School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemWritten feedback in intermediate Japanese L2 classes: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes and practices( 2022)This thesis investigates the attitudes and practices of students and teachers surrounding written feedback in the context of an intermediate Japanese as a Second Language program. Despite the abundance of research investigating written feedback and the factors that influence its implementation and uptake in programs that teach English as an Additional Language, the field of research into second language acquisition has yet to explore written feedback outside of this context in any depth. Hence, the current study aims to begin to address this apparent gap in the existing literature by applying methodologies and theories from previous study to the novel environment of Japanese as a Second Language education. In particular, this was done in order to determine the validity of existing findings outside of the usual context and consider the reasons for any differences in results that might arise. Nine students and two teachers of an intermediate university JSL program provided both qualitative and quantitative data to the study via interviews, surveys, and collection of feedback provided on assignments. Analysis of this data then demonstrated that despite the difference in target language of the educational environment, teachers and students displayed similar attitudes and practices to those that had been observed in previously studied English as an Additional Language learning environments. Thus, the study demonstrates the validity of drawing upon previous literature from English as an Additional Language programs to inform pedagogy in other language learning environments, and facilitates further research on written feedback in environments that teach languages other than English.
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ItemAustralian Indigenous language learner’s guides for revitalisation: language acquisition and materials evaluation( 2019)Given that many Australian Indigenous communities have undergone language loss and wish to (re)learn their heritage language, and that existing learner’s guides for these languages written by linguists are limited in their pedagogical capacities, this study is set out to investigate the current state and possible improvement of learner’s guides in response to Penfield and Tucker’s (2011) call for applied linguists with an expertise in language acquisition to step into this area. Specifically, this present study first adopts the learner-centred second language acquisition (SLA) stance and interviews four community-based language workers to identify the learning goals and needs of Indigenous communities. The study also evaluates nine existing learner’s guides published over the past four decades with Tomlinson’s (2010, 2011, 2016) principles proposed for SLA materials development as the fundamental framework. Findings suggest that one of the major learning goals of Indigenous communities be communicative competence, which matches with Tomlinson’s (2016) emphasis. Additionally, comprehensibility is the most salient issue of learner’s guides at present. To compare the insights of the interviewees in this study and the results of the learner’s guides evaluation, it is found that the SLA frameworks adopted in this study can indeed inform future development of learner’s guides for Australian Indigenous languages, but the application requires modifications in order to achieve cultural appropriateness, especially considering the colonial history of Australia. Beyond learner’s guides per se, the governing principle of future learner’s guides development is to have community consultation, involvement, and ideally, initiation. Positioned as an initial attempt to bridge language revitalisation and SLA, this study provides novel perspectives to both fields, introducing a theoretically and practically informed approach to develop pedagogical materials for Indigenous languages and an insight into a less studied audience in SLA research.
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ItemThe effects of study-abroad: the acquisition of English embedded wh-questions by L1 Cantonese speakers( 2018)Motivated by the growth of study-abroad (SA) population and the various findings in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature, this thesis investigates the effect of the SA context on the acquisition of English embedded wh-questions by first-language (L1) Cantonese speakers. 21 (11 at-home, AH and 10 SA) Cantonese learners of English participated in the study. The data were elicited by an oral production task (OPT), a grammaticality judgement task (GJT), a language contact profile (LCP) and an interview. The focus of the OPT and GJT was the inversion error made by the participants in the production and judgement of English embedded wh-questions, while the LCP and interview aiming at figuring out the possible factors of the participants’ knowledge of the target feature or the lack thereof. Moreover, the study set out to examine the difficulties of different wh-words (what, who, which, when, where, how and why) and whether the argument (what, who, which) – adjunct (when, where, how and why) asymmetry existed. The results showed no significant difference between the scores of the SA group and the AH group, suggesting that SA does not have a superior effect on the acquisition of L2 syntax. Diverse difficulties of different wh-words and the argument-adjunct asymmetry were found. These findings were discussed in light of the concepts of explicit and implicit knowledge as well as usage-base approaches. The study has pedagogical and theoretical implications.
