Current HDR Students
Adrefiza Adrefiza
PhD in Education
Thesis
Responding to apology: A study of Australian and Indonesian speech act behaviours
This study examines and compares apology responses (ARs) between Australian English (AE) and Bahasa Indonesia (BI) speakers with reference to gender and situation variables. Based on modified ODCT data from 120 respondents from both language communities, a total of 360 responses from three selected apology situations (being absent at a close friend’s birthday party; revealing a close friend’s secret; and breaking a promise to return a close friend’s book) were tape-recorded and categorized according to Holmes’ (1995) classification; Accept (AC); Acknowledge (AK); Evade (EV); and Reject (RJ). The finding shows that regardless of gender and situation, both communities tend to be forgiving with a strong tendency to accept their close friends’ apologies. Although the majority of responses fall into AC category (65=36.1 % in AE, and 62=34.4 % in BI), both speakers still display a considerably high percentage of RJs (38=21.1 % in AE and 49=27.2 % in BI). Australian respondents tend to be more evasive and less acknowledging than Indonesians’ in their AR strategies. In general, there seem to be no noticeable gender differences in apology responding strategies in both language communities. However, the strategies seem to vary according to the apology situations. While both languages represent different socio-cultural, politeness, and pragma-linguistic features, it appears that Indonesians tend to be more face-threatening and more direct than Australians in their their apology responses. The findings are expected to contribute to valuable insights into EFL teaching pedagogy, especially in Indonesian contexts.
Supervisor
Dr Jeremy Jones
Neda Akbari
PhD in linguistics
Thesis
Comparing the L1 and L2 Mental Lexicon developments: breadth, depth, and accessibility
This study continues the line of studies attempting to reveal a better picture of L2 mental lexicon. This project seeks to explore how L2 mental lexicon develops by investigating breadth (vocabulary size), depth (relationships among words), and accessibility (how fast we access words) of words in the L2 mental lexicon and comparing it to those in L1. The subjects are English native speakers and English non-natives of ages 7, 12, and 17. This project focuses on how depth and accessibility of words in the L2 mental lexicon get affected by increase in the breadth of words and the subjects’ age. Word association tests and word accessibility tests will be administered to access the L1 and L2 mental lexicon structures.
Supervisory panel
Dr. Yanyin Zhang, Dr. Deborah Hill, Dr. Eleni Petraki, and Dr. Jeremy Jones
Sandy Bigna
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication
Thesis
Fierce Attachments: the mother-adolescent daughter relationship.
In writing my novel I seek to present a portrayal of a relationship that adolescent girls have identified in the research literature as being central to their lives - that is, the relationship with their mothers.
My study seeks to determine: how is the mother-daughter relationship depicted in recent Australian young adult fiction and how does the portrayal compare to the contemporary research literature on the subject? And can the research literature be utilised to write about the relationship in young adult fiction? These questions will be answered through both the exegesis and through writing the young adult novel.
URL
http://www.ginninderrapress.com.au/page2/fiction.html
Supervisors
Belle Alderman, Prof. Jen Webb
Andrew Blyth
PhD in Education
Thesis
Finding new ways for teaching listening to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Japan: Teaching lexical segmentation.
This project aims to develop and trial prototype pedagogies of listening for English language teaching in Japan. Lexical segmentation is a process in listening for discerning individual words in running speech. Recent research in phonology and cognitive science offers exciting new possibilities for English language teaching, and especially promising for improving listening abilities of students. It is considered ineffective and inappropriate to impose Western teaching methodologies onto Japan, and so this project firstly aims to develop appropriate teaching techniques and methodologies with teachers in the Japanese context. The second part of this project is to review teachers and students responses to these teaching techniques and methodologies, and determine the applicability of these.
Supervisors
Dr. Jeremy Jones (chair), Dr. Nicolette Bramley, and Dr. Elke Stracke.
Ms Katrina Clifford
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication
Thesis
'Madness' and [mis]representation: the discursive construction and contestation of meaning frameworks in relation to fatal police-involved interventions to mental health crisis incidents.
