School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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    Missing the point! Misprints, mistranslations, & transformations
    Frank, Helen T. (University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association, 2003)
    The translation of literary works necessitates a process of linguistic and cultural transfer. This paper analyzes French translations of twentieth century Australian children’s fiction and highlights the variety of translational tendencies and interpretive choices at work in moving texts from one culture to another. While ‘mistakes’ in translation represent an undesirable yet inevitable side effect of the translation process, they offer choice moments of insight into constraints of culture and language. These constraints account for the important distinction between simple error, reinterpretation, and the appropriation of cultural content to reflect a preferred set of images.
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    Caratteristiche della comunicazione e-mail: riflessioni su un corso universitario australiano di italiano L2
    Pais Marden, Mariolina ; ABSALOM, MATTHEW ( 2004)
    This paper discusses a project involving the use of email exchanges in the Italian program at the Australian National University. Approximately eighty students participated in the project which consisted of two iterations of a one-to-one email conversation. We describe the language and content of the messages constructed by students in terms of the following features: • the effects of the spatial, temporal and psychological distance inherent in email communication • the hybrid nature of electronic communication which is situated between written and spoken discourse • the relationship of the formal and content aspects of electronic communication • the creative expression of the language produced.
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    Email communication and language learning at university – an Australian case study
    ABSALOM, MATTHEW ; Pais Marden, Mariolina ( 2004)
    This paper discusses the use of email exchanges between non-native speakers (NNS) in the Italian program at the Australian National University (ANU). Approximately eighty students, spanning beginners’ to advanced level, participated in two iterations of a one-to-one email conversation in 2000. The underpinning rationale for the use of email was to promote interaction in the language. We describe the language and content of the messages constructed by students in terms of the following features: • the impact of email conversation on participation and engagement of the learners; • the effects of the spatial, temporal and psychological distance inherent in email communication; • the hybrid nature of email discourse; • the relationship between the formal and content aspects of email communication; • the creativity in expression of the language produced by learners. We also examine the ramifications the use of email communication can have for teaching and learning languages.
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    The expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English, Tennant Creek
    DISBRAY, SAMANTHA ; SIMPSON, JANE (Monash University, 2004)
    We discuss the expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English (WE), a variety spoken in the Tennant Creek area of the Northern Territory. We illustrate this from a data-set of 319 utterances containing possessive constructions (drawn from 14 video-recordings of conversations between care-givers and children). We show how the WE constructions relate to those of the source languages, Warumungu, Standard Australian English (SAE), and the creole that developed in northern Australia late in the nineteenth century. The interaction between these sources in the development of WE is complex. Three notable features are examined: the use of a possessor clitic whose form is taken from Warumungu, but whose syntactic behaviour is taken from the SAE Genitive clitic, the use of a post-nominal possessor as in Warumungu, and the extension of the possessor clitic to the possession of inalienable things such as body-parts. A body-part possessor construction appears with a wider range of verbs than in standard Australian English, but narrower than that in traditional Warumungu. We show the wide variation in the use of possessive constructions, and suggest that relevant factors are the speaker’s age, code-switching, and the context of use.
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    Language contact interaction and possessive variation
    MCCONVELL, PATRICK (Monash University, 2005-11)
    This paper focuses on contact interaction in the development of possessive constructions. In contrast to ‘copying’ approaches to structural diffusion, contact interaction approaches recognise that internal and external models interact, often to produce innovation and variation. Some examples of this in possessive constructions from early English and pidgins and creoles are explored, including the question of ‘for’ and its equivalents becoming postposed including in Australian Creoles. Two theories of how adoption of structures from external sources can be staged and modified, that of Carol Myers-Scotton (the 4-M Model) and Ross’s Metatypy model are compared with examples from possessives, as well as Aikhenvald’s treatment of possessive construction diffusion in the Amazon. There appears to be common ground between these approaches, and the contact interaction approach in general.
