November 28

Kate Burridge

The Oddities of English Language: the shelf life of slang terms

Kate Burridge is Professor of Linguistics at Monash University and Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Humanities and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Kate completed her PhD in London where she also taught at the Polytechnic of Central London before joining the Department of Linguistics at La Trobe University in 1984. In 2003 she took up the Chair of Linguistics at Monash University.

Kate’s main areas of research are language change, taboo and euphemism, public opinion about language and value change in Germanic languages, and communication around ageing.  (very appropriate for our cohort) She has written more than 20 books on different aspects of language.

I’m sure many of you have heard her regular presentations of language on ABC radio and 3AW. She has appeared as a weekly panellist on ABC TV’s Can We Help. and has given a TED Talk on euphemism and taboo.

Kate is a very engaging speaker and I’m sure you will all enjoy her presentation. She has a special affection for Australian slang, and the magnificently raucous slang phrases we've coined and exported to the rest of the world.