School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemThe emergence of patterns in second language writing : a sociocognitive exploration of lexical trails(University of Melbourne, 2009)One of the enduring frustrations of the second language learner who has a sound knowledge of grammatical rules is the elusiveness of �naturalness�. Just what constitutes �naturalness� and how central it is to linguistic theory has also been a point of contention amongst linguists. Drawing upon a convergence of sociocultural theory and linguistic emergentism, this is a long-term investigation of the development of four ESL users� written lexicogrammatical patterning. A qualitative methodology (Lexical Trail Analysis) was developed in order to capture a dynamic and historical view of the ways in which the participants combined words. Recurring patterns, i.e. collocations and colligations, were traced in the learners� essays as they prepared for the IELTS exam and later in their university assignments once they entered their university courses. The participants received direct and indirect feedback on their writing and they were interviewed after revising their essays about what motivated their revisions and the history of lexicogrammatical patterns they had used. Selected lexicogrammatical patterns were later tested using the principles of dynamic testing. By tracing selected lexemes chronologically throughout the participants� written production and incorporating insights from the participants, it was possible to observe 1) the ways in which the participants� words are habitually combined, 2) how these combinations are transformed over time 3) why the participants combined words in certain ways and 4) how word combinations are affected by sources such as teacher feedback and reference texts. The analysis reveals that the participants were aware of their L2 patterns and used the feedback process as a forum for experimentation with new combinations. Feedback provided one source of assistance, but the participants noticed and sought to imitate native-like patterning through the use of a range of other resources such as dictionaries, other L2 users and L2 texts. In the gradual process of developing increasingly native-like means of participation, the participants were agents of change, seeking assistance and adapting patterns to suit their changing goals. These findings suggest that resourcefulness in tool use, the ability to imitate and adapt linguistic resources and sociocognitive resources such as memory and attention are paramount in the massive task of internalizing the lexicogrammatical patterning of a second language. This process of language patterning is theorized via a model which encompasses adaptations in the linguistic properties of language patterns as well as adaptations in sociocognitive status.
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ItemAmbiguous subjects : dissolution and metamorphosis in the postmodern sublime, or dear circus aerialist(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemLanguages of the body : Kathy Acker's corporeal sublime(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemThe passion of the soul : sadomasochism and the cultural construction of pain(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemThe passion of the soul : sadomasochism and the cultural construction of pain(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemIn states and up town and down country : poetic landscapes of Richard Hugo(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemClassroom-based assessment and the issue of continuity between primary and secondary school languages programs(University of Melbourne, 2008)This dissertation has used an ethnographic study of classroom-based assessment practices to investigate the issue of continuity between primary and secondary schools languages programs. The study used ethnographic methods, including participant observation and case study, to investigate Indonesian language classrooms at two successive levels of schooling; Year 6 (the final year of primary school) and Year 7 (the first year of secondary school). Data collection for the main study took place in Term 4, 2005 (Year 6) and Terms I and 2 (Year 7) with a total ten weeks in each classroom; and was longitudinal in that the Year 7 participants included a group of students who had also participated as Year 6 students. Data included classroom observation, field notes and audio recording, teacher and student interviews, political and local documents and student work samples. The study found the primary and secondary school Indonesian classrooms represented two distinct assessment cultures. Further it was concluded that methodological differences in classroom-based assessment practices impacted as much on how 'competence' was constructed in the respective settings as differences in the valued enterprises and qualities. These included differences in transparency in relation to assessment processes, who was assessed (i.e., the group or individuals), how assessment-related information was used, the focus of assessment and notions of quality and standard. Issues emerging from the data analysis included the effect of classroom-based assessment practices on learners' goal orientation (and, thereby they defined �success'), and whether competence was constructed as a 'distributed' or individual trait. It was argued that these findings will contribute to a better understanding of the issue of continuity of languages education between the two phases of schooling. It was concluded that the findings have significance for languages education policy, planning and practice.
