Ms Anneke Myers

Anneke Myers is an Australian PhD student at the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the ANU, based in Canberra. She is of Dutch and English/Irish heritage and holds dual nationality (Australian/Dutch). Anneke has a background in proofreading, law and languages and has worked as a parliamentary research officer, a Hansard editor and a NAATI accredited translator and interpreter (French<>English). Anneke's parliamentary experience includes establishing and chairing the Hansard Indigenous Languages Working Group.

Anneke's LLB honours project contributed to the initial ban on battery egg production in the ACT under the Animal Welfare (Amendment) Act 1997. She also submitted to the Productivity Commission inquiry, Battery eggs: Sale and production in the ACT. Anneke has taught undergraduate law subjects including Foundations of Australian Law and Lawyers, Justice and Ethics.

Work in progress: doctoral project

This doctoral project applies sociolinguistics to analyse the evidence-taking practices of Australian federal parliamentary committees when consulting Indigenous witnesses, especially those whose first language is not English. Anneke recognises that such witnesses may not be in a position to ‘understand and be understood’ (Article 13.2, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) during parliamentary committee proceedings. By a happy temporal coincidence, the time frame for this project overlaps with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022–2032), being led by UNESCO.

This multidisciplinary PhD research sources Indigenous expertise from the interpreting sector about culturally respectful ways for the parliament to work with interpreters and language speakers. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of bespoke corpus data and metadata provides insights into many parliamentary inquiries that have sought spoken evidence from First Peoples of Australia, including on constitutional questions and draft legislation as well as social and environmental policy. Anneke's ongoing thanks and appreciation goes to Aboriginal Interpreting WA (AIWA): thank you for sharing your expertise.

PhD supervision: School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics

Professor Jane Simpson (Primary Supervisor and Chair of Panel)

Dr Susy Macqueen

PhD supervision: College of Law

Professor Asmi Wood

Contact: 

[email protected]

BA, LLB (Hons), GDipLegPrac, Barrister & Solicitor ACT, AE