Our close friend and colleague Terry Crowley died suddenly at the age of 51 in January 2005 in his home in Hamilton, New Zealand, cutting short a brilliant and prolific career in linguistics. One common theme among the many tributes to Terry and the bittersweet reminiscing of his many friends around the world was that Terry never did things half way whether it was enjoying good food, going bush-walking, or doing linguistics. Just as he would eat a box of chocolates in one go, when he got the urge, he would sit down and write a journal article in a day or two. Just as he loved to visit friends in different countries, he revelled in doing linguistic fieldwork (and each year went off for a few months to Malakula in Vanuatu). To Terry, doing linguistics was another indulgence — even more important than eating "mega-disgusting desserts", as he called them. Therefore, we have tried to make this memorial volume for Terry a "linguistic indulgence" — including 35 studies by Terry's friends, colleagues and admirers, covering all of the types of languages he worked on: Australian, Oceanic, pidgins and creoles, and varieties of English.

The authors of this report are five Australian experts in the fields of sociolinguistics, phonetics (analysis of accent or pronunciation) and language testing. Their report raises concerns about the "language analysis" that is being done by overseas agencies and that is being used by the Australian government in determining the nationality of refugee claimants, and concludes that "language analysis", as it is currently used, is not valid or reliable. It appears to be based on "folk views" about the relationship between language and nationality and ethnicity, rather than sound linguistic principles. The report found that: i) a person's nationality cannot always be determined by the language he or she speaks, ii) a few key words and their pronunciation normally cannot reveal a person's nationality or ethnicity, iii) common perceptions about pronunciation differences among groups of people cannot be relied upon, iv) any analysis of pronunciation must be based on thorough knowledge of the language and region in question and must involve detailed phonetic analysis. Furthermore, in a study of 58 Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) decisions in which this "language analysis" was at issue, it was found that there were doubts over its validity. The authors have grave concerns that the use of "language analysis" in the determination of nationality may be preventing Australia from properly discharging its responsibilities under the Refugees Convention and therefore call on the Australian Government to stop using this type of analysis.

Our close friend and colleague Terry Crowley died suddenly at the age of 51 in January 2005 in his home in Hamilton, New Zealand, cutting short a brilliant and prolific career in linguistics. One common theme among the many tributes to Terry and the bittersweet reminiscing of his many friends around the world was that Terry never did things half way-whether it was enjoying good food, going bush-walking, or doing linguistics. Just as he would eat a box of chocolates in one go, when he got the urge, he would sit down and write a journal article in a day or two. Just as he loved to visit friends in different countries, he revelled in doing linguistic fieldwork (and each year went off for a few months to Malakula in Vanuatu). To Terry, doing linguistics was another indulgence even more important than eating "mega-disgusting desserts", as he called them. Therefore, we have tried to make this memorial volume for Terry a "linguistic indulgence"-including 35 studies by Terry's friends, colleagues and admirers, covering all of the types of languages he worked on: Australian, Oceanic, pidgins and creoles, and varieties of English.