Jeanette King

Dr. Jeanette King serves as a Professor in Aotahi: School of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury, where she leads the bilingualism theme at the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB). Her extensive research portfolio spans multiple aspects of the Māori language, including pronunciation changes, phrasal lexicon development, and language revitalization efforts. As a key member of the MAONZE (Māori and New Zealand English) project, she has conducted groundbreaking research on sound changes in the Māori language over the past century, while her recent work includes the innovative Tuhinga Māhorahora project, which analyzes children's writing in Māori immersion schools to provide valuable feedback to teachers. Her research has revealed significant findings about non-Māori speakers' understanding of te reo Māori, showing they can recognize over 1,000 words but understand only about 70, contributing valuable insights to language revitalization efforts. As a prominent scholar in Indigenous language studies, she has published extensively on various aspects of Māori linguistics, including the intergenerational transmission of minority languages, Māori English, and non-verbal behavior of Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand. Her work has been particularly influential in understanding how incidental exposure to language can aid in language learning and preservation, supporting the government's aim of having one million New Zealanders speaking te reo by 2040.