School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemThe passion of the soul : sadomasochism and the cultural construction of pain(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemThe passion of the soul : sadomasochism and the cultural construction of pain(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemIn states and up town and down country : poetic landscapes of Richard Hugo(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemReading the Gospel of Matthew as a Gospel of the Jerusalem Council( 2006)This dissertation is designed to test the explanatory power of a new hypothesis on the Gospel of Matthew. With the majority of Matthean studies focusing on demonstrating how the Gospel may be read as a text dated after 70 CE, many are led to believe that this is perhaps the only valid way, or at least the best way, to explain the text. This dissertation aims to explore the validity and productivity of adopting the opposite route. Considering the tentative nature of every theory about Matthew's origin, we choose to begin by suggesting a reasonable hypothesis of its origin and to proceed by testing the interpretative matrix of this hypothesis, thus letting the explanatory power of the new hypothesis speak for itself, rather than arguing directly for the hypothesis. We hypothesize that the Gospel of Matthew was a document of the Jerusalem Church produced shortly after the Jerusalem Council (48/49 CE). Some preliminary arguments have been presented in Chapter One to explain why this new hypothesis is not unreasonable. This is followed by a historical examination in Chapter Two and a literary examination in Chapter Three, to establish the historical and literary likelihood of the hypothesis. The historical examination provides insight into the dynamics of the early Jerusalem Church and at the same time demonstrates that this church had the necessary precedence, motivation, opportunity and authority to produce a document like the Gospels. However, this does not mean that it has actually done so or that the Gospel of Matthew is such a document. Therefore, in Chapter Three, narrative criticism is used to read the Gospel on its own terms, aiming to assess the explanatory power of our hypothesis on narrative terms. The result of this reading demonstrates that our hypothesis possesses adequate explanatory power to account for the plot and thrust of the narrative. It is possible to conceptualize the Gospel of Matthew as a Gospel of the Jerusalem Council. Chapter Four proceeds to read the text of Matthew on the basis of our hypothesis and to ascertain if it can provide adequate explanation for the compositional and redactional activities of the evangelist. Three separate readings of the Gospel are provided. The results of these readings demonstrate that our hypothesis possesses a unique interpretative matrix to explain (1) the inclusion of special material, (2) the duplication and modification of the source, and (3) the various disparate elements in the Gospel. A final testing of the hypothesis is performed in Chapter Five, where the inter-textual relationship between Matthew and the Didache is examined. This investigation demonstrates that our hypothesis can help to elucidate and explain the complex relationship between the two texts. The dissertation demonstrates the explanatory power of this hypothesis, and suffices to raise questions concerning the current scholarly consensus on the date and origin of the Gospel of Matthew.
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ItemAgreement in Mawng: productive and lexicalised uses of agreement in an Australian language( 2006-10)This thesis is a morphosyntactic description of the Australian language Mawng with a focus on verbal gender agreement and its lexicalisation. Mawng’s five genders have a strong semantic basis. In verbs with lexicalised agreement, a verbal pronominal prefix that usually indexes a core argument of a particular gender instead functions to specify a particular sense of the verb. Such verbs form a significant portion of the verbal lexicon in Mawng. An investigation of these verbs requires an updated description of Mawng, which has not been the object of linguistic study for some time. A non-Pama Nyungan language of the Iwaidjan language family, Mawng is still spoken by around three hundred people living on the north-west coast of Arnhem land, Northern Territory, Australia. This description is based on new fieldwork carried out at Warruwi (Goulburn Island) and adds to what was previously known about the Mawng language. Complex verb constructions, reciprocal constructions, argument structure, complex sentences, NP structure, the semantic basis of the gender system and the nature of verbal agreement are some of the topics explored in greater detail in this thesis than previously available materials. Lexicalised agreement was not discussed in previous work on Mawng.
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ItemA Grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre( 2006-07)This thesis is a comprehensive description of Kuuk Thaayorre, a Paman language spoken on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. On the basis of elicited data, narrative and semi-spontaneous conversation recorded between 2002 and 2005, this grammar details the phonetics and phonology, morphosyntax, lexical and constructional semantics and pragmatics of one of the few indigenous Australian languages still used as a primary means of communication. Kuuk Thaayorre possesses features of typological interest at each of these levels. At the phonological level, Kuuk Thaayorre possesses a particularly rich vowel inventory from an Australian perspective, with five distinct vowel qualities and two contrastive lengths producing ten vowel phonemes. It is in the phonotactic combination of sounds that Kuuk Thaayorre phonology is particularly noteworthy, however. Kuuk Thaayorre’s tendency towards closed syllables (with codas containing up to three consonants) frequently leads to consonant clusters of as many as four segments. Kuuk Thaayorre is also cross-linguistically unusual in allowing sequences of its two rhotics (an alveolar tap/trill and retroflex continuant) within the syllable – either as a complex coda or as onset plus syllabic rhotic. Finally, monosyllables are ubiquitous across all Thaayorre word classes, despite being generally rare in Australian languages.
