Dr Joshua Brown
Areas of expertise
- Italian Language 200309
- Language In Culture And Society (Sociolinguistics) 200405
- Language In Time And Space (Incl. Historical Linguistics, Dialectology) 200406
- Linguistics Not Elsewhere Classified 200499
Research interests
- Language history
- Philology
- Historical sociolinguistics
- Language variation and change
- Romance linguistics
- Language contact
- Language pedagogy
- Digital Humanities
Biography
I am a historical sociolinguist. After completing my PhD in history of the Italian language, I was Cassamarca Assistant Professor in Italian at The University of Western Australia. My first book looks at early evidence for tuscanisation in non-literary texts sent from Milan in the late fourteenth century. I was lucky enough to make use of documents in the Datini Archive, Prato whose more than 150,000 documents are almost all available for viewing online. A second, co-authored book, provides a study of the nearly 200 extant letters held in the New Norcia Archive and written by an Italian priest in colonial Western Australia. In addition to the history of the Italian language, my research interests have widened to include broader questions of dialect contact, language change, and koineization using tools from Digital Humanities.
I was a postdoctoral fellow in Italian Studies at Romanska och klassiska institutionen, Stockholm University, before taking up my position in Italian at ANU. I am the Convenor for the Italian Studies program, an affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language and an associate of the ANU Centre for Digital Humanities Research. I am the stream leader for historical sociolinguistics at ANU’s Centre for Research on Language Change, and an active member of the Anglo-Saxon reading group on Wednesdays during term time.
You can hear more about me and my research here and watch a short video here.
Researcher's projects
1) Koineization in Renaissance Italy
The focus of my current project is on the historical formation of ‘common’ or koine languages, and their interaction with standard languages. In particular, I am interested in how different grammars react to each other and form a common language when different dialects are brought together by processes of (relatively quick) migration. This situation arises often in historical contexts, and is particularly prevalent in late medieval Italy. I am currently writing a volume which investigates these microlevel dynamics in the letters of a nun from fifteenth-century Milan, Margherita Lambertenghi. Using freshly discovered archival materials from the Archivio di Stato in Milan, focus is placed on the role of women’s writing in Renaissance Italy and how a linguistic analysis of this writing can help us understand language change. Margherita’s letters contain evidence of a form of non-literary Milanese that is so far undocumented in the literature and has been understudied. Due to an extreme lack of documents from Milan during the fifteenth century, her writing contains precious insights to the broader forms of language mixing that was part of an ongoing process.
2) Languages of Renaissance Italy (with Dr Alessandra Petrocchi, University of Oxford)
This unique volume represents the first-ever collection of essays that deal with multiple types of language contact and cross-cultural exchanges in and with respect to Renaissance Italy (1300 to 1600). The contributions span a wide variety of topics, including the development of the Italian language from Latin, early Italian vernaculars, cross-linguistic and cultural exchanges with the Mediterranean regions (thus with Hebrew, Arabic, and Byzantine Greek primary sources) and European countries (Spanish, French, German, Dutch, and Middle English primary sources). The volume employs comparative methods, cross-linguistic research, and investigates interdisciplinary topics. It takes a fresh approach to the history of late medieval and early modern Italy by focusing on East/West linguistic and cultural encounters, transmission of ideas and texts, multilingualism in literature (various genres and various forms of multilingualism), translation practices, reception/adaptation, transculturalism and literary exchanges, and the relationship between languages and language varieties. It aims to provide a comprehensive picture of a truly global Renaissance Italy where languages, textual traditions, and systems of knowledge from different geographical areas either combined or clashed. This volume is due for publication with Brepols in 2021.
Current student projects
Associate Supervisor
The diachrony of definiteness in Syriac (PhD, 2020 - ongoing)
Exploring teacher perceptions of assessment in languages: The French Language Progression Framework K-10 (MPhil, 2019 - ongoing)
Past student projects
Primary Supervisor
Persistence and Innovation of the -isc- Inchoative Infix in Three Dictionaries Concerning Infinitive Forms in Southern Calabrian Dialects (2020, Honours)
Exploring the migrant in Italian cinema: the case of Marco Tullio Giordana’s Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti and Cristina Comencini’s Bianco e nero (2011, Honours)
Publications
- Brown, J 2020, 'Towards the elaboration of a diastratic model in historical analyses of koineization', Sociolinguistic Studies, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 505-529.
- Brown, J 2020, 'Language history from below: Standardization and Koineization in Renaissance Italy', Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-28.
- Brown, J 2019, 'Una memoria quattrocentesca in volgare lombardo', La Lingua Italiana: storia, strutture, testi, vol. 15, pp. 57-73.
- Brown, J, Caruso, M, Arvidsson, K et al. 2019, 'On 'Crisis' and the pessimism of disciplinary discourse in foreign languages: An Australian perspective', Moderna sprak, vol. 113, no. 2, pp. 40-58.
