An internationally renowned sociolinguist and an expert in private law and commercial regulation at The University of Western Australia have been awarded prestigious Oxford University Fellowships.
Associate Professor Celeste Rodríguez Louro, from the School of Social Sciences, and Professor Elise Bant, from UWA’s Law School, have been awarded Visiting Fellowships at Oxford’s All Souls College in the UK.
Image: Professor Elise Bant and Associate Professor Celeste Rodríguez Louro.
Professor Bant’s theory of Systems Intentionality provides a powerful, principled and practical way of unmasking corporate fraud, by proving corporations’ real knowledge and intentions.
The model was recently endorsed in the High Court of Australia, providing a springboard for new research and reforms for organisational responsibility.
During her Fellowship, Professor Bant will focus on the insights offered by her model for public entities – in particular, governments and the agencies and corporations through which they act.
“Recent decades have seen a surge of interest on the part of scholars, law reform bodies and legislators on how to hold corporations to account for serious misconduct such as fraud and predatory trade practices,” Professor Bant said.
“Robodebt in Australia, and the Post Office Horizon scandal in the UK, suggests this work is urgently required and a fresh approach should be considered to address questions of public responsibility.”
Associate Professor Rodríguez Louro’s research focuses on sociolinguistics. She is interested in decolonisation, particularly the need to centre Indigenous voices in academic settings and in educational, health and technological spaces.
Her recent work explores the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and its interactions with language and society, especially how AI systems often fail to recognise or accurately represent non-dominant language varieties such as Aboriginal English.
During her Fellowship, she will focus on the theoretical foundations of decolonisation and how it relates to sociolinguistic theory and collaborate with scholars to examine the ethics of AI and its interaction with language and society.
“The way we use and understand language reflects broader social structures and also highlights how colonial legacies continue to shape perceptions of the legitimacy of language,” Associate Professor Rodríguez Louro said.
“There is a need to reimagine AI design and deployment to ensure it serves all speakers equitably, and to ensure that we change the technology to serve the speaker, not the other way around.”
All Souls College offers Visiting Fellowships each year to individuals wishing to undertake study and research in Oxford while contributing to the academic life of the College.
Selection is based on intellectual quality, the interest and feasibility of the proposed research project, and the benefit of pursuing it in Oxford.