'Professor Goddard's main research interests are in lexical and grammatical semantics, language description and typology, and cross-cultural pragmatics. He has made important theoretical contributions toward the development of the NSM ('natural semantic metalanguage') approach to semantic analysis, in conjunction with the leading figure in this field Professor Anna Wierzbicka. He has worked extensively on the Western Desert Language of Central Australia, having published a dictionary and grammar of the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara dialects of that language. His descriptive focus is on the cultural semantics of and pragmatic conventions of Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Goddard has published articles in journals such as Man, Anthropological Linguistics, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Culture & Psychology, Ethos, Forensic Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Language & Communication, Language Sciences, Oceanic Linguistics, Semiotica and Studies in Language. With Anna Wierzbicka, he is co-editor of Semantic and Lexical Universals-Theory and Empirical Findings (John Benjamins, 1994). He is editor of Studies in the Syntax of Universal Semantic Primitives (a 'special issue' of Language Sciences, 1997). He is author of the textbook Semantic Analysis: A Practical Introduction (Oxford University Press, 1998). He is co-editor, with Anna Wierzbicka, of a two-volume collection of studies 'Meaning and Universal Grammar' (John Benjamins, 2002). In the 1980s Dr Goddard worked in educational applications of linguistics in Central Australia and in language teaching, with the Institute for Aboriginal Development (Alice Springs) and the SA Education Department's Anangu Schools Resource Centre (Ernabella). He has also published on Pitjantjatjara literacy development.' (Source : The Australian Academy of the Humanities website)