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ItemSecond language interactional competence: solicitation effects on suggestions( 2014)This study investigated the acquisition of second language interactional competence via the speech act of suggestion produced by Vietnamese learners of English. The study employed a cross-sectional design to examine the effects of proficiency level and learning environment on learners’ pragmatic development. Specifically, the data elicitation instruments – role-play scenarios - were designed to uncover the solicitation effects on suggestion making. Four groups of learners of different proficiency levels in ESL and EFL environments were recruited for the study: a group of ESL learners of high proficiency level, a group of EFL learners of high proficiency level, a group of EFL learners of middle proficiency level, and a group of EFL learners of low proficiency level. A group of Australian native speakers were also recruited to provide baseline data. The employment of conversation analysis analytical apparatus in data analysis revealed significant solicitation effects on suggestion making. While the analysis of linguistic features of suggestions did not reveal any marked differences between two types of suggestions, the two types did differ in their sequence organizations. Discursive patterns of solicited suggestions varied in insertions and post-expansions whereas patterns of unsolicited suggestions varied in pre-expansions and post-expansions. Similarly, significant differences of preference organization of the two types of suggestions were found. While solicited suggestions were preferred ones, unsolicited suggestions were dispreferred. A number of preferences in suggestions were also documented. The examination of proficiency effects on learners’ performance showed a non-linear developmental pattern in unsolicited suggestions. That is, learners of mid proficiency and low proficiency levels were able to mitigate their suggestions while learners of high proficiency level did not attempt to use mitigating devices. On a learning environment note, learners in a second language environment resembled native speakers’ performance while learners in a foreign language environment differed significantly. The research contributes to the discursive pragmatics and interactional competence development in CA-for-SLA literature. It suggests important implications for pragmatics instruction and methodological implications for interlanguage pragmatic research.
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ItemThe development of metacognition of L2 listening in joint activity( 2009)This study investigates the development of metacognition of L2 listening in joint activity. Two complementary aspects are examined, namely, the role of collaborative dialogue in mediating learners’ development of metacognition of L2 listening in joint activity, and the social-cultural-historical contradictions shaping learners’ development in this regard. The study took place at a research site in central Japan, and involved ten pairs of Japanese, advanced-level EFL learners who completed a sequence of tasks in a process-oriented pedagogical cycle for five lessons. The listening material used in the study was BBC news videotexts. Audio and video recordings of each pairs’ collaborative dialogue formed the primary data source for the first part of the study, and were complemented by diary and interview data. For the second part of the study, the reverse occurred, with diaries and interviews being the main sources of data, and information from each pairs’ collaborative dialogue providing support. Two case study pairs formed the focus of the investigation, and the data analysis approach was primarily qualitative. With respect to the first part of the study, the analysis found that a number of common functions were activated and operationalized as learners shared, selected, and reflected on their listening strategies in collaborative dialogue: recognizing, determining, explaining, clarifying, evaluating and confirming. An analytical framework of receptive, active, and responsive dimensions illustrated how collaborative dialogue acted as a mediating artifact affording learners opportunities to develop their metacognition of L2 listening as they operationalized these functions. Corresponding diary entries and interview responses reflected the utility of collaborative dialogue in mediating learners’ metacognitive development. In addition, the study found collaborative dialogue mediated learners’ awareness of a range of features under three primary categories: strategy awareness, comprehension awareness, and text awareness. This enabled a working definition of awareness of L2 listening from a sociocultural theory perspective to be formulated, i.e., awareness is the conscious realization of one’s own and others’ knowledge and beliefs about how, and what, strategic, comprehension, and text variables function and interact to influence outcomes in joint activity. In addition, collaborative dialogue mediated learners’ control of their L2 listening with respect to various features associated with the three stages of regulation recognized in sociocultural theory: object-regulation, other regulation, and self-regulation. It also mediated learners’ transition between these stages. Regarding the second part of the study, a joint activity system analysis explored each case study pairs’ joint activity at the start and end of the study. Each analysis focused on learners’ motives, history and beliefs, personal task goals, pair work, and pattern of interaction, and identified a range of related primary and secondary social-cultural-historical contradictions shaping learners’ metacognition of L2 listening across the study. Furthermore, the joint activity system analysis illustrated that these social-cultural-historical contradictions were either resolved, moving towards resolution, or unresolved across the five lessons in the study. This was irrespective of whether or not they were recognized by learners, or remained latent. These findings highlight the utility of collaborative dialogue in mediating knowledge-building and problem-solving with respect to metacognition of L2 listening and as a unit of analysis for exploring aspects of learners’ development in this respect. In addition, the findings show the joint activity system model utilized offers a functional framework for representing and examining the dimensions of joint activity influencing L2 learners’ metacognitive development.