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    Possessing variation: age and inalienability related variables in the possessive constructions of two Australian mixed languages
    Meakins, Felicity ; O'SHANNESSY, CARMEL (Monash University, 2005-11)
    The paper examines attributive possessive constructions in two north Australian mixed languages, Gurindji Kriol (GK) and Light Warlpiri (LW). In both languages possessive constructions are drawn from the source languages, Gurindji, Warlpiri, Kriol and English, and there is variation within and between languages. The range of possessive forms available in the two languages are presented and factors contributing to the variation within each language are discussed, including age of speaker, the remnants of an in/alienability distinction, and the source language of possessive forms and head NPs.
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    L’email per imparare l’italiano: aspetti linguistici e contenutistici della comunicazione telematica in italiano L2
    Pais Marden, Mariolina ; ABSALOM, MATTHEW (Flinders University, 2003)
    The integration of electronic communication into the teaching and learning of languages has opened up new horizons. This paper discusses a project involving the use of email exchanges in the Italian program at the Australian National University. Approximately eighty students participated in the project which consisted of two iterations of a one-to-one email conversation. This article examines the language and content of the messages constructed by students in terms of the following features: • the implications of the physical, psychological and temporal distance inherent in email communication • the differences between email communication of native speakers and learners • the dialogic nature of email communication and its relationship to both written and spoken communication • the importance of “empty” messages • the creativity of expression and the relationship between form and content.
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    On the origin of the Germanic strong verb system
    MAILHAMMER, ROBERT ( 2006)
    This paper proposes a solution for two characteristic peculiarities of Germanic, the unique systematisation and functionalisation of verbal ablaut on the one hand, and the drastic reduction of verbal categories compared to what is commonly assumed for the parent language on the other. Both phenomena are well known and described in the relevant textbooks, in which they have mostly been ascribed to some kind of internal development left largely unspecified. Despite the fact that this null hypothesis seems to have a privileged position in historical linguistics, it cannot be considered an explanation. By contrast, it is suggested in this paper that these two phenomena, namely the systematisation and functionalisation of two qualitative ablaut grades in the Germanic strong verb and the reduction of the inherited Proto-Indo-European tense system, are interrelated and that these innovative developments can be attributed to language contact: Speakers of a superstratum language with a highly systematised verbal ablaut recognised a similar feature in Pre-Germanic when they had to learn the language of the people they dominated. In this process of language shift the learners over-generalised ablaut as the subjectively most salient morphological feature and subsequently transferred the native semantic content onto the familiar structure. Due to the linguistic compatibility and the high social prestige of the forme superstratum speaker’s sociolect this structural change survived and eventually became a property of Proto-Germanic. This hypothesis is supported by research on language contact, bilingualism and language acquisition.
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    La couleur anti-locale d'Eugène Fromentin
    KAPOR, VLADIMIR (University of Nebraska Press, 2005-2006)
    The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the Algerian travelogues of Eugène Frometin (Un Été dans le Sahara, 1857 ; Une Année dans le Sahel, 1858), nowadays often regarded as a non-canonical author, form a part of a subversive tendency within mid-nineteenth century exotic French literature, alongside better-known authors such as Baudelaire or Flaubert. The Romantic use of "local color," often draws on a repertoire of stereotypical elements and commonplaces harbored by the collective imagery as regards the Other. Fromentin's abstract and figurative description of the desert can be perceived as a rejection of this use. Moreover his choice to focus on the indescribable and thus draw the attention away from the manifestations of French colonisation is significant because of its ideological implications. (In French VK)
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    Comparing the outcomes of online listening versus online text-based tasks in University-level Italian L2 study
    ABSALOM, MATTHEW ; RIZZI, ANDREA (Cambridge Journals, 2008)
    In this paper, we describe an initial exploratory study designed to compare the outcomes of online listening and online text-based tasks in the context of the study of Italian at The University of Melbourne. Our findings allow us to characterise online listening and online reading as a qualitative difference between deep and surface approaches to learning. Online listening seems to promote an integrative orientation and heighten students’ desire to deconstruct and understand texts. There also appears to be higher vocabulary acquisition and knowledge retention with online listening tasks.