe: from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Taiwan to New Zealand. This vast and diverse language family is also one of the best documented. It includes both major world languages with millions of speakers, like Indonesian and Tagalog, and tiny Oceanic languages spoken on remote islands with only a couple of hundred speakers. During the course, students will learn about the migration and dispersion of the Austronesian people and salient features characterising their languages, social organisations and cultures. Case studies are used to represent certain salient Austronesian features in relation to particular (sub)regions and societies to cover topics in Austronesian sound systems and grammars, writing systems, ritual language and religions, language contact and change, language ecology, the politics of language, language landscape and verbal arts.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the basic terminology, concepts and issues of the field of linguistics and related fields as they pertain to the Austronesian languages;
- Identify and discuss the salient linguistic and socio-cultural characteristics of the varieties of the Austronesian language family;
- Assess the typical arguments pertaining to the history and typological properties of the varieties of Austronesian languages;
- Analyse and compare linguistic systems, and related socio-cultural-political aspects based on concrete data;
- Undertake guided research and analysis of data for a selected topic for a given project;
- Present and justify the research results of the project with clarity and focus, both orally and in writing.
- Evaluate the suitability of a particular simple theoretical framework for a given descriptive Austronesian project.
Indicative Assessment
- Two problem-sets (30) [LO 1,4]
- Research plan (5) [LO 4,5,7]
- Critical summary (1000 words) (5) [LO 1,2,3]
- Oral presentation (10) [LO 2,3,4,6,7]
- Research essay (3000-3500 words) (50) [LO 1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
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Workload
The workload consists of a total of around 10 hours per week for various activities: 3 contact hours (2 hours lectures and 1 hour tutorial) and around 7 hours for weekly readings, tutorial preparation, and assessment items (problem sets and term paper).The lectures provide the students with the background knowledge and skills on the relevant weekly topics; the tutorials provide them with practical exercises and further discussions of topics and problems, issues and crucial points of the lectures. The students are expected to do all home assignments (usually in the form of problem sets and basic research), which are assessed to demonstrate their progress in learning and acquiring new knowledge and skills.
Inherent Requirements
Not applicable
Requisite and Incompatibility
Prescribed Texts
Blust, Robert. 2013. The Austronesian languages (the revised edition). Canberra: Asia-Pacific LinguisticsAssumed Knowledge
The course assumes some prior knowledge in linguistics.Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 1
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Course fees
- Domestic fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2024 | $4080 |
- International fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2024 | $6000 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.
Class summaries, if available, can be accessed by clicking on the View link for the relevant class number.
Second Semester
| Class number | Class start date | Last day to enrol | Census date | Class end date | Mode Of Delivery | Class Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7969 | 21 Jul 2025 | 28 Jul 2025 | 31 Aug 2025 | 24 Oct 2025 | In Person | N/A |