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ItemMediation, internalization, and perezhivanie in second language learning: An autoethnographic case study of learning Mandarin as an L2 through Livemocha( 2013)The aim of this study is to develop a better understanding of the sociocultural concepts of mediation and internalization in second language learning. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (SCT) has gained acceptance within second language acquisition (SLA) research, however, SLA researchers have maintained cognitivist tendencies, and overlooked the methodological holism that Vygotsky had proposed. I argue that restoring his concept of perezhivanie (lived experience) as a unit of analysis allows researchers to take a more holistic approach to SCT-SLA to better understand the experience of mediation and internalization in language learning. To embrace a holistic approach, I undertook an autoethnography of learning Mandarin as an L2 through the social network language learning site, focusing on the ways in which my language learning was mediated. Spending two to three hours a day for five weeks on Livemocha, I kept a journal of my experiences learning Mandarin. Through four cycles of qualitative analysis, five themes emerged. First, my L1 was not simply a passive influence, but a resource that I could draw on to make associations with the L2, sometimes in unexpected ways. Second, the experience of frustration appeared to motivate my use of superficial strategies, like guessing, as my orientation shifted from learning language to completing tasks. Third, I found that memory (and the associated concept of noticing), as a mediator, was directed not only to linguistic forms, but also to experiences such as frustration, confusion, and forgetfulness. Fourth, I argue that shifts in my perception of Mandarin (e.g., from seeing separate morphemes, to seeing whole multi-morphemic words), are possibly indicative of internalization. Finally, as my attitudes towards the course content of Livemocha grew increasingly negative, I found myself relying more and more on the feedback—a form of social mediation—I was receiving from speakers of Mandarin on the website. In concluding the study, I discuss the implications of these themes, arguing that the emic perspective employed here problematises previously cognitivist conceptions within SLA. Embracing holism, the use of autoethnography in this study foregrounds the role of lived experience in better understanding how mediation operates, and internalization manifests, in learning. Considered together, the five themes that emerged from the study point to an important experiential dimension of learning that needs further investigation to supplement SLA research generally, and SCT approaches specifically.
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ItemThe Russian language in an Australian environment: a descriptive analysis of English interference in the speech of bilingual Russian migrants( 1973)The purpose of this dissertation is to present a descriptive analysis of English interference phenomena observed in Australian Russian as spoken in the urban communities of Melbourne, Sydney and. Brisbane. The project concentrates on vocabulary and idiom (the level at which the bulk of interference phenomena occurs) but phonological and grammatical aspects are introduced in the analysis of integration processes in Chapter IV. Chapter I contains a survey of previous work on bilingualism, language contact and linguistic interference. The basic concepts pertaining to this type of investigation are discussed and defined. Fieldwork is also described. Material for the study was gathered in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It consists of tape-recorded interviews with individual informants and group conversations on the following topics: daily activities, including work and recreation, and memorable events that had occurred before and after migration to Australia. Forty-six informants were used in the investigation and they represent both adult and childhood bilinguals, and a cross-section of the different backgrounds that characterise the Russian migrant population in Australia. As well as a classification of the informants, Chapter I also contains a brief outline of the history of Russian migration to Australia and a description of Russian community activities and efforts towards Russian language maintenance in Australia. Chapter II is concerned with a discussion of the fundamental causes of interference in Australian Russian speech. Actual contextual examples of interference phenomena are described, classified