U.S. TRAVEL GRANT

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29857, 25 June 1962, Page 10

U.S. TRAVEL GRANT

Former Otago Lecturer A Carnegie Travel Grant has been awarded to Dr. R. A. Barrell, senior lecturer in the department of modern languages, Monash University, Victoria. Dr. Barrell, a graduate of the University of Canterbury (1939-1944), was formerly senior lecturer in the department of modern languages, University of Otago. The grant, valued at 2500 dollars, will enable Dr. Barrell to spend three months in Canada and the United States. After attending the ninth international congress of linguists at Harvard, Massachusetts, he will visit several leading American language laboratories as well as important linguistic centres Dr. Barrell is interested in mathematical linguistics and in applied mathematical linguistics, such as automatic language translation. These are fields which have only recently assumed importance and which he believes should be introduced to Australian universities. He has planned a language laboratory for Monash, which will be operating early next year, and has already begun lectures in linguistics. He is also interested in the lates’ American theories

about the application of linguistics to the whole field of modern language teaching. Linguistic analysis already forms part of the French I syllabus at Monash, and he intends to develop this idea soon.

A comparison of the structures of languages— structural linguistics together with judicious use of the language laboratory could, he believed, revolutionise the whole concept of language teaching. Dr Barrell will fly to New York in mid-August, and will return in mid-December by way of Europe and the Middle East.