Prof. Haviland is an anthropological linguist, with interests in the social life of language.
His major research has been on Tzotzil (Mayan) in highland Chiapas, Mexico, and its neighbors, as well as on languages from the area north of Cooktown, in far north Queensland, Australia.
Professor Haviland's most recent book is Old Man Fog and the Last Aborigines of Barrow Point (1998, Smithsonian Institution Press) - about the last speaker of the Barrow Point language from northeastern Australia--and Bases de la documentación linguistica, Spanish edition. México, DF: INALI 2007 (co-coordinator José Antonio Flores Farfán).