Jean Mulder is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. Mulder's research interests include

Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...

and

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

, a North American Indian language. Mulder is currently an Honorary Senior Fellow in the Department of Linguistics at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, having been a Professor there until 2017. She is currently the editor of the

Australian Journal of Linguistics The ''Australian Journal of Linguistics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics established in 1981. It is the official journal of the Australian Linguistic Society and is published by Routledge. Its main focus ...

Early life and education

Mulder was born in

Niskayuna, New York Niskayuna is a town in Schenectady County, New York, United States. The population was 23,278 at the 2020 census. The town is located in the southeast part of the county, east of the city of Schenectady, and is the easternmost town in the county. ...

. She earned a BA in mathematics and linguistics from the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

, and received her MA in 1978 and PhD in 1988, both in linguistics, from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. She is a publicly regarded expert on Australian English, working specifically on features of morphology and syntax. Of particular note is her work on 'final but' in

. Mulder has also been extensively involved in developing and promoting the

Victorian Certificate of Education The Victorian Certificate of Education (often abbreviated VCE) is one credential available to secondary school students who successfully complete year 11 and 12 in the Australian state of Victoria. The VCE is the predominant choice for students ...

subject

English Language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

. As part of this she is also a strong public advocate of teaching linguistics and grammar in schools.

Selected publications

* Mulder, J., & Sellers, H. (2010). Classifying clitics in Sm'algyax: Approaching theory from the field. In Berez, A., Mulder, J., & Rosenblum, D. (eds.), ''Fieldwork and linguistic analysis in Indigenous languages of the Americas,'' ''Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication No. 2,'' 33–56. *Mulder, J., & Thompson, S. A. (2008). The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation. ''Crosslinguistic studies of clause combining: The multifunctionality of conjunctions'', ''80'', 179–204. * Mulder, J. (2007). Establishing linguistics in secondary education in Victoria, Australia. ''Language and Linguistics Compass'', ''1''(3), 133–154. * Burridge, K., & Mulder, J. G. (1998). ''English in Australia and New Zealand: An introduction to its history, structure, and use''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Mulder, J. G. (1994). ''Ergativity in Coast Tsimshian (Sm'algyax)'' (Vol. 124). Univ of California Press.

References

External links

University of Melbourne
website {{DEFAULTSORT:Mulder, Jean Living people Academic staff of the University of Melbourne Linguists from Australia 1954 births University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Santa Barbara alumni