School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemDevelopment of Second Language Pragmatic Competence at Advanced Proficiency Levels( 2023-11)Whereas much of the research in testing L2 pragmatics has been concerned with learners from low to higher-intermediate levels of proficiency, this study examined the pragmatic performance of advanced L2 learners to identify some of the features that best describe advanced pragmatic competence. To do this, 45 advanced EFL teachers from Chile at B2 and C1 level of the CEFR performed four speaking tasks: two monological and two role-play tasks. Employing a CA-inspired methodological approach, the groups were compared in terms of openings, preliminaries, core action, posterior moves, and closings for both types of task. Findings agree with previous research indicating that as proficiency increased, advanced learners had more access to linguistic resources, successfully marked disaffiliative actions as dispreferred, and identified contextual cues to produce talk. Lastly, the results also suggest that some features of pragmatic competence and interactional competence can be elicited through monologic tasks.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe affordances of pedagogical translanguaging in university language teaching and learning( 2023-11)As Australian universities are increasingly recognised as multilingual spaces (e.g., Ollerhead & Baker, 2019; Pauwels, 2014a, 2014b), student cohorts in language courses are also becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse. Taking translanguaging as a conceptual framework (e.g., Li, 2018), this project explores language students’ understanding of the notion of translanguaging and its pedagogical affordances in language learning through recognising prior experiences with and knowledge of languages and linguistic practices as resources (Cummins, 2017; de Jong et al., 2019). As translanguaging is a debated and complex notion (e.g., Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021; Jaspers, 2018), the conceptual framework of this research includes all its dimensions (e.g., Leung & Valdes, 2019; Slembrouck, 2022) - theoretical, pedagogical, methodological and critical - to investigate its pedagogical potential in multilingual language learning spaces. Within this translanguaging framework, this project draws on the notions of linguistic repertoire (Busch, 2012), translanguaging space and moment analysis (Li, 2011), and post-monolingual research methodology (Singh, 2018, 2019, 2020) to investigate the pedagogical affordances of translanguaging in learning additional languages. In this instance, the term “additional languages” refers to languages other than English that are not a majority language in the chosen context. Through two case studies, the project collected data on language students’ experience of translanguaging (case study 1) and on the affordances of pedagogical translanguaging for beginner Italian learners’ writing skills (case study 2). The findings suggest that students’ understanding of translanguaging occurs through a complex negotiated process that develops through experiential, collaborative and reflective practices facilitated by the pedagogical design purposefully planned by the language teacher. The affordances of pedagogical translanguaging (e.g., Cenoz & Gorter, 2022a) for writing processes are enabled by a preliminary exploration of linguistic repertoires through multimodal biographies such as the language portrait (Busch, 2018) and translanguaging affordances (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2020) planned to leverage shared linguistic repertoires as communicative and semiotic resources. Within this process, language students activate translanguaging practices to achieve enhanced linguistic competence as well as a more autonomous expression of agency and identity in the learning process.
