Arvind Iyengar

Arvind’s research interests lie primarily in the domains of grapholinguistics, sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology, and language and dialect description.

• Much of Arvind's recent research has been on Sindhi, a major albeit understudied Indo-Aryan language. He is currently completing a scholarly monograph on Sindhi’s numerous historical and contemporary writing systems.
• Arvind has been actively involved in community projects on his native language of Hebbar Tamil, a unwritten contact variety of Dravidian stock with strong Sanskritic/Indo-Aryan influences. He is currently collaborating on a phonological overview of the language for peer-reviewed publication (with Chandan Narayan).
• Braille has been a site of convergence for Arvind's interests in grapholinguistics, phonetics, and pedagogical accessibility. He has authored a freely accessible reference resource on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with details of individual symbols presented in equivalent Latin and Braille forms. Targeted at students of phonetics, the resource is publicly available as a web app designed to be maximally accessible across a range of devices, from mobile screens to refreshable Braille displays.
• Arvind is the designer and ongoing coordinator of UNE’s Writing Systems of the World, an Australian-first coursework unit with a specialist focus on grapholinguistics. It can be completed as a Bachelor or Master level unit.

In addition to prior qualifications in Engineering and industry experience in Sales, Arvind is a graduate of UNE Linguistics’ fully-online Master of Applied Linguistics (MAAL) degree. Being a former distance student has given him first-hand experience of, and empathy for, the challenges faced by those studying off-campus at UNE. Arvind harnesses and draws extensively on his insights as a distance student to inform his teaching philosophies and pedagogical practices, with particular emphasis on ensuring equitable access to students of all backgrounds and abilities. 

Subject to capacity, Arvind is available for supervising doctoral, Master and Bachelor (Honours) research dissertations in his areas of expertise and interest.