School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses

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    Development of Second Language Pragmatic Competence at Advanced Proficiency Levels
    Gomez Romero, Jaime Ignacio ( 2023-11)
    Whereas much of the research in testing L2 pragmatics has been concerned with learners from low to higher-intermediate levels of proficiency, this study examined the pragmatic performance of advanced L2 learners to identify some of the features that best describe advanced pragmatic competence. To do this, 45 advanced EFL teachers from Chile at B2 and C1 level of the CEFR performed four speaking tasks: two monological and two role-play tasks. Employing a CA-inspired methodological approach, the groups were compared in terms of openings, preliminaries, core action, posterior moves, and closings for both types of task. Findings agree with previous research indicating that as proficiency increased, advanced learners had more access to linguistic resources, successfully marked disaffiliative actions as dispreferred, and identified contextual cues to produce talk. Lastly, the results also suggest that some features of pragmatic competence and interactional competence can be elicited through monologic tasks.
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    The affordances of pedagogical translanguaging in university language teaching and learning
    Pirovano, Elena ( 2023-11)
    As Australian universities are increasingly recognised as multilingual spaces (e.g., Ollerhead & Baker, 2019; Pauwels, 2014a, 2014b), student cohorts in language courses are also becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse. Taking translanguaging as a conceptual framework (e.g., Li, 2018), this project explores language students’ understanding of the notion of translanguaging and its pedagogical affordances in language learning through recognising prior experiences with and knowledge of languages and linguistic practices as resources (Cummins, 2017; de Jong et al., 2019). As translanguaging is a debated and complex notion (e.g., Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021; Jaspers, 2018), the conceptual framework of this research includes all its dimensions (e.g., Leung & Valdes, 2019; Slembrouck, 2022) - theoretical, pedagogical, methodological and critical - to investigate its pedagogical potential in multilingual language learning spaces. Within this translanguaging framework, this project draws on the notions of linguistic repertoire (Busch, 2012), translanguaging space and moment analysis (Li, 2011), and post-monolingual research methodology (Singh, 2018, 2019, 2020) to investigate the pedagogical affordances of translanguaging in learning additional languages. In this instance, the term “additional languages” refers to languages other than English that are not a majority language in the chosen context. Through two case studies, the project collected data on language students’ experience of translanguaging (case study 1) and on the affordances of pedagogical translanguaging for beginner Italian learners’ writing skills (case study 2). The findings suggest that students’ understanding of translanguaging occurs through a complex negotiated process that develops through experiential, collaborative and reflective practices facilitated by the pedagogical design purposefully planned by the language teacher. The affordances of pedagogical translanguaging (e.g., Cenoz & Gorter, 2022a) for writing processes are enabled by a preliminary exploration of linguistic repertoires through multimodal biographies such as the language portrait (Busch, 2018) and translanguaging affordances (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2020) planned to leverage shared linguistic repertoires as communicative and semiotic resources. Within this process, language students activate translanguaging practices to achieve enhanced linguistic competence as well as a more autonomous expression of agency and identity in the learning process.
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    The emergence of patterns in second language writing : a sociocognitive exploration of lexical trails
    Macqueen, Susan Mary. (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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    Classroom-based assessment and the issue of continuity between primary and secondary school languages programs
    Hill, Kathryn. (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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    Authenticity Evaluations in Translational Discourse: A Case-Study of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in English
    Newton, Christopher James ( 2023-09)
    Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: eine indische Dichtung (1922) represents a phenomenon for which it is difficult to find another example: a European appropriation of the East that was embraced by that very East itself, even in the midst of post-colonial resistance. Siddhartha’s iconic status across cultures ranging from the Anglosphere to South America, India, Nepal, Japan, Korea and Thailand (just to name a few) presupposes the widespread acceptance of its authenticity. And in the 1960s, the North American counterculture movement and a generation of dissatisfied youth found either confirmation or solace in what became a spiritual classic. Yet if these diverse readerships encountered Hesse’s book predominantly through translation and often through indirect translation, what is the role of translation in this widespread perception of authenticity? How is authenticity evaluated – created, signalled, accepted, contested, rejected and revised – in the translated texts themselves as well as all of those texts generated by the translations – reviews, scholarship, introductions, commentary, translator biographies, letters, publishing documents, advertisements, adaptations? This research adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, triangulating the methods of translation history: archival research, bibliographic documentation, the tracing of agents and their cultural, ideological and social networks, a focus on translators as people and attention to paratext. Also incorporated are some of the methods of norm theory, descriptive translation studies, comparative literature and postcolonial studies. A new translation authenticity model, adapted from the field of psychology, is used to locate and analyse different kinds of authenticity appeals in the translational discourse of six distinct but related reception settings of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: a global view of flows and hubs in all languages, the original German reception, the 1960s counterculture reception, the Indian English-language print reception, the post copyright retranslations and Siddhartha in cyberspace. The model helps locate sources of authenticity evaluations (internal or external) as well as what exactly is being evaluated (texts or agents). It thus allows for four kinds of authenticity evaluation. Transfer authenticity (based on comparison of originals with translations) is externally sourced and evaluates text. Attitudinal authenticity (based on values and ideologies) is also externally sourced but evaluates agents (people or groups). Genre authenticity (based on non-translational literary values and poetics) is externally sourced and evaluates texts. Finally, reflexive authenticity is internally sourced and is based on evaluations of the self. Applying the translation authenticity model to these reception settings – over one hundred years of translational discourse – and then locating evolving patterns over time and space, the study comes to some intriguing conclusions: 1) internally sourced authenticity evaluations of translations of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha occur the most frequently; 2) when agents evaluate Siddhartha translations for authenticity, they are almost always evaluating other people, along with texts; 3) there exists a bifurcation of the implied status and role of the translator (and translations) between print and electronic publishing; 4) translator decisions and justifications become ever more reflexive in print retranslations – a trend toward “visible-ism”; 5) there is an increasing complexity of paratextual appeals in print editions, while cyberspace displays the opposite pattern: impoverishment of paratextual appeals, translation indifference and conflation between translations; and 6) online reviews indicate that readers will trade authenticity for other values. Authenticity evaluations in translational discourse thus turn out to be overwhelmingly non-empirical and modulated by ideologies and conceptions of the self. Given the rapid progress of translation- and language technologies, the results have implications for the future of literary translation, intercultural communication and publishing.
