Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Patterns of variation in subject-indexing prefixes in Vatlongos, Southeast Ambrym
    (John Benjamins Publishing, 2022) Ridge E
    This paper describes four patterns of variation in the subject-indexing paradigm of Vatlongos (Oceanic, Vanuatu). It explores their quantitative distribution in a corpus of monologic texts from speakers in three different communities: Mele Maat, a relocated peri-urban community; Endu, which has a distinct dialect; and Ase-Taveak, the other villages of Southeast Ambrym. Speakers in Mele Maat are more likely to use a zero variant of the third person singular Non-future prefix and shorter syllabic variants, and less likely to use the paucal number category. All three patterns suggest formal simplification in the Mele Maat community. The latter two patterns are also associated with higher levels of education, and consequent greater exposure to national and international languages. Overall these patterns suggest that changes which involve reduction of distinctions in morphological paradigms are more likely to be accelerated in contexts of language endangerment than phonological change or phonological reduction.
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    Challenges and responses: A Complex Dynamic Systems approach to exploring language teacher agency in a blended classroom
    (Castledown Publishers, 12/04/2022) Qi GY; Wang Y
    This is a qualitative examination of how a Chinese language teacher responded to challenges and developed her agency in a unique teaching and learning environment, termed as the blended classroom. The uniqueness of this classroom lies in its attendance by two cohorts of students at the same time – the face-to-face and the online groups. The online group joined the face-to-face group and the teacher via a synchronous online classroom called Blackboard Collaborate. Through analysing data from the teacher’s reflection, face-to-face and email interviews and the recordings of her blended class, this research unfolds a semester-long trajectory of her agency development in the blended classroom. Guided by the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), we conclude that teacher agency is a system composed of multi-layers of subsystems and it is a product of the constant interaction amongst these interconnected and interdependent subsystems, with certain subsystems playing a more dominant role than others at a given stage of one’s agency development. This finding led to our proposal of a framework of teacher agency system. This research advances our understanding of teacher agency as a system in the context of online and blended learning.
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    Skills for Citizenship? Writing Instruction and Civic Dispositions in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (WAC Clearinghouse, 30/09/2019) Gerrard H
    : This article offers an overview of a first-year writing course in Aotearoa New Zealand, Tū Kupu: Writing and Inquiry, which forms part of a core Bachelor of Arts (BA) curriculum with “citizenship” as a key theme. I situate the course in the context of the tertiary sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the social and political contexts for teaching here, analysing how these contexts deeply inform the sense of “the civic” that we engage in writing instruction. In particular, I account for neoliberal trends in higher education and the complexities of citizenship, including the multiple and sometimes competing kinds of belonging, participation, and publics we invoke when we name citizenship as a teaching focus, and the role of writing in their enactment. My broadest claim is that this set of complexities is a useful one to illuminate the multifaceted work of writing instruction in this country. In addition, in three sections, this article works through some of the institutional and policy demands on writing instruction, the competing accounts of citizenship that we might engage, and how our assignments, text choices, and workshop pedagogy model civic engagement and frame writing in terms of inquiry and collectivity, amid shifting frames and hierarchies of belonging, and questions about the role of the university.
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    The sexiest accent in the world: Linguistic insecurity and prejudice in media coverage of the New Zealand accent
    (Linguistic Society of New Zealand, 30/06/2021) de Bres J; Nicholas SA
    In 2019, New Zealanders collectively blushed at the news that an online survey had voted the New Zealand accent the sexiest in the world. Taking a critical metalinguistic perspective, this article examines how the New Zealand accent was represented in media coverage of the survey results. Examining written and televised news items reporting on the survey, we attend to explicit discourse, in the form of direct discussion about the accent, as well as implicit discourse, in the form of images and accent performances. The survey purported to reveal how the world sees the New Zealand accent, but the media coverage more strongly reveals how New Zealanders see themselves. Behind the apparently light-hearted joking about the sexiness or otherwise of the New Zealand accent, the results provide continued evidence of linguistic insecurity, alongside prejudice towards stigmatised social variation in accent. A survey investigating how 52 university students reacted to stylised New Zealand accents in the media coverage suggests that supposedly humorous accent performances are not so funny for those who are the subject of the joke.
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    Getting their wires crossed: Interpreters and clinicians' expectations of the role of the professional interpreters in the Australian health context
    (International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies, 16/11/2020) Crezee I; Zucchi E; Jülich S
    The positive impact the provision of professional language services has in the health context is well documented: the greater the engagement of qualified interpreters and culturally competent health professionals, the better the health outcomes of patients with limited English proficiency. However, while most professional interpreters in Australia generally adhere to the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (2012a) Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct, a significant number appear to ignore or reject important precepts of the Code in their practice, especially if these interpreters are casual (non-inhouse) agency interpreters. Similarly, while most health professionals display an understanding of the role professional interpreters have in the health context, a number of them fail to grasp the importance of key elements of the Code of Ethics, including appropriate briefing, what should be interpreted and how, and the appropriate role boundaries of the interpreter. These findings are based on the analysis of two interpreter and two clinician surveys, both conducted in Australia.