Craig Alan Volker is a linguist with research interests in the pidgin-creole and indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea, especially the Bismarck Archipelago. Currently an Adjunct Professor in The Cairns Institute of James Cook University and Visiting Professor of Tok Pisin Studies at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, he was formerly Professor of Languages at Gifu Shōtoku Gakuen University in Japan and Professor of Linguistic Research at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea. He has also taught at Goroka Teachers College (now the University of Goroka) in Papua New Guinea, at high schools in Papua New Guinea and Australia, and as a visiting professor at universities in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Hawai'i about the Nalik language of New Ireland and his master’s thesis at the University of Queensland about Unserdeutsch (Rabaul Creole German) were the first linguistic descriptions of those languages. He has since written extensively about Nalik and Tok Pisin, is particularly interested in their use in modern media. He was the editor of the Oxford University Press Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin English Dictionary and is interested in the teaching of Tok Pisin as a foreign language. He divides his time between his homes in Portugal and New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, where he is a Wangpaang (Associate Talking Chief) of the Sea Eagle Clan.

Austronesian Languages, Cultural Studies, Education, Language Contact, Linguistic Description, Papua New Guinea, Translation, Pidgin-creole Languages, Nalik, Tok Pisin

Linguistics

European Society for Oceanists (ESfO)

Papua New Guinea
New Ireland (Papua New Guinea)
East New Britain (Papua New Guinea)

Melanesia
Papua New Guinea
New Ireland province
East New Britain province

The Colonial time
20th century
21st century

Tok Pisin, Nalik