Speakers

Emeritus Professor Roland Sussex MA, PhD, OAM, FQA, Chevalier des Palmes Académiques

BIOGRAPHY:

Roland (Roly) Sussex (M.A. Hons Canterbury; PhD London) is a specialist in language, communication and culture, and health communication. He was Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Queensland from 1989 until 2010. Before that he taught Linguistics and Russian at the University of Reading (UK) and Monash University in Melbourne, and was the foundation professor of Russian at the University of Melbourne from 1977 to 1989.

He is currently Research Professor in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, and in the School of Languages and Cultures, at the University of Queensland. Since "retiring" he has become involved in social issues as a public intellectual.

He was chair of the Library Board of Queensland from 2009 to 2014, and then Deputy Chair (2014-2016). He was President of the Alliance Française of Brisbane (2010-2017), and is currently President of the English Speaking Union of Queensland (2018-).

In 2012 he was made Patron of the Institute of Professional Editors. He is co-editor of the international journal Intercultural Communication Studies, and is a member of the editorial boards of a number of academic journals.

His current research is focused on language, culture and society, technology, and, more recently, pain and health. He is a member of the PainLang Research Group at the University of Queensland, which is investigating the use of language in the diagnosis, treatment and management of pain (http://www.uq.edu.au/painlang/).

His most recent major publications are The Slavic languages with Paul Cubberley, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Andy Kirkpatrick and Roland Sussex (eds), English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education. Berlin and London: Springer-Verlag, 2012); and Andy Curtis and Roland Sussex (Eds). (2018). Intercultural communication in Asia: Education, language and values. Berlin and London: Springer Verlag. And of course Word for today (University of Queensland Press, 2021).

Roly Sussex wrote a weekly column on language for the Brisbane Courier-Mail from 2006 to 2021. His talkback radio program A Word in Your Ear has been broadcast every week to Queensland on ABC radio since 1997, and for the last 20 years to South Australia. His Queensland broadcasts are podcast by the ABC:

         https://www.abc.net.au/radio/brisbane/programs/saturdaymorning/a-word-in-your-ear/

         https://www.abc.net.au/radio/brisbane/programs/saturdaymorning/woofties/

When he is not engaged in researching and writing about language, communication, culture and health, he works on his garden and acreage, rides road bikes and mountain bikes, and indulges his passion for classical music.

He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2012, and was a made a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French Government in 2017, and a member of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.