Carmel O’Shannessy is Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University. She received the ANU Vice Chancellor’s award for Excellence in Research in 2020, for her work in language contact,  acquisition and documentation in Indigenous languages. In the 1990s her background as an ESL teacher and Applied Linguist took her to work in remote Indigenous schools in Australia’s Northern Territory, in the areas of Indigenous language maintenance and education. She completed her PhD in Linguistics at the University of Sydney (Australia) and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (The Netherlands) in 2007, with documentation of the genesis and development of Light Warlpiri, a mixed language that had recently emerged in the community. Within the areas of language contact and change and language acquisition, her research continues to document children’s bilingual acquisition and maintenance of Light Warlpiri and Warlpiri. Her ARC Future Fellowship project explores First Nations children's language development in Central Australia. She also documents traditional Warlpiri songs. Carmel has been involved with languages in remote Indigenous communities in Australia since 1996, in the areas of bilingual education and her current research. 

Personal webpage: carmeloshannessy.net

PhD., M.A., Post grad Dip., Dip Teach

Language contact and change, language acquisition, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, code-switching, mixed languages, Australian languages, endangered languages