- Brown, J 2018, 'Il contatto linguistico nel medioevo lombardo (Linguistic contact in the Lombard Middle Ages)', Revista de Filologia Romanica, vol. 35, pp. 103-118.
- Brown, J & Verdina, F 2018, 'Managing Expectations: A Case Study of Sessional Staff in Languages and Cultures Education in Australian Universities', Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 19-27.
- Brown, J 2018, 'Passione Trivulziana. Armonia evangelica volgarizzata in milanese antico. Edizione critica e commentata, analisi linguistica e glossario', Italian Studies, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 114-116pp.
- Brown, J 2017, 'The Influence of Milan on the Development of the Lombard Koine in Fifteenth-Century Italy: the Letters of Elisabetta of Pavia', Quaderni d'Italianistica, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 131-151pp.
- Brown, J 2017, 'Multilingual merchants: the trade network of the 14th century Tuscan merchant Francesco di Marco Datini', in Esther-Miriam Wagner, Bettina Beinhoff, Ben Outhwaite (ed.), Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders, De Gruyter Mouton, Germany, pp. 235-251.
- Brown, J 2017, Early Evidence for Tuscanisation in the Letters of Milanese Merchants in the Datini Archive, Prato, 1396-1402, Istituto Lombardo. Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, Italy.
- Caruso, M & Brown, J 2017, 'Continuity in foreign language education in Australia: The Language Bonus plan', Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (print edition), vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 280-310pp.
- Brown, J 2016, Book Review: Report of Rosendo Salvado to Propaganda Fide in 1883, pp. online.
- Brown, J & Caruso, M 2016, 'Access granted: Modern languages and issues of accessibility at university - a case study from Australia', Language Learning in Higher Education, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 453-471pp.
- Caruso, M & Brown, J 2015, 'Broadening units to broadened horizons: The impact of New Courses 2012 on enrolments in Italian at the University of Western Australia', Babel, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 23-37.
- Brown, J 2015, 'Testimonianze di una precoce toscanizzazione nelle lettere commerciali del mercante milanese Francesco Tanso (?-1398), Archivio Datini, Prato (Testimonies of an early Tuscanization in the commercial letters of the Milanese merchant Francesco Tanso (?-1398, Forum Italicum, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 683-714pp.
- Brown, J & Kinder, J 2015, Canon Raffaele Martelli in Western Australia, 1853-1864, Morning Star Publishing, Australia.
- Caruso, M & Brown, J 2014, 'Innovative translation: Dubbing films in Italian with iMovie', Languages & Cultures Network for Australian Universities Colloquium (LCNAU 2013) - The Second National LCNAU Colloquium, ed. C Travis, J Hajek, C Nettelbeck, E Beckmann and A Lloyd-Smith, LCNAU, Australia, pp. 507-518pp.
- Brown, J & Caruso, M 2014, 'New Courses 2012: The impact on enrolments in Italian at the University of Western Australia', Languages & Cultures Network for Australian Universities Colloquium (LCNAU 2013) - The Second National LCNAU Colloquium, ed. C Travis, J Hajek, C Nettelbeck, E Beckmann and A Lloyd-Smith, LCNAU, Australia, pp. 39-53pp.
- Brown, J 2013, 'Book Review: Tyler, Elizabeth M., ed. Conceptualizing Multilingualism in England, c. 800-c. 1250 (Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 27),Turnhout, Brepols, 2012', Parergon, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 254-256.
- Brown, J 2013, 'Transcribing the Italian Correspondence of Canon Raffaele Martelli, 1853-1864', New Norcia Studies, vol. 21, pp. 73-82.
- Brown, J 2013, 'Language Variation in Fifteenth-Century Milan: Evidence of Koineization in the Letters (1397 - 1402) of the Milanese Merchant Giovanni da Pessano', Italian Studies, vol. 68, no. 1, pp. 57-77.
- Brown, J 2012, 'Evidence for Early Tuscanisation in the commercial letters of the Milanese Merchant Giovannino Da Dugnano (?-1398) in the Datini Archive in Prato', Italica, vol. 89, no. 4, pp. 464-488.
- Brown, J 2012, 'Book Review: Gran Bretagna: 249. Lorenzo Rocchi, La lingua di chi e' emigrato. Un indagine tra la Sicilia e l'Inghilterra. In "Altreitalie" 33, 2006: pp. 129-156 (Great Britain: 249. Lorenzo Rocchi, The language of those who emigrated. A survey between Sic', Rivista Italiana di Dialettologia: scuola societa territorio, vol. 35, pp. 510-510.
- Brown, J 2008, 'Book Review: Richard Freadman, This Crazy Thing a Life: Australian Jewish Autobiography, UWA Press, Crawley, 2007', Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, vol. 14, pp. 115-116.