and as far as possible explained using the author's own observations and the findings of other researchers in this field. The analysis shows that interference in the speech corpus may be correlated with sociocultural, structural and psychological factors and that the situations in which Russian and English are used, as well as the attitudes of the speaker, play an important role in conditioning the extent and nature of interference. Chapter III presents a classification of interference phenomena according to different modes of interference, namely, the transfer of English identities (words and expressions in their entirety of form and meaning); the transfer of English distributions (the semantic extension of Russian words on the model of English and the translation of English expressions); the transfer of English identities and distributions to form bilingual compounds and phrases. The transfer of English identities was found to outnumber other modes of interference in the corpus. Chapter IV describes the integration processes used by the informants to adapt English items to the phonological and morphological systems of Russian. The examples show a clear pattern of sound substitution of Russian phonemes for English ones, a strong tendency to assign the majority of English nouns to the masculine gender, a preference for the productive declension, conjugation and word-formation patterns. A number of words and expressions are classified as socially integrated or adopted into Australian Russian on the basis of their frequency and range of occurrence. Chapter V discusses the few examples of code-switching between English and. Russian that occur in the corpus. The Conclusion contains a recapitulation of the main findings of this project and a brief discussion of what these findings indicate about the changing function of Russian in Australia. The three Appendices contain a description of the informants, sample interviews and extracts from Unification relevant to Chapter I.
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ItemThe process of the assessment of writing performance: the rater's perspective( 2000)The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the process by which raters of texts written by ESL learners make their scoring decisions. The context is the Special Test of English Proficiency (step), used by the Australian government to assist in immigration decisions. Four trained, experienced and reliable step raters took part in the study, providing scores for two sets of 24 texts. The first set was scored as in an operational rating session. Raters then provided think-aloud protocols describing the rating process as they rated the second set. Scores were compared under the two conditions and comparisons made with the raters' operational rating behaviour. Both similarities and differences were observed. A coding scheme developed to describe the think-aloud data allowed analysis of the sequence of rating, the interpretations the raters made of the scoring categories in the analytic rating scale, and the difficulties raters faced in rating. Findings demonstrate that raters follow a fundamentally similar rating process, in three stages. With some exceptions, they appear to hold similar interpretations of the scale categories and descriptors, but the relationship between scale contents and text quality remains obscure. A model is presented describing the rating process. This shows that rating is at one level a rule-bound, socially governed procedure that relies upon a rating scale and the rater training which supports it, but it retains an indeterminate component as a result of the complexity of raters' reactions to individual texts. The task raters face is to reconcile their impression of the text, the specific features of the text, and the wordings of the rating scale, thereby producing a set of scores. The rules and the scale do not cover all eventualities, forcing the raters to develop various strategies to help them cope with problematic aspects of the rating process. In doing this they try to remain close to the scale, but are also heavily influenced by the complex intuitive impression of the text obtained when they first read it. This sets up a tension between the rules and the intuitive impression, which raters resolve by what is ultimately a somewhat indeterminate process. In spite of this tension and indeterminacy, rating can succeed in yielding consistent scores provided raters are supported by adequate training, with additional guidelines to assist them in dealing with problems. Rating requires such constraining procedures to produce reliable measurement.
