R. M. W. Dixon
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Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Professor Dixon has written on many areas of linguistic theory and fieldwork, being particularly noted for his work on the Aboriginal languages of Australia. He has published grammars of Dyirbal and Yidiny as well as non-Australian languages like Boumaa Fijian and Jarawara.
Professor Dixon's work on languages of Australia has led him to question the standard "family-tree" model for linguistic change in favour of one of punctuated equilibrium, based on theory of the same name in evolutionary biology. Dixon puts forth his theory in The Rise and Fall of Languages Cambridge University Press, 1997.
He is also the author of a number of other books including Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-521-47378-0 and Ergativity Cambridge University Press, 1994.
In addition to scholarly works, Professor Dixon also published, in 1983, a memoir of his early fieldwork in Australia titled Searching For Aboriginal Languages. The book provides a glimpse at linguistic fieldwork as it was done in that era as well as an interesting historical look at the appalling treatment of Aboriginal peoples of Australia that continued right into the 1960s.
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