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ItemAuthenticity Evaluations in Translational Discourse: A Case-Study of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in English( 2023-09)Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: eine indische Dichtung (1922) represents a phenomenon for which it is difficult to find another example: a European appropriation of the East that was embraced by that very East itself, even in the midst of post-colonial resistance. Siddhartha’s iconic status across cultures ranging from the Anglosphere to South America, India, Nepal, Japan, Korea and Thailand (just to name a few) presupposes the widespread acceptance of its authenticity. And in the 1960s, the North American counterculture movement and a generation of dissatisfied youth found either confirmation or solace in what became a spiritual classic. Yet if these diverse readerships encountered Hesse’s book predominantly through translation and often through indirect translation, what is the role of translation in this widespread perception of authenticity? How is authenticity evaluated – created, signalled, accepted, contested, rejected and revised – in the translated texts themselves as well as all of those texts generated by the translations – reviews, scholarship, introductions, commentary, translator biographies, letters, publishing documents, advertisements, adaptations? This research adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, triangulating the methods of translation history: archival research, bibliographic documentation, the tracing of agents and their cultural, ideological and social networks, a focus on translators as people and attention to paratext. Also incorporated are some of the methods of norm theory, descriptive translation studies, comparative literature and postcolonial studies. A new translation authenticity model, adapted from the field of psychology, is used to locate and analyse different kinds of authenticity appeals in the translational discourse of six distinct but related reception settings of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: a global view of flows and hubs in all languages, the original German reception, the 1960s counterculture reception, the Indian English-language print reception, the post copyright retranslations and Siddhartha in cyberspace. The model helps locate sources of authenticity evaluations (internal or external) as well as what exactly is being evaluated (texts or agents). It thus allows for four kinds of authenticity evaluation. Transfer authenticity (based on comparison of originals with translations) is externally sourced and evaluates text. Attitudinal authenticity (based on values and ideologies) is also externally sourced but evaluates agents (people or groups). Genre authenticity (based on non-translational literary values and poetics) is externally sourced and evaluates texts. Finally, reflexive authenticity is internally sourced and is based on evaluations of the self. Applying the translation authenticity model to these reception settings – over one hundred years of translational discourse – and then locating evolving patterns over time and space, the study comes to some intriguing conclusions: 1) internally sourced authenticity evaluations of translations of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha occur the most frequently; 2) when agents evaluate Siddhartha translations for authenticity, they are almost always evaluating other people, along with texts; 3) there exists a bifurcation of the implied status and role of the translator (and translations) between print and electronic publishing; 4) translator decisions and justifications become ever more reflexive in print retranslations – a trend toward “visible-ism”; 5) there is an increasing complexity of paratextual appeals in print editions, while cyberspace displays the opposite pattern: impoverishment of paratextual appeals, translation indifference and conflation between translations; and 6) online reviews indicate that readers will trade authenticity for other values. Authenticity evaluations in translational discourse thus turn out to be overwhelmingly non-empirical and modulated by ideologies and conceptions of the self. Given the rapid progress of translation- and language technologies, the results have implications for the future of literary translation, intercultural communication and publishing.
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ItemA Usage Based approach to Interlanguage Pragmatics( 2023-05)Recent research regarding the acquisition of interlanguage pragmatics and interactional competence has delved into the idea of a usage-based approach to their development. Therefore, this Ph.D. research project sought to investigate if, using a usage-based approach to teaching, low-level learners could generalize pragmatic features, i.e., pre-expansion sequences, by developing form-function- contexts mappings that could help them increase their pragmatic competence. Overall, this study agrees with previous research that has found that low-level learners are less likely to produce pre-expansion sequences when requesting and refusing. In addition, a usage-based approach to interlanguage pragmatics was proven effective since learners could produce pre-expansion sequences when requesting and generalize their form and function when refusing. Moreover, an unexpected finding includes possible incidental pragmatic learning of some features commonly used when requesting and using pre-pres to check for availability and secure the interlocutor's attention. Finally, this study also shed light on the possibility of teaching pragmatic features focusing on commonalities and their function across speech acts and the benefits of including the sequential organization of talk to improve learners' pragmatic and interactional competence.
