Research

If we think about language linguistics and semiotics we're really talking about communication and communications foundational to everything we do, so understanding something of how that works I think enables us to build better relationships and to build a better world. 

I'm Pauline Jones, I'm an educational linguist and I'm Co convener of the IDEAS research group. IDEAS stands for interdisciplinary discourse analysis in education, the Arts and Social Sciences. 

So we're a group of researchers who are interested in languages, linguistics and semiotics, so we take those tools to work with other colleagues in all sorts of contexts; psychotherapy, disability in educational school-based settings, all sorts of places.

So the big issues we're faced here are about giving people access to the institutions that count that are powerful in our society and all of us have a strong sense of social justice, so we believe that our work is important for making visible how those institutions work, giving people access ensuring that they're able to participate in society.

Some of the most important ways we've had impact of being on policy and training we've informed some of the development of curriculum in Australia through our research, we've also had impact on training programs outside school-based education. 

In 20 years we would all wish for a fairer society but I suspect in reality we'll have some new problems we'll have a new generation of scholars who no doubt pushed the theory and the tools that we have now in ways that are better equipped to meet those problems. I would like to think that we did have a more positive better world.

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