Ilana Mushin

Biography

Ilana Mushin is currently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland and past President of the Australian Linguistic Society (2017-2022). Her research focuses on the relationships between grammar, culture, cognition and social interation, with a particular focus on Australian First Nations Languages. Her work combines descriptive linguistics, linguistic typology, conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. She has worked with the Garrwa language community (Borroloola, Northern Territory) on the documentation and description of that language since 1999. Publications resulting from this work include A Grammar of (Western) Garrwa (Mouton De Gruyter 2012). Professor Mushin has also published widely on the management of knowledge in grammar and social interaction, including Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance: Narrative Retelling (John Benjamins, 2001) and edited a 2022 special issue of Journal of Pragmatics on ‘rights to know’ in small communities.

Professor Mushin has been a Chief Investigator on four ARC Discovery Projects, an ARC Linkage Project and a NHMRC Ideas Grant, in addition to research funded by AIATSIS and the Queensland Department of Education. She served on the ARC College of Experts (2018-2020). She is the founding co-editor of the journal Interactional Linguistics (John Benjamins) and currently serves as Vice-President of the International Society for Conversation Analysis. She also serves on the Board of the Council for Humanities and Social Sciences.