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ItemEmpowering young L2 learners: Investigating the effectiveness of teacher versus peer feedback in different feedback processing conditions( 2023-10)Despite the proliferation of research on students’ engagement with feedback, how young and low-proficiency second language (L2) learners engage with different feedback sources in different feedback processing (languaging) conditions is under-represented in the literature. This study investigated young and low-proficiency L2 learners’ engagement with the teacher and peer feedback in different languaging conditions. It also compared how three distinct feedback conditions impacted L2 learners’ writing development over a school semester (15 weeks). A total of 123 Chinese lower-secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners (A1-A2 levels of English proficiency) aged 13-14 participated in this study. They formed three classes, which were randomly assigned to one of the three feedback conditions: individual written languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 1), collaborative oral languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 2), and peer feedback + teacher feedback (Condition 3). Over six weeks, students in the three conditions completed three writing tasks. A pre-test and a post-test were delivered before and after the treatment. A delayed post-test was carried out two weeks after the post-test. All students’ first and revised writing scripts in the three treatment sessions were collected to analyse learners’ behavioural engagement with different feedback sources. To analyse students’ cognitive engagement, 123 pieces of students’ individual written languaging sheets in Condition 1, and a total of 24 audio recordings of dyadic oral discussion in Conditions 2 and 3 were collected. Audio recordings of six focus group interviews with students (two interviews per condition) and three individual interviews with teachers were analysed for students’ affective engagement and teachers’ perceptions of the three feedback conditions. Finally, students’ writing performance at the three testing times was assessed using measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF), as well as writing scores awarded by two experienced teachers using an analytic rating scale. Findings showed that individual written languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 1) largely enhanced students’ noticing of teacher feedback, with a primary focus on grammar and mechanics. In contrast, collaborative oral languaging (Condition 2) elicited students’ deeper cognitive processing than individual written languaging and enabled students to focus more on the idea development of their writing. Students in Condition 1 incorporated more teacher feedback in their revisions than in Condition 2. Peer review activities in Condition 3 stimulated learners’ more extensive cognitive engagement with peer feedback than learners’ cognitive processing of teacher feedback in Condition 2. In addition to peer feedback, requests for clarification and confirmation triggered considerable languaging episodes in Condition 3. Both teacher and peer feedback receivers in Conditions 2 and 3 tended to assume a passive listener’s role in their pair talk. All students demonstrated positive affective engagement with teacher/peer feedback and the three feedback conditions, although with certain concerns. The three teachers raised practical considerations for implementing different feedback conditions in the exam-oriented instructional context. Ultimately, the three feedback conditions contributed to learners’ development in different writing aspects over time. Key findings are discussed drawing on previous research findings and both cognitive and sociocultural theoretical perspectives. This study provides methodological, theoretical, pedagogical, and policymaking implications for L2 writing instruction and research.
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ItemReferential Choice in Pitjantjatjara( 2023)This thesis investigates how speakers choose between different referential forms (lexical noun phrases, pronouns, and argument omission) in The Australian language Pitjantjatjara. Five Pitjantjatjara narratives are explored from an extensive corpus collected by Sasha Wilmoth during fieldwork. This thesis is guided by the theory of Preferred Argument Structure (PAS), a theory about the pattern of alignment of referential forms in particular grammatical roles. It is also guided by a body of literature on argument expression and referential choice, discussed in chapter 2. This thesis adopts two primary Research Questions, the first considering the syntactic factors influencing argument expression in Pitjantjatjara, and the second similarly considering the effects of semantic and discourse factors. Chapter 3 outlines how the coding of the data was approached, and the choices that were made with respect to the analysis of the data. The results are presented in chapter 4, first addressing the two Research Questions separately, then cross-analysing them to determine potential interactions between the relevant factors. The results were both consistent and different from the literature. As expected, humanness was a highly influential factor in the choice of referential form in Pitjantjatjara; human referents patterned differently to non-human referents with respect to their referential form. However, this study departs from prior work in that in Pitjantjatjara, free pronouns were found to be preferred over argument omission, especially when continuing referents through discourse. This contradicts the findings of several previous studies, especially on Australian languages, where null reference was posited to be the most popular method of signalling the continuation of a referent in a narrative.