While fatal police shootings of persons in psychiatric crisis are relatively uncommon in Australia, the prevalence of these incidents as a proportion of the total recorded number of police-involved shootings bears cause for concern. For the broader public, knowledge of these incidents is typically made apparent via media coverage of the event, which more often than not draws on news frames that propagate the misconception of an inherent causal link between mental illness and violence.
This project examines the real social and political consequences of these meaning frameworks, and attempts to understand how and why different representations of mental illness are typically produced (and contested) between institutional (e.g. news media, police and medical) and lay discourses in relation to fatal mental health crisis interventions. In doing so, it explores the concept of sustainable risk communications and questions the ethics of crisis intervention with a view to discerning how key stakeholders negotiate an understanding of these concepts in the context of their own everyday experiences and involvement in these incidents, and as part of their formation of perceptions of mental illness.
Supervisor
Professor Warwick Blood
Kym Campbell
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication
Thesis
In the Act: Apple’s Mobile Internet Devices (MIDS) and its relationship with performance and ritual.
This thesis looks at emerging forms of social participation enabled through the use of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDS). Drawing upon ideas of performance and ritual, the thesis considers the artefact and contexts of use through case studies in citizen journalism, mobile and location aware gaming and independent mobile media.
One of its primary aims is therefore to expand on the existing work in the area of mobility, targeting in on Apples mobile internet device - the iPhone. Since the rise of mobile technology in the first part of this century, it has influenced both social behaviour as well as future trends in shaping technology. Indeed mobile technology allows us an opportunity to examine reactions to society and how technology influences sociation.
Supervisor
Dr Sam Hinton
Kilala Devette-Chee
PhD in Educational Linguistics
Thesis
PIDGINS & CREOLES IN EDUCATION: The use of Tok Pisin in Primary Schools in Papua New Guinea - A Case Study.
This research project seeks to investigate the effectiveness of the use of pidgins and creoles in education. The study focuses on Tok Pisin, which is an English-lexifier pidgin widely spoken in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as a 'lingua franca' and now as a 'creole' by thousands of Papua New Guinean children. Although TokPisin has been marginalized for many years by previous governments in Papua New Guinea, it is now strongly encouraged by the current National Department of Education (NDOE) to be used as the medium of instruction in elementary and lower primary schools along-side vernacular languages in bilingual education programs as a bridge to English at a later stage. The study also examines the attitudes of teachers, parents and students towards the use of Tok Pisin in primary schools compared to vernacular languages.
Supervisor
Dr. Elke Stracke
Robert Easterbrook
PhD in Education
Thesis
Vocabulary learning strategies and beliefs about language and language learning
This research project, after obtaining Confirmation in July 2009, will explore vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) and beliefs about language and language learning (BALLL or BALLI). More specifically, the research will now explore the relationship between VLS use by undergraduate Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners to learn English vocabulary and their BALLI. This is a little explored relationship in a Chinese EFL context, which provides a rich context of beliefs that beckon exploration. Research has shown that VLS are real, useful and beneficial, and consciously employed by language learners the world over in the pursuit of another language. Beliefs (as higher order representations), however, can influence how language learners conceptualize language and the language learning task. Research demonstrates that beliefs can influence the way in which language learners approach the language learning task. The implications of this influence have not been fully explored in a Chinese context, and empirical studies in China to date, the few that have been done, have tended to portray the influence of Chinese beliefs (a.k.a. Chinese Culture of Learning) on language learning as fairly positive. Yet anecdotal evidence does not seem to support this conclusion.
Supervisor
Dr Elke Stracke;
support, Dr Marina Houston
Ray Edmondson
PhD in Communication
Thesis
The ScreenSound Syndrome: journey of a cultural icon
In June 1999, the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) rebranded itself as ScreenSound Australia. It was a turning point for a major national memory institution which – unlike its peers -still lacked a legislative mandate, legal personality or – so it seemed to some – a distinctive identity. It was the beginning of a turbulent chain of events during which the very existence of the institution would be threatened, before the security of independent statutory authority status was finally reached in 2008, with the passage of the National Film and Sound Archive Act.
