SERVICE TO THE LINGUISTIC COMMUNITY
- Fellow, Australian Academy for the Humanities.
- Co- Editor, Journal of Sino-Tibetan Linguistics (《汉藏语学报》), Commercial Press, Beijing.
- Associate Editor, Language and Linguistics (Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, and Sage Publications Ltd.).
- Member, Advisory Committee of the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
- Honorary Member, Linguistic Society of the Philippines.
- Vice Chairman, International Association for Bilingual Studies.
- Member, Advisory Board, Center for the Study of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity (joint centre of China Central Nationalities University / Minzu Daxue, Beijing, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen Germany).
- Member, Editorial Advisory Board, EL Publishing (Open Access publishing on endangered languages) (http://www.elpublishing.org).
- Member, Editorial Board, Chinese Language and Discourse, Benjamins.
- Member, Editorial Board, Cultural Diversity in China, de Gruyter, since Jan 2014, when it was founded
- Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Open Linguistics (Open Access journal), De Gruyter Open (http://degruyteropen.com/).
- Member, International Advisory Board of Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics.
- Member, Editorial Board, Australian Journal of Linguistics.
- Member, Editorial Board, Researching and Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (Equinox), since July 2013.
- Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Tibetology (Center of Foreign Tibetology, Shaanxi Normal University).
- Member, Board of Editorial Consultants, Philippine Journal of Linguistics (journal of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines).
- Member, International Editorial Board of Transactions of the Philological Society.
- Member, Editorial Board of Minzu Yuwen (《民族语 文》)(Nationality Languages) (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences).
- Member, Advisory Board, The Journal of Modern Languages (Faculty of Language and Linguistics, University of Malaya).
- Member, Editorial Board, Macrolinguistics (New York: The Learned Press).
- Member, Editorial Board, Nankai Yuyanxue Kan (《南开语言学刊》) (Linguistics Journal of Nankai University)
- Member, Advisory Board, Chinese Studies Review (The Australian
Tertiary Chinese
Teachers Association, Melbourne, Australia) - Creator and Moderator of the Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Listserv (<tibeto-burman-linguistics@ LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>), a networking avenue for scholars working on Tibeto-Burman languages and cultures, 2005-present.
- Creator and Webmaster for The Tibeto-Burman Domain (Tibeto-Burman.net), a web site for the dissemination of information and resources related to the study of Tibeto-Burman languages and cultures, 2005-present.
- Consulting Editor, Studies in Language (1997-2014).
- Member, Review Panel of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) funded by Arcadia (previously known as the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund), 2010-2012.
- Editor, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 2005-2012.
- President, Australian Linguistic Society, 2007-2009.
- Vice President, Australian Linguistics Society, 2005-2007.
- Cheung Kong Scholar (Adjunct Chair Professor),Central University of Nationalities, Beijing, China, 2005-2008.
- Member, Editorial Board of Language and Linguistics (《语言与语言 学》)(Institute of Linguistics, Academica Sinica), 2004-2009.
- Member, Academic Committee, Summer Institute for Linguistics Australia, 2007-2009.
- Organizer and Host of the 10th RCLT International Workshop, “The Shaping of Language: The Relationship between the Structures of Languages and their Social, Cultural, Historical, and Natural Environments”, La Trobe University, 14-16, July 2010.
- Co-organizer, International Symposium: Sino-Tibetan Comparative Studies in the 21st Century, Institute of Linguistics, Academic Sinica, 24-25 June, 2010.
- Organizer and Host, ALS2009, the 40th annual meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society, Melbourne, July 9-11, 2009.
- Co-organizer, 11th Congress of the International Pragmatics Association, July 12-17, 2009, Melbourne.
- Organizer and Host, Third Cross-Straits Workshop on Tibeto-Burman Languages and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong, April 17-18, 2004.
- Member, Organizing Committee, First International Conference on Modern Chinese Grammar for the New Millennium (The Seventh Conference on Modern Chinese Grammar), City University of Hong Kong, Feb. 1-3, 2001.
- Advisor for E-MELD: Electronic Metastructures for Endangered Languages Data Project (2000-present) (Participated as Panel Member in the Workshop on the Digitization of Endangered Language Data: The Need for Standards, Santa Barbara, June 21-24, 2001, and the Workshop on Digitizing and Annotating Texts and Field Recordings, East Lansing, July 11-13, 2003).
- Course Presenter, "Morphosyntactic Typology and Grammaticalization in Sino-Tibetan", Fourth Australian Linguistics Institute, The University of Queensland, July 6-16, 1998.
- External Course Examiner for the course "Semantics and Pragmatics" at The Open University of Hong Kong, 1998-2000.
- Served as External Examiner in two hiring searches for The Open University of Hong Kong, 2000 (Assistant Professor hiring) and 2002 (Associate Professor hiring).
- Served as External Examiner for dissertations completed at The Australian National University, La Trobe University, Stockholm University, and The University of Manitoba.
- Aside from those journals I am on the editorial boards of, I have reviewed submissions to Language, Linguistic Typology, Cahiers de linguistique asie orientale, Linguistics and Philosophy, Lingua, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics, The Linguistic Review and other publications and presses. I also have reviewed project proposals submitted to the European Research Council, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (SOAS), the Research Grants Council of HK, the National Science Foundation (USA), the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Australian Research Council. I am also frequently asked to evaluate other linguists for promotion and tenure.