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ItemThe nature and conditions of pragmatic and discourse transfer in cross-cultural interaction investigated through naturalized role-play( 2004)For decades, the first linguistic and cultural influence on second language performance (technically known as pragmatic and discourse transfer) in cross-cultural interaction has fascinated researchers because its nature and especially its conditions have never been fathomed out. The aims of this investigation are threefold. First, it examines the nature of pragmatic and discourse transfer in compliment responses by Vietnamese speakers of English as a second language in cross-cultural interaction with Australians. The examination also takes into account data from conversations among Australian English native speakers and interaction between Vietnamese counterparts. Second, the research project investigates the underexplored conditions of pragmatic and discourse transfer. In the quest for the nature and conditions of pragmatic and discourse transfer, research methodologies provoke much debate because they have different advantages and disadvantages, though the ultimate goal remains the controlled elicitation of data that is comparable to real-life production. The third aim of the present study is to propose and validate an innovative methodology of data collection in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research the Naturalized Role-play. This methodology is capable of realizing the highly desirable but virtually impossible goal of eliciting spontaneous data in controlled settings. In reference to the methodological design of the research project, the Naturalized Role-play provided the main corpus of data on pragmatic and discourse transfer whose in-depth analysis revealed the nature of this phenomenon. In addition to Naturalized Role-play data, background questionnaire and retrospective interview data was collected to explore conditions of pragmatic and discourse transfer. To demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the Naturalized Role-play, compliment response data collected by means of the Naturalized Role-play was compared with data from other major methods including the questionnaire, closed role-play, open role-play and natural data recording. Findings of this investigation indicated what was transferred and how pragmatic and discourse transfer patterned, upon which new hypotheses were formulated. The investigation also uncovered as yet unknown conditions of pragmatic and discourse transfer (e.g. awareness in language production) and their interaction. Moreover, the Naturalized Role-play proved to fulfil its aim. It can combine advantages of major methods without their drawbacks and is more effective (i.e. providing more natural data) than existing means of data elicitation. In essence, based on the Naturalized Role-play approach, this investigation sheds new light on the nature of pragmatic and discourse transfer, offers insights into its conditions and features a pioneering creative solution to the controversial methodological problem. The study also presents implications of its findings for second language learners, teachers and native speakers of different languages in social interactions where cultures meet.
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ItemWeb-based hypertext writing for second language learning( 2005)This study investigated the process of creating webpages by L2 learners and the products of this process in a PrOCALL (project-oriented computer-assisted language learning) classroom, and explored their implications for language learning. The study setting was an intact French language classroom at the University of Melbourne where producing web-based webpages collaboratively was the main task for students to accomplish during a semester-long period. Five students in two groups were selected for the observation. Data sources included weekly classroom observations, recordings of the students' group-based oral interactions and the computer screen, individual interviews, email conversations, questionnaires, written drafts, and the final webpage products. Other important data was the information obtained from the class website and the class notes. The data was analysed according to the principles of grounded theory and with the assistance of a qualitative data analysis program, Nud*ist (Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theory-building). Analysis of aspects of the students' webpage writing process revealed that the PrOCALL classroom provided students with opportunities for language learning through naturally occurring oral interactions encouraged by the goal- oriented activities of webpage writing. At the same time however, the analysis also revealed that the quality and quantity of these learning opportunities largely depended on the students' collaborative relationships, which were affected by student participation, motivation, and orientation. The computer was another important factor that affected the collaborative relationships. Technological problems sometimes caused the students to change the established roles in the collaborative relationship between them, to change their orientation, and consequently to change their activities. Although these changes distracted the students from speaking the target language or maintaining orientation to language learning, analysis also revealed many occasions where students generated learning opportunities by reflecting, negotiating, and producing private speech in trying to resolve the problems, which became shared language learning efforts. Analysis of the students' webpage products revealed that the students engaged in writing activities through which they spontaneously endeavored to accommodate the Internet users as their audience and to reflect upon the results of the endeavor. However, the study also revealed that students responded to the audience in various ways. Students who focused on Internet users struggled to accommodate the audience, which resulted in webpages that did not seem to employ effective written communication. Whereas, students who regarded Internet users as secondary to a more specific and personally related audience produced webpages employing successful hypertextual communication and critical literacy practice. Acknowledging the need for further investigation, the study suggests a possibility that students may benefit more from having a specific and personally related audience rather than an uncertain audience such as Internet users. The dissertation concludes that the PrOCALL classroom provided students with opportunities for language learning and experiences of important literacy practice by promoting natural oral interactions through goal-oriented activities of web-based hypertext writing. Importantly, however, the study calls for the need to consider students' collaborative relationships as one of the most important factors to realise the benefits of the PrOCALL classroom. Also, the study suggests that students need to be guided to a more specific and personally related audience than general Internet users for effective web-based hypertextual communication.