Ronald Singer

Biographic Data

ID83587
NAMERonald Singer
GIVEN NAMESRonald
FAMILY NAMESinger
SIGNATURESINGER R
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Chicago
ORCID0000-0003-4915-3262
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS67
TOTAL CITATIONS620
AUTHOR COUNT67
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1953
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX11

  • The design principles of a sociolinguistic typological questionnaire for language contact research

    Open AccessEmiko Kashima, Francesca Di Garbo et al.ARTICLELanguage Dynamics and Change2025References: 10

    This paper presents the design rationale and pilot demonstration of the GramAdapt Social Contact questionnaire; a research tool developed for collecting global comparative sociolinguistic data on language contact scenarios. The questionnaire is qualitative with quantitative potential, inviting language community experts to provide best-assessment answers to questions about social contact in their communities of expertise. The main purpose is to c…

  • Language naming in Indigenous Australia: A view from western Arnhem Land

    Open AccessJill Vaughan, Ronald Singer et al.ARTICLEMultilingua2023References: 42

    Language naming systems are local ways of organising diversity, yet the language names used by linguists are sometimes incommensurable with the lived social reality of speakers. The process of assigning language names is not neutral, trivial or objective: it is a highly political process driven and shaped by understandings of group identity, similarity and difference. Closer attention to local perspectives on language naming offers important insi…

  • Indigenous Multilingualism at Warruwi: Cultivating Linguistic Diversity in an Australian Community

    Ronald Singer, Ruth SingerBOOKIndigenous Multilingualism at…2023Cited by: 1

    This book is an exploration of the role of language at Warruwi Community, a remote Indigenous settlement in northern Australia. It explores how language use and people’s ideas about language are embedded in contemporary Indigenous life there. Using an ethnographic approach, the book examines what language at Warruwi means in the context of the history of the community, ongoing social and political changes and the continuing importance of ancestra…

  • Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss

    Hedvig Skirgård, Hannah J Haynie et al.PREPRINT2022

    While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2,400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on t…

  • Ten years of Linguistics in the Pub

    Lauren Gawne, Ronald SingerARTICLEAustralian Journal of Linguistics2021References: 2

    In December 2009 the first ‘Linguistics in the Pub’ event was held in Melbourne. For over a decade Linguistics in the Pub (LIP) has been a space for linguists, language workers and language activists to discuss a wide range of topics, covering practical, theoretical and ethical elements of language work. In this paper we provide an overview of the themes that have emerged from these discussions. LIP events have been in step with major shifts in l…

  • The expression of emotions in Kunbarlang and its neighbours in the multilingual context of western and central Arnhem Land

    Open AccessIsabel O’Keeffe, Ronald Singer et al.ARTICLEPragmatics & Cognition2020

    This paper explores how emotions are expressed in the endangered Gunwinyguan language Kunbarlang and compares these expressions to those in the neighbouring Gunwinyguan language Bininj Kunwok, and neighbouring languages from other language families, Mawng (Iwaidjan) and Ndjébbana (Maningridan). As well as considering body-based emotion expressions and the tropes (metaphors and metonymies) they instantiate, we consider the range of other (non-body…

  • Chield: The causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database

    Open AccessSeán G Robert, Anton Killin et al.ARTICLEJournal of Language Evolution2020

    Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to desi…

  • Why Don't Linguists Talk about Politics? Moving Forward on Language Endangerment-Together

    Open AccessRonald Singer, Ruth SingerARTICLEAmerican Anthropologist2020Cited by: 2References: 3

    Davis and Roche highlight the issues that arise when we try to\ndiscuss endangered languages without paying due attention\ntotheir historical, social, and political context. Davis gives an\nexample of how linguists' overly narrow focus on language\ncan lead to errors in counting the number of speakers of\nendangered languages

  • The impact of national standardized literacy and numeracy testing on children and teaching staff in remote Australian Indigenous communities

    Open AccessSusy Macqueen, Ute Knoch et al.ARTICLELanguage Testing2019

    All educational testing is intended to have consequences, which are assumed to be beneficial, but tests may also have unintended, negative consequences (Messick, 1989). The issue is particularly important in the case of large-scale standardized tests, such as Australia’s National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), the intended benefits of which are increased accountability and improved educational outcomes. The NAPLAN purpose is…

  • The wrong t‐shirt: Configurations of language and identity at Warruwi Community

    Open AccessRonald SingerARTICLEThe Australian Journal of…2018

    On June 22nd 1916, Reverend James Watson was brought to Warruwi in a canoe by a group of Maningpurru people. A re‐enactment of this event was staged at the beach called Angpungijpa or Watson's Landing on the 22nd of June 2016. The performers wore either a yellow or blue t‐shirt and the two colours were interpreted by many participants as representing the languages Mawng and Kunwinjku. In interpreting the t‐shirts, people made a direct connection …

  • A small speech community with many small languages: The role of receptive multilingualism in supporting linguistic diversity at Warruwi Community (Australia)

