School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemSelling Your Design: Oral Communication Pedagogy in Design Education(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2005-01)Good design skills are the main focus of assessment practices in design education and are evaluated primarily by drawings and models. In some settings, design studio pedagogy tends to reflect only these content-oriented assessment priorities, with minimal attention paid to the development of oral communication skills. Yet, in many professional contexts, architects need both sets of skills: design competence and the ability to articulate designs for an audience. This paper explores two approaches to oral communication pedagogy in design education - a public speaking approach and a genre-based linguistic approach - and then applies one particular linguistic approach to novice design studio presentations. Based on the findings of this study, we argue that the linguistic, genre-based approach can best offer language-based, discipline-specific description of performance strategies, rhetorical structures, and the linguistic realizations of such structures. Such information can contribute to improved pedagogical practice in the design studio.
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ItemThe integration of images into architecture presentations: A semiotic analysis(Intellect, 2006)In the discipline of architecture, images are central in the development of ideas and the communication of designs. This article focuses on the role of visual communication in a spoken academic genre – the architecture presentation. A set of analytical techniques drawn from linguistics (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996) was used to investigate ten first-year architecture presentations in an attempt to understand first, the role of images and second, how novice students cope with the demands of a multimodal semiosis, namely the integrating of images, words and actions into a unified speech. The analysis was focused on three areas: the conventions and rhetorical effects of individual images; the composition of simultaneously displayed images; and the interaction between speakers and their images. The third stage was pivotal in distinguishing successful from unsuccessful presentations. It is argued that a semiotic analysis of architectural presentations can contribute to improved pedagogical practice in the architecture studio, and has broader implications for an understanding of visual-oriented discourses.
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ItemKaipuleohone, The University of Hawai'i's Digital Ethnographic Archive(University of Hawaii Press, 2009)The University of Hawai‘i’s Kaipuleohone Digital Ethnographic Archive was created in 2008 as part of the ongoing language documentation initiative of the Department of Linguistics. The archive is a repository for linguistic and ethnographic data gathered by linguists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and others. Over the past year, the archive has grown from idea to reality, due to the hard work of faculty and students, as well as support from inside and outside the Department. This paper will outline the context for digital archiving and provide an overview of the development of Kaipuleohone, examining both concrete and theoretical issues that have been addressed along the way. The creation of the archive has not been problem-free and the archive itself is an ongoing process rather than a finished product. We hope that this paper will be useful to scholars and language workers in other areas who are considering setting up their own digital archive.
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ItemExplaining the Linguistic Diversity of Sahul Using Population Models(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2009-11)The region of the ancient Sahul continent (present day Australia and New Guinea, and surrounding islands) is home to extreme linguistic diversity. Even apart from the huge Austronesian language family, which spread into the area after the breakup of the Sahul continent in the Holocene, there are hundreds of languages from many apparently unrelated families. On each of the subcontinents, the generally accepted classification recognizes one large, widespread family and a number of unrelatable smaller families. If these language families are related to each other, it is at a depth which is inaccessible to standard linguistic methods. We have inferred the history of structural characteristics of these languages under an admixture model, using a Bayesian algorithm originally developed to discover populations on the basis of recombining genetic markers. This analysis identifies 10 ancestral language populations, some of which can be identified with clearly defined phylogenetic groups. The results also show traces of early dispersals, including hints at ancient connections between Australian languages and some Papuan groups (long hypothesized, never before demonstrated). Systematic language contact effects between members of big phylogenetic groups are also detected, which can in some cases be identified with a diffusional or substrate signal. Most interestingly, however, there remains striking evidence of a phylogenetic signal, with many languages showing negligible amounts of admixture.
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ItemCommunity languages and LOTE provision in Victorian primary schools: Mix or match?(John Benjamins Publishing, 2007)Primary school languages education continues to be a challenging issue for all states in Australia. In Victoria, LOTE study is provided at the primary level to address the needs of linguistically diverse communities, as well as to provide an enriching learning experience for monolingual speakers of English. The challenge remains to ensure that programs that are run are effective, address the needs of the community and are embraced as a valuable and enriching component of the school curriculum. This study looks at the provision of LOTE in 2003 in Victorian primary schools and in particular, through an analysis of the geographical location of community groups and primary LOTE programs, how effectively community needs are being met. We also analyse the nature of LOTE programs through an examination of teachers’ qualifications, time allotment and program type. Factors identified by some schools as impinging on LOTE study at the primary level, such as literacy concerns and multilingual diversity, will also be examined.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAcoustic analysis of the effects of sustained wakefulness on speech(ACOUSTICAL SOC AMER AMER INST PHYSICS, 2010-12)Exposing healthy adults to extended periods of wakefulness is known to induce changes in psychomotor functioning [Maruff et al. (2005). J. Sleep Res. 14, 21-27]. The effect of fatigue on speech is less well understood. To date, no studies have examined the pitch and timing of neurologically healthy individuals over 24 h of sustained wakefulness. Therefore, speech samples were systematically acquired (e.g., every 4 h) from 18 healthy adults over 24 h. Stimuli included automated and extemporaneous speech tasks, sustained vowel, and a read passage. Measures of timing, frequency and spectral energy were derived acoustically using PRAAT and significant changes were observed on all tasks. The effect of fatigue on speech was found to be strongest just before dawn (after 22 h). Specifically, total speech time, mean pause length, and total signal time all increased as a function of increasing levels of fatigue on the reading tasks; percentage pause and mean pause length decreased on the counting task; F4 variation decreased on the sustained vowel tasks /a:/; and alpha ratio increased on the extemporaneous speech tasks. These findings suggest that acoustic methodologies provide objective data on central nervous system functioning and that changes in speech production occur in healthy adults after just 24 h of sustained wakefulness.
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ItemDimensions of difference: A comparison of university writing and IELTS writing(Elsevier BV, 2005-01-01)
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ItemGenre and disciplinary competence: A case study of contextualisation in an academic speech genre(PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2009-10)
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ItemDaniel Macdonald and the "Compromise Literary Dialect" in Efate, Central Vanuatu(UNIV HAWAII PRESS, 2008-12)Daniel Macdonald, a Presbyterian Church of Victoria missionary to the New Hebrides from 1872 to 1905, developed a particularly strong interest in language. A prodigious author, he published widely and at length on the languages of Efate, and especially those of the Havannah Harbour area where he was stationed. But if his work is recalled today, it is as something of a curio, both for his insistence—archaic even for the times—on a link between ancient Semitic and Efate, and for his vigorous promotion of the use by the mission and its converts of a single, hybrid Efate language. This paper addresses and seeks to analyze what Macdonald himself called this “compromise literary dialect.” By identifying distinctive features of the three main varieties of Efate languages known today (Nguna or Nakanamanga, South Efate, and Lelepa), we aim to move beyond the lexical comparisons that have been the sole means of gauging relationships among these languages thus far. This enables us to begin the process of investigating the claim of Captain Rason, British Deputy Commissioner for the New Hebrides during Macdonald’s last years on Efate, that the “compromise literary dialect” was in fact a spoken dialect particular to the area of Havannah Harbour. We hope to reconsider and perhaps recuperate some of Macdonald’s writing as a rare if often distorted window on indigenous life and language at a pivotal moment in the transformation of Efate communities.
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ItemMeasuring the Speaking Proficiency of Advanced EFL Learners in China: The CET-SET Solution(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2009)