Kathryn "Kate" Burridge is a prominent Australian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

specialising in the

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

. Burridge currently occupies the Chair of Linguistics in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

Career

Burridge earned her PhD at the University College London in 1983 with a dissertation entitled, ''Some aspects of syntactic change in Germanic, with particular reference to Dutch.'' Besides her research on

Pennsylvania Dutch The Pennsylvania Dutch (), also referred to as Pennsylvania Germans, are an ethnic group in Pennsylvania in the United States, Ontario in Canada, and other regions of both nations. They largely originate from the Palatinate (region), Palatina ...

-speaking communities in Canada and grammatical change in Germanic languages, she has written influential works on the nature of

euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

and

dysphemism A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are derogatory either about the subject matter or to the audience. Dysphemisms contrast with neutral or Euphemism, euphemistic expressions. Dysphemism may be motivated by fear, Distasteful, dista ...

, linguistic

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

, and on English grammatical structure in general. Burridge is a regular presenter of language segments on ABC Radio. She appeared weekly as a panellist on ABC TV's '' Can We Help?'', and has also appeared on '' The Einstein Factor''.

Honors and distinctions

She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998 and Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2020. She is a member of the editorial board of the '' Australian Journal of Linguistics''.Taylor & Francis Journals: Welcome
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Selected works

Monographs

* * "Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon" (1991, Oxford University Press) – co-authored with Keith Allan. *"Diachronic Studies on the Languages of the Anabaptists" (1992, Universittsverlag Brockmeyer) – co-edited with Werner Enninger. *"Syntactic Change in Germanic" (1993, John Benjamins). *"Canada – Australia: Towards a Centenary of Partnership" (1997, Carlton Uni Press) – co-edited with Lois Foster and Gerry Turcotte. *"English in Australia and New Zealand – An Introduction to its Structure, History and Use" (1998, Oxford University Press) – co-authored with Jean Mulder. *"Introducing English Grammar" (2000, Edward Arnold) – co-authored with Kersti Börjars. *"Blooming English: Observations on the roots, cultivation and hybrids of the English Language" (2004, Cambridge University Press; published 2002 by ABC Books). *"Weeds in the Garden of Words: further observations on the tangled history of the English language" (2005, Cambridge University Press; published 2004 by ABC Books). *"Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language" (2006, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) – co-authored with Keith Allan.

Book reviews

References

External links

Monash University Staff PageKate Burridge
at '' The Conversation'' Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Academics of the University of Westminster Alumni of the University of London Australian Book Review people Australian non-fiction writers Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities Academic staff of La Trobe University Linguists from Australia Academic staff of Monash University Sociolinguists University of Western Australia alumni Australian women linguists {{Australia-linguist-stub