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ItemKnowledge, temporalities and self-presentations in conversations about military work.( 2023-04)The aim of this thesis is to benefit veterans of recent military conflicts by enhancing our understanding of how they talk about their experiences of active service. To achieve this aim, microanalyses are conducted of specific ways in which 18 research participants display knowledge and manage epistemic asymmetries in sequences of oral storytelling and description. The collected data are 21 hours and 27 minutes of transcribed audio-visual recordings of dyadic interviews and triadic conversations. Besides contributing unique perspectives on the lived experiences of former soldiers, the thesis advances the very recent theoretical concept of epistemic calibration (Koskinen & Stevanovic, 2022) as a means of accessing and unpacking dynamic discursive processes which constitute what is usually referred to as epistemic stance. To illuminate the data, the research draws as necessary upon post-Labovian narrative theory, modern understandings of the Bakhtin-inspired notion of temporal calibration, the Goffmanian concept of animation (Goffman, 1981) and Kamio’s (1997) conceptualisation of epistemic entitlement as speaker rights over some territory of information. Additionally, some methodologies which are applied are influenced by Conversation Analysis (CA) and Interactional Linguistics (IL). Three communicative practices are studied, all of which allow speakers to fine-tune claims of epistemic access, link personal experiences to some generic category and establish rights to speak on behalf of a salient collectivity. They are uses of the generalised second person pronoun (generic you); responsive depictions (animations) of generalised situations and figures by a speaker other than the current floor-holder and switches between specific spatio-temporal scales and those which are generic, habitual, or iterative. The research establishes that speakers’ choices of generalising strategies in a conversation are linked to moment-by-moment distributions of contextually salient epistemic rights which emerge. The study findings suggest that when interlocutors are deemed to share epistemic entitlements, they can exploit common ground free from communicative obligations to make themselves understood. This new information is likely to assist those who offer mental health and wellbeing services to military veterans to be alert to the impact of social and contextual factors on the discursive practices which their clients employ when they talk about their wartime experiences.
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ItemWritten feedback in intermediate Japanese L2 classes: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes and practices( 2022)This thesis investigates the attitudes and practices of students and teachers surrounding written feedback in the context of an intermediate Japanese as a Second Language program. Despite the abundance of research investigating written feedback and the factors that influence its implementation and uptake in programs that teach English as an Additional Language, the field of research into second language acquisition has yet to explore written feedback outside of this context in any depth. Hence, the current study aims to begin to address this apparent gap in the existing literature by applying methodologies and theories from previous study to the novel environment of Japanese as a Second Language education. In particular, this was done in order to determine the validity of existing findings outside of the usual context and consider the reasons for any differences in results that might arise. Nine students and two teachers of an intermediate university JSL program provided both qualitative and quantitative data to the study via interviews, surveys, and collection of feedback provided on assignments. Analysis of this data then demonstrated that despite the difference in target language of the educational environment, teachers and students displayed similar attitudes and practices to those that had been observed in previously studied English as an Additional Language learning environments. Thus, the study demonstrates the validity of drawing upon previous literature from English as an Additional Language programs to inform pedagogy in other language learning environments, and facilitates further research on written feedback in environments that teach languages other than English.
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ItemThe reception effects of non-standard modes of subtitling( 2023-07)Chinese audiovisual products have won some attention in the West, but the process of translating and airing Chinese dramas on television channels and video-on-demand services such as YouTube and Netflix can still be time-consuming, leading viewers to turn to fansub groups like Viki or raw machine translation. This study thus investigates the reception of fansubs and raw machine-translated subtitles, considered as two non-standard modes of subtitling. It gathers data through recordings of screen-based activities (pausing, going back, fast-forwarding, and skipping), comprehension tests, and self-reported involvement. The participants are eighteen L1-English speakers with no knowledge of Mandarin and sixteen L1-English speakers with middle or high levels of proficiency in Mandarin. The research uses extracts from the Chinese period drama Nirvana in Fire (Season one) as a case study, aiming to identify the possible benefits and drawbacks of translation automation in subtitling, the roles of subtitles in the receptive process, and the learning effects that these non-standard modes of subtitling may entail. A triangulated method is applied to operationalise audience reception. Screen recordings and think-aloud protocols are used to record when a participant changes the pace of the audiovisual material and why they initiate such a screen-based activity. A comprehension test was designed to explore participants’ understanding of ten specific subtitle lines