School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemInnovating assessment in an Italian language course: first experiences(HERDSA, 1999)This paper examines a new academic's initial foray into the realms of innovative assessment. The paper begins by outlining the principle reasons for innovating the assessment scheme which include:- a desire to promote deep learning in students;- the necessity to have a more transparent connection between the aims and objectives of the course and assessment tasks;- the need to challenge the notion that language is easily compartmentalised into distinct skills - writing, reading, speaking, listening, metalinguistic. - implicitly conveyed by traditional assessment tasks. The unit in question was a full year ab initio Italian class. Students were cleanly divided into two camps: mature age and non-mature age with the former showing significant reservations in the face of non-traditional assessment methods. I discuss both the successes and failings of the new scheme from my perspective as well as from that of students. Notably, by the end of the unit, some of the students' initial responses to innovative assessment have been challenged in such a way as to have effected a change in thinking.
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ItemTaba and Roma: clusters and geminates in two Austronesian languages( 1999)Some lesser-known Austronesian languages, such as Taba and Roma, with relatively simple phonological inventories, nevertheless have very complex phonotactic structures. The presence of a wide range of typologically unusual cluster combinations in word-initial position has important implications for generally accepted notions about Austronesian languages and about segment sequencing and the sonority hierarchy.
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ItemA perceptual basis for the foot parameter in the development of distinctive nasalization( 1999)The importance of perceptual phenomena in nasal vowel development is well known, but only recently has attention turned to suprasegmental phenomena known to condition this development. Perceptual explanations have already been given for the conditioning effect of vowel length, and, more tentatively, stress. In this study, we provide data from perceptual experiments in which nasality judgements were obtained from English speakers to examine the conditioning effects of three suprasegmental phenomena, all related to stress. The perceptual basis of the stress parameter is confirmed, however, no evidence is found of a similar effect underlying observed differences in nasalisation between pre and post-tonic vowels. Most importantly, foot structure is shown to condition nasality judgements such that vowels in single syllable feet (oxytones) are judged as more nasal than those in trochaic (paroxytonic) feet. Both the stress and the foot structure effects are shown to be independent of the vowel-length.