    Open AccessRonald Singer, Ruth SingerARTICLELanguage & Communication2018Cited by: 33References: 30

  • Indigenous multilingualisms past and present

    Open AccessJill Vaughan, Ronald Singer et al.ARTICLELanguage & Communication2018Cited by: 33References: 20

  • The Dynamics of Nominal Classification: Productive and Lexicalised Uses of Gender Agreement in Mawng

    Ronald Singer, Ruth SingerBOOKDynamics of Nominal Classification2016Cited by: 2

    The use of grammatical gender in the Australian language Mawng calls into question prevailing ideas about the functions of nominal classification systems. Mawng’s gender system has a strong semantic basis and plays an important role in the construction of meaning in discourse. Gender agreement in verbs is frequently lexicalized, creating idioms called lexicalised agreement verbs that are structurally similar to noun-verb idioms. This book will be…

  • What practices and ideologies support small-scale multilingualism? A case study of Warruwi Community, northern Australia

    Ronald Singer, Salome HarrisARTICLEInternational Journal of the…2016Cited by: 7References: 23

    At Warruwi, a remote Australian Indigenous community, people use a range of Indigenous languages on a daily basis. Adults speak three to eight Indigenous languages and these high levels of multilingualism are out of step with current trends which see most Australian Indigenous communities shifting to a single variety be it a variety of English, a contact variety or a traditional Indigenous language. The three Indigenous languages most widely spok…

  • Semantics of Australian Languages

    Alice Gaby, Ronald Singer et al.CHAPTERLanguages and Linguistics of…2014

  • Do nominal classifiers mediate selectional restrictions? An investigation of the function of semantically based nominal classifiers in Mawng (Iwaidjan, Australian)

    Open AccessRonald Singer, Ruth SingerARTICLELinguistics2012

    This article argues that the primary function of nominal classifiers which have a strong semantic basis is to mediate selectional restrictions. Nominal classifiers do part of the work usually done by selectional restrictions; selecting the relevant sense of the verb and narrowing down the range of possible arguments. In the Australian language Mawng (Iwaidjan, Australia), gender agreement in the verb provides good evidence for the role of nominal…

  • Creativity in the use of gender agreement in Mawng: How the discourse functions of a gender system can approach those of a classifier system

    Ronald Singer, Ruth SingerARTICLEStudies in Language2010

    The two main types of nominal classification systems in Australian languages — classifiers and genders — are usually easy to distinguish both formally and functionally. However, in the Australian language Mawng, gender agreement carries much of the burden of reference, varies depending on how an entity is construed, and contributes elements of compositional meaning to discourse, with properties usually associated with classifiers rather than gend…

  • Not outside the modern range

    Open AccessGünter Bräuer, Ronald SingerARTICLEJournal of Human Evolution1996Cited by: 4

  • The Klasies zygomatic bone: Archaic or Modern

    Open AccessGünter Bräuer, Ronald SingerARTICLEJournal of Human Evolution1996Cited by: 15

  • The Lower Paleolithic Site at Hoxne

    Kathleen Kuman, Ronald Singer et al.ARTICLEThe South African Archaeological…1994

  • Estimates and Determinants of Valid Self-Reports of Musculoskeletal Disease in the Elderly

    Open AccessSusan L Hughes, Perry Edelman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Aging and Health1993Cited by: 1

    This study examined the extent and nature of bias associated with self-reported versus standardized physician-examination/assessment-based accounts of musculoskeletal disease in a sample of 406 persons chosen to represent an aging and dependency continuum. Prevalence of musculoskeletal disease based on standardized physician examination/assessments was 97%. Using the standardized findings as the criterion, the self-report underestimated prevalenc…

  • Mythical African 'Australoids' and Triangular Bricks: The Cape Flats Skull in Retrospect

    Ronald SingerARTICLEThe South African Archaeological…1993Cited by: 1

    Considerable doubt is cast on the averred 'prehistoric' status of the Cape Flats skull and artefacts, first described by M.R. Drennan and A.J.H. Goodwin in 1929. A reexamination and analysis of their own published statements suggests a fairly recent date. It is pointed out that the major items recovered were from or near the surface of the windswept Flats, and they were found neither in situ nor in archaeological association with each other. Evid…

  • Laetoli: A Pliocene Site in Northern Tanzania

    Ronald Singer, John HarrisREVIEWMan1988Cited by: 1

    This work presents the results of intensive fieldwork carried out from 1974 to 1981 at the site of one of the richest fossil sites yet discovered in Africa. In addition to hominid fossils, the remains of a large number of other vertebrate species have been collected. The vertebrate faunas from Laetoli are of special interest because of the differences in composition from other East African faunas of comparable age. Invertebrate fossils include te…

  • On Binford on Klasies River Mouth: Response of the Excavators

    Ronald Singer, J J Wymer et al.ARTICLECurrent Anthropology1986Cited by: 6References: 6

  • Serology and clines along the Okavango River, Namibia

    Open AccessRonald Singer, G Ainsworth Harrison et al.ARTICLEJournal of Human Evolution1985References: 9