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    A Usage Based approach to Interlanguage Pragmatics
    Irribarra Vivanco, Romina Constanza ( 2023-05)
    Recent research regarding the acquisition of interlanguage pragmatics and interactional competence has delved into the idea of a usage-based approach to their development. Therefore, this Ph.D. research project sought to investigate if, using a usage-based approach to teaching, low-level learners could generalize pragmatic features, i.e., pre-expansion sequences, by developing form-function- contexts mappings that could help them increase their pragmatic competence. Overall, this study agrees with previous research that has found that low-level learners are less likely to produce pre-expansion sequences when requesting and refusing. In addition, a usage-based approach to interlanguage pragmatics was proven effective since learners could produce pre-expansion sequences when requesting and generalize their form and function when refusing. Moreover, an unexpected finding includes possible incidental pragmatic learning of some features commonly used when requesting and using pre-pres to check for availability and secure the interlocutor's attention. Finally, this study also shed light on the possibility of teaching pragmatic features focusing on commonalities and their function across speech acts and the benefits of including the sequential organization of talk to improve learners' pragmatic and interactional competence.
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    Empowering young L2 learners: Investigating the effectiveness of teacher versus peer feedback in different feedback processing conditions
    Peng, Xin ( 2023-10)
    Despite the proliferation of research on students’ engagement with feedback, how young and low-proficiency second language (L2) learners engage with different feedback sources in different feedback processing (languaging) conditions is under-represented in the literature. This study investigated young and low-proficiency L2 learners’ engagement with the teacher and peer feedback in different languaging conditions. It also compared how three distinct feedback conditions impacted L2 learners’ writing development over a school semester (15 weeks). A total of 123 Chinese lower-secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners (A1-A2 levels of English proficiency) aged 13-14 participated in this study. They formed three classes, which were randomly assigned to one of the three feedback conditions: individual written languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 1), collaborative oral languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 2), and peer feedback + teacher feedback (Condition 3). Over six weeks, students in the three conditions completed three writing tasks. A pre-test and a post-test were delivered before and after the treatment. A delayed post-test was carried out two weeks after the post-test. All students’ first and revised writing scripts in the three treatment sessions were collected to analyse learners’ behavioural engagement with different feedback sources. To analyse students’ cognitive engagement, 123 pieces of students’ individual written languaging sheets in Condition 1, and a total of 24 audio recordings of dyadic oral discussion in Conditions 2 and 3 were collected. Audio recordings of six focus group interviews with students (two interviews per condition) and three individual interviews with teachers were analysed for students’ affective engagement and teachers’ perceptions of the three feedback conditions. Finally, students’ writing performance at the three testing times was assessed using measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF), as well as writing scores awarded by two experienced teachers using an analytic rating scale. Findings showed that individual written languaging of teacher feedback (Condition 1) largely enhanced students’ noticing of teacher feedback, with a primary focus on grammar and mechanics. In contrast, collaborative oral languaging (Condition 2) elicited students’ deeper cognitive processing than individual written languaging and enabled students to focus more on the idea development of their writing. Students in Condition 1 incorporated more teacher feedback in their revisions than in Condition 2. Peer review activities in Condition 3 stimulated learners’ more extensive cognitive engagement with peer feedback than learners’ cognitive processing of teacher feedback in Condition 2. In addition to peer feedback, requests for clarification and confirmation triggered considerable languaging episodes in Condition 3. Both teacher and peer feedback receivers in Conditions 2 and 3 tended to assume a passive listener’s role in their pair talk. All students demonstrated positive affective engagement with teacher/peer feedback and the three feedback conditions, although with certain concerns. The three teachers raised practical considerations for implementing different feedback conditions in the exam-oriented instructional context. Ultimately, the three feedback conditions contributed to learners’ development in different writing aspects over time. Key findings are discussed drawing on previous research findings and both cognitive and sociocultural theoretical perspectives. This study provides methodological, theoretical, pedagogical, and policymaking implications for L2 writing instruction and research.