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ItemDeveloping script-specific recognition ability - the case of learners of Japanese( 2006-11)Reading non-alphabetic script can be a serious challenge to second language (L2) learners with alphabetic backgrounds. Many L2 learners of Japanese or Chinese who are fluent in speaking the language do not necessarily acquire an advanced-level reading ability. The aim of my thesis was to investigate the development of L2 word recognition ability, one of the most important abilities that learners need to develop for efficient reading, among English-speaking learners of Japanese. By analysing the results of behavioural tests and a verbal protocol administered to both L1 and L2 readers of Japanese, the study described the changes in developing L2 learners’ kanji recognition skills and their awareness of the structure and function of characters at the different stages of L2 exposure. The overall findings suggest that the changes in processing patterns demonstrated by the participants in the present study may be fundamentally similar to those of L1 children, which have been found to be similar regardless of the types of script involved. The changes in L2 readers’ developing kanji recognition were accounted for by the transformation of the internal processing system; this transformation seems to occur by continuous link formation through learning corresponding information, and information processing based on the learned information. The process of transformation, which is affected by the frequency of exposure and the amount of practice, and therefore appears to be item-based, generally progresses on a stage-based developmental trajectory; the processing begins with local and incomplete information and progresses via intentional and analytical processing to develop into sophisticated attention-free processing. Although the developmental trajectory may be universal, the findings of the present study suggest that, when L1 and L2 are orthographically distant, L2 readers repeat the developmental phases due to lack of their ability to process script-specific information. L2 readers with alphabetic backgrounds cannot simply transfer the recognition skills and awareness that they have acquired in their L1 in the new environment of character recognition. The findings of the study suggest that script-specific recognition skills and awareness develop over time as the L2 readers’ internal processing system undergoes successive transformations. By identifying several critical skills and awareness, the present study has discussed the possibility of enhancing character recognition ability with the use of explicit instruction at critical moments.
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ItemMuslim models of polity: Islamic arguments for political change in Indonesia, 1945-2005( 2006)This study is about Islamic arguments for political change in Indonesia. It argues that there has been significant development in Islamic political discourse over the past fifty years. Comparing three Muslim generations, the study found that there are three models of polity developed by Muslim intellectuals throughout the history of modern Indonesia. The first model is the Islamic Democratic State (IDS), which dominated Islamic political discourse during the first two decades of Indonesian independence (1945-65). The second model is the Religious Democratic State (RDS), which emerged and played a significant role in the New Order era (1967-98). The third model is the Liberal Democratic State (LDS), which also emerged in the New Order era and is increasingly accepted by the younger Muslim generation in the post-Suharto era (1998 and beyond). This finding, furthermore, reveals that Indonesian Muslims made important progress in accepting modern political concepts coming from the West. Instead of embracing rejectionism as exhibited by various groups of Islamic radicalism, liberal Muslims use and strengthen their Islamic arguments to justify the compatibility between Islam and modern ideas such as democracy, freedom, and secularism.
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ItemAn investigation of the relationship between L2 learners' goals and their attitudes towards their learning( 2006)This thesis investigates the students' reactions to a specific pedagogical approach to second language (L2) writing, termed the Enhanced Genre Approach (EGA), looking at not just gain scores and students' evaluative comments, but at how individual students differ in their classroom behaviour. The approach entails the teaching of one specific genre, the argumentative essay, through the use of model texts organised according to the elements of Toulmin' s (1958; see also Toulmin' s et aI., 1984) framework of argumentation. It emphasises the communicative purpose of writing and the importance of having an audience in mind during the writing process. Other features of the approach include handouts and exercises derived from the model texts and Toulmin's argumentative framework, written feedback provided by the teacher with focus on Toulmin's elements of claim, grounds, and warrants, the opportunity to re-write essays, and pair-work activities. This study presents my perspective as the teacher and designer of the EGA and investigates the students' reactions to, and engagement with, this approach in the classroom. The investigation of the students' perspectives is framed within the socio-cultural theoretical framework. The investigation of the student's reaction to the EGA includes their likes and dislikes about the specific features of the approach, as well as their improvement over the length of the course. The investigation also explores similarities and differences observed across the students in terms of outcome and behaviour. Through the framework of activity theory, this thesis also examines how the students' goals may help explain their individual actions in the classroom, i.e., their attitudes and behaviours towards class activities, such as lectures, teaching methodology, course materials, tasks, teacher's feedback, and collaborative work. Further, the investigation explores the robustness of activity theory in explaining the students' performance and outcome. The investigation took place in an eight-week elective composition course (Composition 1) at an English language institute in the USA. The participants were nine adult intermediate second language learners from various backgrounds: Togo, South America, Central America, and Sweden. The Composition 1 course was specifically structured for the teaching of argumentative essay writing using the enhanced genre approach, that is, all tasks pertaining to Composition 1 formed part of the approach to second language writing instruction devised for this study. These included individual and pair-work tasks extracted from three "default" model texts organised according to the elements of Toulmin's model of argumentation, and the writing of short argumentative essays.