that contain problematic translations or translator notes provided by Viki fansubbers. Participants with knowledge of Chinese were required to complete additional vocabulary pre- and post-tests to test the vocabulary-learning effects associated with the two modes of subtitling. Interviews are conducted to elicit participants’ attitudinal feedback on the audiovisual material and their perception of raw machine-translated subtitles. Paratextual content, such as comments and reviews, surrounding the fansubbing website is also analysed to contextualise the experimental component of this research. The findings suggest that the present accuracy of raw machine-translated subtitles is sufficient to provide participants with a general understanding of audiovisual content. Most participants did not detect the presence of raw machine-translated subtitles when they were not informed about it beforehand, regardless of whether they had prior knowledge of Mandarin or not. However, their initial distrust of machine translation and apparently unconditional expectations of perfect machine translation output made it difficult for them to fully accept the comprehensive implementation of machine translation in subtitling. In terms of the roles of subtitles in reception, there were no significant differences in screen-based activities and comprehension scores between the two modes of subtitles. Participants were exposed to several other sources of information at any one time, apart from subtitles. It is thus found that elements in different channels can trigger screen-based activities, and in most cases, gaps in comprehension can be filled by messages construed via other channels. Although the participants’ responses indicated high levels of satisfaction with machine translation, those who noticed the presence of raw machine-translated subtitles tended to rate their own levels of involvement lower than did those who did not notice it. Interestingly, there was no such correlation with their willingness to continue watching. The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative results indicates that translation errors in subtitles can temporarily disrupt the immersive experience, but error-free subtitles are not a key criterion for further watching. Finally, participants with knowledge of Mandarin benefited from watching audiovisual content with either type of subtitles and the number of linguistic errors in subtitles was not a critical factor for vocabulary acquisition. Motivated language learners who were interested in the audiovisual genre were more likely to initiate screen-based activities while watching the video.
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ItemCreative Collisions: Uncovering creativity in doctoral writing contexts( 2023-05)Creativity exists uneasily in the shadows of doctoral life; its exact shape and form ambiguous and largely uncharted. Despite this peripheral presence and the silence which often surrounds it, this thesis asserts it is a necessary precursor to any original contribution to knowledge and thus, discovering more about it is crucial to doctoral educators. This work extends knowledge on creativity from two perspectives; the thesis / dissertation writers and their academic readers. The doctoral writer’s perspective was obtained through tracking the experiences of four multi-lingual writers in the Faculty of Arts at a research-intensive Australian university. Yet another perspective was gained through interviews with six experienced doctoral supervisors in the same faculty. Employing a critical ethnographic methodology, the researcher traced the students throughout their doctorate. This rich, longitudinal data helped illuminate the complex role creativity has in doctoral writing and highlights how doctoral writers emerge – or fail to emerge – as creative academic writers. I initially framed creativity as operating at the level of ‘literary’ language through ‘creative writing’ techniques such as word play and metaphor use. I felt that using these creative forms could be a force for positive change and innovation in doctoral writing contexts, encouraging writers to stretch boundaries, play with convention and transform patterns. However, I witnessed many writers moving away from these creative approaches during their candidature. This avoidance confounded me until I uncovered the many constraints swirling about creativity in the doctorate such as the strong centripetal pressures for standardisation and textual conformity exerted by supervisors and the disciplines they represent. I found that doctoral writers can also impose these restrictions on themselves or learn them from peers. In the latter stages of my project, I utilised queer theory to investigate these paths towards or away from creativity taken at critical moments by my quartet of writers, observing how creativity was often awkwardly ‘mis-fitted’ into their doctoral writing contexts. Accessing and using a creative writer’s voice appears key in activating creativity with the mobilisation of this voice having the potential to animate creativity in doctoral writing contexts. Another centripetal force encouraging creativity is students accepting the identity of a ‘creative’ academic writer and allowing this emerging writerly self to permeate their writing and writing practices. Embedded throughout this identity shift is the battle to use personal pronouns in writing; a tussle that symbolised the struggle over creativity for many doctoral writers. Ultimately, any creative queering of doctoral writing requires courage, confidence and a sustained effort over time. Although focused on a small group of Arts doctoral writers and readers at an Australian university, the findings from my research may inform future studies into creativity in doctoral writing and doctoral education more generally. For, if writers can recognise and control the censorious and potentially disruptive forces against creativity in their work, they may be able to produce writing that is recognised not only for its creativity but also for its novelty and originality.