Professor Michael Ewing is Professor in Indonesian at the Asia Institute in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a dissertation entitled 'The clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation'; a Masters degree involving coursework and research from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; and a Bachelors degree. His research focuses on interactional linguistics, Indonesian and Javanese languages, grammar, discourse, pragmatic uses of demonstratives, person reference, address terms, sequentiality in conversation, youth language styles, and language practices in Indonesia. Ewing's work examines referential practices, the predicate as a locus of grammar and interaction in colloquial Indonesian, rapport in interaction, and stylistic features in youth communication.

At the University of Melbourne, Ewing has progressed through roles including Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies and Coordinator of the Indonesian Major. His scholarly contributions include key books such as 'Grammar and Inference in Conversation: Identifying Clause Structure in Spoken Javanese' (2005), 'Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar' (co-authored, 2012), 'Style and Intersubjectivity in Youth Interaction' (2018), 'Contact Talk: The Discursive Organization of Contact and Boundaries' (2019), and 'Reimagining Rapport' (2021). Selected articles and chapters feature 'Motivations for first and second person subject expression and ellipsis in Javanese conversation' (2014), 'Language varieties and youthful involvement in Indonesian fiction' (2015), 'Reiterative construction of narrative: A storytelling device from Javanese conversation' (2016), 'Chapter 11. Address, reference and sequentiality in Indonesian conversation' (2019), and 'Rapport to Fit In—Rapport to Stand Out' (2021). He has participated in projects like the Documentation of the Language of the Baduy Dalam. Ewing's publications with Oxford University Press, John Benjamins Publishing Company, and Routledge have advanced understanding of conversational structures, (non)referentiality, and cultural linguistics in Southeast Asian contexts.

Professional Email: m.ewing@unimelb.edu.au