School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 32
-
ItemCommunities of practice in higher education: A challenge from the discipline of architecture(Elsevier, 2012-03-01)Uncritically applying a community of practice model has become rather prevalent in higher education settings (Lea, 2005). This paper attempts to return to the spirit of Lave and Wenger's earlier (1991) work and to use a community of practice perspective as a heuristic to analyse participation patterns in a final year design studio in the discipline of architecture. The data consisted of videotapes, transcriptions, and interviews with participants, and showed that students' opportunities to rehearse expert roles relevant to the profession were somewhat limited. Instead of an extended community of participants engaged collaboratively in joint activities, patterns of interaction between the instructor and the students were typically hierarchical. Despite this, the students felt that their participation in this class was a legitimate part of their trajectories towards membership in the professional community of practice, underlining the complexity of higher education contexts. The paper suggests that the usefulness of the concept of community of practice to higher education lies primarily in treating classes as one of many overlapping more or less formal communities students may be involved in.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableGerman Studies in Australia: a statistical overview, 1995-2010(German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), 2011)The new Netzwerk Deutsch survey on German as a Foreign Language world-wide, following two previous surveys, provides a unique (if not entirely complete and comprehensive) overview of the development of the numbers of students of German internationally. This article discusses the numbers indicated for tertiary students of German in Australia and sets them in relation to the world-wide average, as well as to the numbers indicated for the other English-speaking OECD countries. The decline in student numbers has been less dramatic in the Anglophone OECD countries than in the world on average. Australian German Studies programs in particular have proved resilient in the face of the world-wide trend.
-
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.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableReliability, stability, and sensitivity to change and impairment in acoustic measures of timing and frequency(Elsevier Inc., 2011)Assessment of the voice for supporting classifications of central nervous system (CNS) impairment requires a different practical, methodological, and statistical framework compared with assessment of the voice to guide decisions about change in the CNS. In experimental terms, an understanding of the stability and sensitivity to change of an assessment protocol is required to guide decisions about CNS change. Five experiments (N=70) were conducted using a set of commonly used stimuli (eg, sustained vowel, reading, extemporaneous speech) and easily acquired measures (eg, f0–f4, percent pause). Stability of these measures was examined through their repeated application in healthy adults over brief and intermediate retest intervals (ie, 30 seconds, 2 hours, and 1 week). Those measures found to be stable were then challenged using an experimental model that reliably changes voice acoustic properties (ie, the Lombard effect). Finally, adults with an established CNS-related motor speech disorder (dysarthria) were compared with healthy controls. Of the 61 acoustic variables studied, 36 showed good stability over all three stability experiments (eg, number of pauses, total speech time, speech rate, f0–f4). Of the measures with good stability, a number of frequency measures showed a change in response to increased vocal effort resulting from the Lombard effect challenge. Furthermore, several timing measures significantly separated the control and motor speech impairment groups. Measures with high levels of stability within healthy adults, and those that show sensitivity to change and impairment may prove effective for monitoring changes in CNS functioning.
-
ItemTranslation theory as historical problem-solving(Rikkyo University, 2011)Recent calls for non-Western translation theories raise the more basic question of where Western thought comes from and how it is historically conditioned. Here we take the view that the way we translate, and the way we think about translation, depends on the problems we are trying to solve. This means that different problems can give rise to different theories, so Western problems might have given rise to Western theories. More important, this means that when we confront past theories, we should ask what specific problems they were trying to solve, without assuming any homogeneous stock of universal answers. And when we engage in our own theorizing, be it non-Western or simply effective, we should be aware of what specific problems we are trying to solve. This perspective allows some provocative correlations like the following: “equivalence” was most needed when Europe and Canada decided to depend on translation for their multilingual laws; “dynamic equivalence” was about selling Christianity to illiterate communities; “Skopos theory” expressed the aspirations of a professional segment of technical translators that sought greater social recognition and pay, as well as university departments that sought independence; “Descriptive Translation Studies” was seeking the survival of smaller cultures within the West; “foreignization” responded to the Germanic privileging of language, to the French search for opening to the other, and to a well-intentioned call for American intellectuals to seem international in the absence of foreign-language competence; and “non-western” theory is a functional simulacrum designed to oppose some of these new Western theories to apparently old Western theories, in the spirit of an ageing but still hungry modernism. These correlations should not be seen in a deterministic light. Once you have a problem to solve, the ideas you use to solve it can come from anywhere. So we should be aware of not just our own problems, but also of what others have done with theirs. And this in turn should answer the question of whether we need Eastern or Western ideas, or simply ideas that can help solve the problems we face. Needless to say, the priority we give to problem-solving is Western.
-
Item
-
ItemHow many peripheral low vowels can you have? Low vowel contrasts in Vouvantais(ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2011-01)
-
Item
-
ItemThe Altyerre StoryuSuffering Badly by Translation'(WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2012-08)In culture‐contact situations, it is commonplace for words to be borrowed from other unrelated vernaculars, for their pronunciations to be changed, and their meanings modified to fit new contexts. The Arandic word altyerre is a rather extreme example of this, and at the end of the nineteenth century, the ‘translation’ of the related word Alcheringa as ‘dream‐times’ sparked a debate that, in some forms, continues to this day. In this article, I discuss some of the reasons why this particular word struck such a controversial chord. I give an updated semantic perspective on the word altyerre, drawing on evidence from Arandic languages and from other languages in Central Australia. Then I examine some of the consequences of both religious and secular interpretations of altyerre and show how the popularisation of this word and its translations has impacted on its meanings in current usage.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableAustralia and South America: Toward Dialogue on China(China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, 2012)China Express: 2012 Second edition The second edition of China Express (http://sydney.edu.au/china_studies_centre/china_express/issue_2/) , the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney's online magazine is now available. Articles in this edition are by two of the sixteen academic groups within the CSC: International Relations and Social and Political Change. Submissions are by the following academic members of the China Studies Centre: Dr. Beatriz Garcia Carrillo (China's welfare policies: the future of welfare?) Dr. Minglu Chen (Female Entrepreneurs, Business Performance, and the Party-State in China) Dr. Justin Hastings (International Commerce and Dark Networks in East Asia: China and North Korean Economic Networks) Dr. James Reilly (Studying China's Economic Statecraft) Dr. Adrian Hearn (Australia and South America: Toward Dialogue on China) Professor Christine Inglis (Australia and China- Linked by Migration)