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ItemLanguage and identity in Melbourne's Francophone Mauritian community( 2007)Australia’s 18,000-plus Mauritian immigrants make up the country’s largest single French-speaking community, but they also speak Kreol, a creole language specific to Mauritius and its dependent island Rodrigues. Kreol is both the lingua franca of Mauritius and the L1 of a growing majority of people there. Census data show that in Australia, Mauritians maintain French as a language at home at much higher rates than Kreol, while this and earlier research by the author (Adler, Lord & McKelvie 2003) indicates that the two languages are used and valued differently in the immigrant community. A starting point for this study was the idea that although social conditions affecting immigrants after they have settled in their adopted country must impact on their ability to maintain first language(s), their pre-migration experiences, beliefs and identities should also be taken into account but are often ignored in accounts of language maintenance and language shift (LM/LS). Through a thematic analysis of interviews with 17 French- and Kreol-speakers from Melbourne’s Mauritian community, this study explores the language attitudes these immigrants acquired growing up in Mauritius, and investigates the impact of these attitudes on postmigration maintenance of French and Kreol. It then examines the part French and Kreol play in post-migration identity construction. The study shows that their premigration beliefs, attitudes and experiences were in fact extremely relevant, even decisive, to subsequent LM/LS and language use for this group of Mauritians. Specifically, the study shows that the attitudes to and beliefs about French and Kreol that the study participants brought with them from Mauritius led them to put more effort into transmitting French than Kreol to their children, but have also led them not to resist a shift by children to English at home. However, for themselves, the participants continued to use both French and Kreol at home with spouses and in the Mauritian immigrant community, and in the latter context, some of the dominant French-speakers appeared to be using more Kreol socially than they would once have done in Mauritius. The research harnesses Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, in particular his concepts of ‘habitus’ and ‘symbolic violence/domination’, to show how the participants’ attitudes were formed and how they have played out in post-migration language choices and use. For these 17 participants growing up in Mauritius, dissatisfaction with the economic and social disadvantages of using Kreol and with the low status offered to Kreol-speakers was transformed – in an instance of the symbolic violence described by Bourdieu – into an undervaluing of the language itself, and that French was misrecognised as an inherently superior and more useful language, a differential valuation embedded in diglossic usage in Mauritius. This process led the study participants to accord French a greater symbolic value, which has persisted in the postmigration context regardless of the fact that in that broader Australian context French and Kreol are of similar value to the Mauritian community.
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ItemA surreal synthesis: Robert Klippel's language of forms( 2003)This thesis will show the influence of surrealism in Robert Klippel's sculptures and drawings between 1947 and 1950 which he spent in London and Paris. It will identify the origins and development of Klippel's language of forms, which was based on a he used in his drawings and sculptures from the period. This language was based on forms he studied from the external world around him. The thesis argues that his engagement with surrealist strategies and principles came from an alternative position, supplanting the primacy of the human unconscious for the potential power and energy in the world around him.
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ItemReading the Gospel of Matthew as a Gospel of the Jerusalem Council( 2006)This dissertation is designed to test the explanatory power of a new hypothesis on the Gospel of Matthew. With the majority of Matthean studies focusing on demonstrating how the Gospel may be read as a text dated after 70 CE, many are led to believe that this is perhaps the only valid way, or at least the best way, to explain the text. This dissertation aims to explore the validity and productivity of adopting the opposite route. Considering the tentative nature of every theory about Matthew's origin, we choose to begin by suggesting a reasonable hypothesis of its origin and to proceed by testing the interpretative matrix of this hypothesis, thus letting the explanatory power of the new hypothesis speak for itself, rather than arguing directly for the hypothesis. We hypothesize that the Gospel of Matthew was a document of the Jerusalem Church produced shortly after the Jerusalem Council (48/49 CE). Some preliminary arguments have been presented in Chapter One to explain why this new hypothesis is not unreasonable. This is followed by a historical examination in Chapter Two and a literary examination in Chapter Three, to establish the historical and literary likelihood of the hypothesis. The historical examination provides insight into the dynamics of the early Jerusalem Church and at the same time demonstrates that this church had the necessary precedence, motivation, opportunity and authority to produce a document like the Gospels. However, this does not mean that it has actually done so or that the Gospel of Matthew is such a document. Therefore, in Chapter Three, narrative criticism is used to read the Gospel on its own terms, aiming to assess the explanatory power of our hypothesis on narrative terms. The result of this reading demonstrates that our hypothesis possesses adequate explanatory power to account for the plot and thrust of the narrative. It is possible to conceptualize the Gospel of Matthew as a Gospel of the Jerusalem Council. Chapter Four proceeds to read the text of Matthew on the basis of our hypothesis and to ascertain if it can provide adequate explanation for the compositional and redactional activities of the evangelist. Three separate readings of the Gospel are provided. The results of these readings demonstrate that our hypothesis possesses a unique interpretative matrix to explain (1) the inclusion of special material, (2) the duplication and modification of the source, and (3) the various disparate elements in the Gospel. A final testing of the hypothesis is performed in Chapter Five, where the inter-textual relationship between Matthew and the Didache is examined. This investigation demonstrates that our hypothesis can help to elucidate and explain the complex relationship between the two texts. The dissertation demonstrates the explanatory power of this hypothesis, and suffices to raise questions concerning the current scholarly consensus on the date and origin of the Gospel of Matthew.