Awards given to language champions

Congratulations go out to three members of the First Languages Australia network for awards received recently.

Noongar linguist, Denise Smith-Ali has been announced Western Australia’s Local Hero 2014 in the WA Awards for Australian of the Year. The award is in recognition of the tireless dedication Denise has shown to language work in the state. She joins recipients from the other States and Territories as finalists for the national awards to be announced on January 25 in Canberra.

Author, editor, social commentator and First Languages Australia Director Bruce Pascoe was this year awarded the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for his 27th book, Fog a Dox.

First Languages Australia Director Kevin Lowe and Tyson Yunkaporta were honoured with the 2013 Colin Marsh Award for their paper, The Inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the Australian National Curriculum: A cultural cognitive and socio-political evaluation, published in Curriculum Perspectives Volume 33, No 1.