Dr Trent Newman

Position: Lecturer/Coordinator, Linguistics program (Co-delivered Education & Speech Pathology units)
Study area: Applied Linguistics
Location: Gippsland Campus, Room 2S-214
Phone: +61 3 5122 6560
Email: t.newman@federation.edu.au

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy – University of Melbourne – 2019

Master of Arts – University of California at Berkeley – 2008

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) – University of Queensland – 2002

Teaching

Courses

  • Master of Specialist Teaching
  • Master of Speech Pathology
  • Bachelor of Speech Pathology

Units

  • Language Acquisition (EDBSP1013; EDMSP6010)
  • Applied Psycholinguistics (EDBSP2014; EDMSP6014)
  • Language Development & Impairment (EDBSP2026)
  • Digital Teaching & Learning (EDMED7066)

Biography

Dr Trent Newman is a teacher-researcher who works with individuals and groups in diverse settings to understand variation and conformity, trends and transformations in language users' multilingual and multimodal communication practices. He has over twenty years’ experience working in formal and informal learning spaces across the education sectors and in work/vocational settings, in a wide variety of political and cultural contexts in Australia, the Pacific, East Asia, Europe, the US, and East Africa.

Prior to joining Federation University in 2025, Dr Newman was a researcher and lecturer in language and literacy education at the University of Melbourne for over ten years. Prior to that, he held teaching and/or research positions at the University of Sydney, Charles Darwin University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Griffith University.

His career has also covered a wide range of professional activities outside of academia, including:

  • work with UN agencies and other international organisations in advisory capacities;
  • community development project management in Timor-Leste, Uganda, and Nepal;
  • work as a professional translator for the Australian Government;
  • creation and delivery of anti-racism and intercultural education resources and programs for the NSW Department of Education;
  • work as a language teacher (Spanish, Tetun, and English).

Areas of expertise

Among other areas of interest, Dr Newman has contributed publications on recognising teacher agency in language policy processes, tracing the ideological origins and political complexities of multi/plurilingual pedagogies embedded in local contexts, and analysing the impacts of digital technologies and AI on contemporary working literacies. His most recent contributions draw on his research in multilingual tertiary settings in Southeast Asia and on his collaborative work on the National Language Teacher Education Project and the Literacy 4.0 project with colleagues at the University of Melbourne.

(1)  Language policy and teacher agency in post-colonial settings

This area of work has focused on language policy creation, transformation, and interpretation within education and workplace training settings in the Global South. Research projects led by Dr Newman in this area are exploring the space for and nature of teacher agency and voice in language policy processes in post-colonial settings, including how these are shaped by wider socio-political discourses reinforcing dominant language ideologies and hierarchies.

(2)  Localised, situated plurilingual pedagogiesPractice-led inquiry in this area focuses on how teachers (in Languages, as well as in other learning areas) adapt their pedagogies according to specific classroom contexts and the particular cultural, linguistic, and semiotic repertoires available to draw on for them and their students. Ethnographic and participatory action research methodologies are central to this work.

(3)  Literacy education in the age of human-AI textual co-production

This area of work is focused on developing a new conceptual framework for literacy education that recognises the fundamentally social and relational nature of human-AI textual co-production. Within such a framework, pedagogical priorities are refocussed towards equipping learners to navigate interactions with AI by:

  • a) cultivating critical and reflective engagements with AI-mediated authorship, and
  • b) interrogating discursive positioning and linguistic markers of voice within texts.

Research interests

  • Language and power/Language and identity/Poststructuralism
  • Creative resistance to linguistic and cultural hegemony in the Global South
  • Counter-narrative and agentive voice in contexts of heteroglossia
  • Language ideologies and language practices in post-colonial settings
  • Multilingual education/Translanguaging in teaching and learning
  • Plurilingual pedagogies
  • Critical Race Theory
  • Literacy as a social practice/human-AI textual co-creation
  • Mass literacy movements/Popular Education/Participatory Action Research

Supervision

Dr Newman is available for supervision in the following areas of research:

  • Medium-of-instruction in multilingual higher education
  • Language policy and planning
  • Sociology of education
  • Linguistic anthropology
  • Plurilingualism and translanguaging in teaching and learning
  • AI-integrated education and literacy
  • Working literacies in the 4th Industrial revolution
  • Culturally and linguistically responsive service delivery

Publications

Book chapters

Newman, T., Slaughter, Y., Truckenbrodt, A., Paolino, A., & Aliani, R. (forthcoming). Languages teacher education in Australia: Pathways, programming challenges, and prospects for a plurilingual future. In Z. Gabillon, Y. Slaughter & F. Boulard (Eds.) Language teacher education and language teaching in Oceania: Plurilingual perspectives. Routledge.

Newman, T. & Costa Akoyt, M. (forthcoming). Multilingual realities amid English ideologies: A decade of medium-of-instruction reform at ‘Timor Technical College’, Timor-Leste. In E. Low (Ed.) Handbook of Language Policies in Southeast Asia: Maritime Southeast Asia. Brill.

Newman, T. (2024). Conceptualising multilingualism in higher education in Timor-Leste: the case of petroleum studies. In I. Bhatt, K. Badwan & M. Madiba (Eds.) Critical Perspectives on Teaching in the Multilingual University (1st ed.). Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003545101-10

Newman, T. (2018). Transforming lexicon, transforming industry: University lecturers as language planners in Timor-Leste. In J. Choi & S. Ollerhead (Eds.) Plurilingualism in teaching and learning: Complexities across contexts. Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315392462

Newman, T. (2018). Policy and practicality in Timorese Higher Education: Lessons from lecturers in development-related disciplines. In J. Crandall & K. Bailey (Eds.) Global perspectives on language education policies. Routledge.  DOI: 10.4324/9781315108421

Refereed journal articles

Newman, T. (2022). Conceptualising multilingualism in higher education in Timor-Leste: the case of petroleum studies. Teaching in Higher Education, 27(4), 558–576. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2022.2048370.

Corbel, C., Newman, T., & Farrell, L. (2021). Gig Expectations: Literacy Practices, Events, and Texts in the Gig Economy. Written Communication, 39(1), 66-96. DOI: 10.1177/07410883211052941.

Newman, T. (2021). Tetun akadémiku: University lecturers’ roles in the intellectualisation of Tetum. Language Policy, 20, 77–98. DOI: 10.1007/s10993-020-09560-2.

Farrell, L., Newman, T., & Corbel, C. (2021). Literacy and the workplace revolution: a social view of literate work practices in Industry 4.0. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 42(6), 898–912. DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2020.1753016

Newman, T. (2019). Work-related literacy education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: An update on the Literacy 4.0 Project. Fine Print, 42(3), 20-22. https://valbec.org.au/resources/Documents/fp_2019_3_WEB_compressed.pdf#page=21

Newman, T. (2016). Myanmar language policy conference champions minority language education. Ogmios, 59, 10-11. http://www.ogmios.org/ogmios/Ogmios_059.pdf

Refereed conference proceedings

Newman, T. (2022). Atu dezenvolve Tetun: Fiar no hahalok hosi dosente sira kona-ba língua no literasía iha ensinu superior iha Timor-Leste. In A. da Silva, et al. (Eds.), Timor-Leste: The Island and the World (pp. 165–176). TLSA-PT. https://2020.tlsa.pt/en/atas/.

Associations

  • The Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA)
  • Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE)
  • Australian Council for Adult Literacy (ACAL)
  • The Victorian Adult Literacy and Basic Education Council (VALBEC)
  • Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (OCIES)
  • Australian Anthropological Society (AAS)