Asia Institute - Research Publications
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ItemWhat motivates Japanese language learners in Australia and beyond?(Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2023)Language is an interactive, social, and relational tool that is constantly evolving; reflecting the history, values, and socio-cultural context of the place in which it is spoken. Thus, each individual language provides learners with opportunities to interact with other users of the language and to access different perspectives. We question the common promotional discourses of ‘employability’ and ‘international trade’ used to characterise the value given to Asian languages by policymakers and universities in Australia. We argue that such discourses do not reflect learners’ motivations, ultimately undermining the potential educational values of language learning.
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ItemINTRODUCTION – Changing one’s world view: the potentially transformative power of Asian language(s) and culture(s)(Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2023)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableWhy did Australia lose international students to Canada?: Trends in Chinese students explained by numbers and their real voices(Society for Oceanian Education Studies, 2022-11-01)This paper attends to the voices of individual students, not the numerical "Chinese students" spoken of in statistics and other media, i.e., not the main source of income for the Australian higher education export industry, but as voices of students as individuals with their own personalities. While there are many studies and reports that quantify the impact of the pandemic on Australia's education export industry, few focus on the voices of actual international students. This paper presents the actual voices of Chinese international students, including what they have experienced, the choices they have had to make, and the emotions they have felt as a result of the pandemic. While the number of international students in countries such as Canada and the UK has been on the rise since late 2020, the number of students coming to Australia remains stagnant. The paper explores the reasons for this through the voices of Chinese students, which reveal a fundamental problem that Australia needs to face. It revisits what international students mean to Australia and re-examines the role of higher education institutions.
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ItemDire straits: Chinese students in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic(Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2022)This article examines the experiences of Chinese students after Australia closed its national border on March 20, 2020 in an attempt to stop COVID-19 entering.
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ItemNatural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks: The Language Classroom as a Meeting Place(University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), 2009)This paper, drawing on Pratt’s notion of ‘transculturation’ and Bhabha’s ‘third space’, presents an example of language learning tasks that empower learners’ agency and promote their cross-cultural awareness and sensitivities to a different set of cultural expectations, using a naturally occurred Japanese thanking episodes. The paper discusses the merits of Natural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks (NCRTs) as a practical method for helping L2 learners develop this ‘intercultural competence’. It is based on a qualitative study of the results of one NCRT created for use in the context of teaching Japanese as a L2 in a multicultural society. It suggests the NCRT encourages the learners to explore the intersection where language use, speaker intention and L1 and L2 cultural norms meet. Such a process helps the learners become aware of socially expected patterns of communication in L1 and L2 in terms of the choices of speech act, formulaic expressions, sequential organization and politeness orientation. The learners’ comments suggest that the NCRT helps learners transcend their cultural boundaries by overcoming their narrow understanding of ‘thanking’ as ‘expressions of gratitude and appreciation’ and by cross-culturally widening their views of what counts as thanking. The NCRT with rich contextual information promotes the learners’ intercultural awareness, sensitivity to context and intercultural exploration in the space between L1 and L2, where they have authority and freedom of making sense of conversations, and pragmatics is fully integrated into language pedagogy.
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Itemウェブサイトから見えるアジア言語の教育的意義：日本語と中国語を例に Promotional texts of Asian languages on Australian university websites: A case study of Japanese and Chinese studies(オセアニア教育学会 Society for Oceanian Education Studies, 2021-11-01)
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ItemLearning Asian languages is about much more than trade and employability and universities should convey this(Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2021-08-16)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableACE1 polymorphism and progression of SARS.(Elsevier BV, 2004-10-22)We have hypothesized that genetic predisposition influences the progression of SARS. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE1) insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism was previously reported to show association with the adult respiratory distress syndrome, which is also thought to play a key role in damaging the lung tissues in SARS cases. This time, the polymorphism was genotyped in 44 Vietnamese SARS cases, with 103 healthy controls who had had a contact with the SARS patients and 50 controls without any contact history. SARS cases were divided into either non-hypoxemic or hypoxemic groups. Despite the small sample size, the frequency of the D allele was significantly higher in the hypoxemic group than in the non-hypoxemic group (p=0.013), whereas there was no significant difference between the SARS cases and controls, irrespective of a contact history. ACE1 might be one of the candidate genes that influence the progression of pneumonia in SARS.
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePolymorphisms of human leucocyte antigen genes in Maonan people in China.(Wiley, 2007-02)We examined human leucocyte antigen (HLA) gene polymorphisms in the Maonan people from southern China. HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 alleles were determined in 108 healthy unrelated Maonan individuals by the polymerase chain reaction-Luminex method, and haplotype frequencies for HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci were estimated. The most frequent HLA-A alleles were A*1101 (35.2%), A*0203 (17.6%), A*0207 (13.4%) and A*2402 (13.4%); HLA-B alleles were B*1301(19.9%), B*1502 (14.8%), B*4601 (13.4%) and B*4001 (13.4%); HLA-DRB1 alleles were DRB1*1202 (17.1%), DRB1*1602 (13.0%) and DRB1*1401 (10.7%). The most common haplotypes were A*0207-B*4601 (10.6%), A*1101-B*1301 (10.0%), A*1101-B*4001 (8.4%), B*1502-DRB1*1202 (12.0%), B*4601-DRB1*1401 (5.8%), A*1101-B*1502-DRB1*1202 (7.1%) and A*0207-B*4601-DRB1*1401 (5.3%), profiles that are also found in populations from the southern region of East Asia. Phylogenetic and principal component analyses revealed that the Maonan people belong to the southeastern Asian group and are most closely related to the Buyi people.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableMxA transcripts with distinct first exons and modulation of gene expression levels by single-nucleotide polymorphisms in human bronchial epithelial cells.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2013-02)Myxovirus resistance A (MxA) is a major interferon (IFN)-inducible antiviral protein. Promoter single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of MxA near the IFN-stimulated response element (ISRE) have been frequently associated with various viral diseases, including emerging respiratory infections. We investigated the expression profile of MxA transcripts with distinct first exons in human bronchial epithelial cells. For primary culture, the bronchial epithelium was isolated from lung tissues with different genotypes, and total RNA was subjected to real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The previously reported MxA transcript (T1) and a recently registered transcript with a distinct 5' first exon (T0) were identified. IFN-β and polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid induced approximately 100-fold higher expression of the T1 transcript than that of the T0 transcript, which also had a potential ISRE motif near its transcription start site. Even without inducers, the T1 transcript accounted for approximately two thirds of the total expression of MxA, levels of which were significantly associated with its promoter and exon 1 SNPs (rs17000900, rs2071430, and rs464138). Our results suggest that MxA observed in respiratory viral infections is possibly dominated by the T1 transcript and partly influenced by relevant 5' SNPs.
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