David Caldwell

Dr David Caldwell is an Associate Professor in English Language and Literacy in Education Futures.

David completed his Bachelor of Teaching, Bachelor of Arts(Hons) and Master of Arts in linguistics at Deakin University (Melbourne), and his PhD in linguistics at the University of Sydney. He then completed a post in Singapore where he worked as an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education in the School of English Language and Literature, before joining UniSA in 2014.

David’s research applies functional linguistics to a range of contemporary contexts, with a focus on the role language plays in learning, identity and inclusion. These contexts have included the on-field language practices of sports people, the language demands of NAPLAN and STEM, literacy practices on the APY Lands, English wordings on t-shirts in South-East Asia, the role of ‘Asia literacy’ in the Australian Curriculum, KanYe West’s hip-hop, and medical consultations between hospital patients and psychiatrists. Drawing on these various educational sites, ‘non-traditional’ texts, and marginalized language users, David aims to disrupt prescriptive discourses of language to facilitate social inclusion, and at the same time, demonstrate the value in understanding how language works to solve real-world problems. David is currently the co-series editor for the Bloomsbury series: Studies in Systemic Functional Linguistics and a co-conveyor of the AILA Research Network: Applied Linguistics in Sport.

David has more than 20 years experience teaching at a tertiary level, where he has taught a range of subjects in English language, literacy, and social linguistics. He has trained English language teachers for primary, secondary and tertiary level education in Australia and overseas. During his postgraduate studies, David taught in numerous primary school classrooms throughout Melbourne and Sydney. He currently provides professional learning sessions in English language and literacy to teachers and schools throughout South Australia.