The study analyses this crucial period in the life of the NFSA, which traces its beginnings back to 1935 as a subset of the Commonwealth National Library, later the National Library of Australia, from which it separated in 1984. Against the background of three quarters of century of shifting government policy, stakeholder activism and the evolution of Australia’s libraries, archives and museums, the NFSA’s struggle to define a new profession and a new institutional concept has proved a twisted tale indeed. The study draws on a variety of documentary sources, including government statements and reports, press releases and articles, publicity materials, correspondence, memos, minutes, email traffic, and work diaries. At this stage the main unfinished research task is the gathering of individual recollections using oral history techniques.
Supervisors
Dr Stuart Ferguson, Prof Greg Battye
Michelle Elmitt
Master of Arts in Communication
Thesis
An investigation of rituals around lover and power between parents and non-biological children in contemporary Australia.
My interest lies in the changing structure and orientation of the family. In particular I want to look at some of the more immeasurable phenomena in relationships between parents and non biological children. Through a series of field interviews I will investigate these interrelationships, collecting stories and looking for repetition and means of emotional engagement. As it is thought that rituals arise when there are changes in social relations that can involve use of creative imagination, I will be concentrating on collecting stories and my response will be a work of collected narratives and a work of fiction.
Supervisors
Dr Paul Magee, Dr Jordan Williams
Gavin Findlay
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication (Cultural Heritage)
Thesis
Utilising tangible and intangible heritage in documenting the history and works of Splinters Theatre of Spectacle
The objective is to develop and test a methodology for documenting the history and works of a unique Canberra artistic endeavour, Splinters Theatre of Spectacle (1985-1998). Splinters’ works and methods have long been acknowledged as significant but, as with much theatre outside the mainstream, have not as yet received appropriate critical and cultural analysis. The unique features of the company also present many challenges for the archivist and curator: the company’s open structure - well over 1000 people performed with the company; the material and mechanical components of the work, including unique theatrical props and sculptural works of note; and the presence of a number of photographers and film, video and sound artists in the company, which meant nearly everything the company did was recorded. This material presents a unique opportunity to create a social history as well as a documentary record and platform for further study. The research will produce a documentary film, website and exhibition for the 2013 Centenary of Canberra program in addition to the thesis.
Supervisory Panel
Dr Jeff Brownrigg, Ms Robyn Archer, Professor Sarah Miller (UoW)
Anita Fitton
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication
Thesis
The Potent Propagation of Women through Propaganda during WWII
My research will focus mainly on the identity of women as depicted in Australian WWII posters. It will also examine symbols used on costumes etc., and other paraphernalia represented in the visual medium that were specifically utilized for Women. A comparison of the British and American posters from WWII is necessary, and will examine if there are any significant contrasts between the cultural viewpoint/identity of women in the different nations. This enquiry will support this research to uncover how Australian propaganda posters communicate a unique female Australian identity.
Supervisor
Prof Jen Webb
Maya Gunawardena
PhD in Education
Thesis
An Inquiry into the Teaching of English grammar in Sri Lankan government secondary schools
This research aims to investigate teachers’ grammar practices in the state schools of Sri Lanka. The study will also examine the teachers’ and learners’ attitude towards English grammar instruction and the strengths and weaknesses of techniques used in grammar teaching. The study employed the qualitative and quantitative research methods: questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and non participatory classroom observation in data collection. This study will be a first systematic study of grammar teaching and L2 learning in the Sri Lankan context. It will benefit teachers, learners and education administrators for the Sri Lankan English language curriculum and will provide recommendations for the Sri Lankan English teaching curriculum and also will help revise, and improve it, and be informed by the new trends in language teaching.
Supervisor
Eleni Petraki
Shary'n Halyday
Master of Information Studies
Thesis
Best practice for digital storytelling and sustainable practices
With the advent of digital technology, modern physics and now the mapping of the human genome, it has never been a more important time to ask what do we know about the future and how does our past inform it? This is the premise for a digital story case study centred on the enterprise of professional road cycling’s past. By answering these questions and in so doing arrive at a case study to apply the complexities and sensitivities of storytelling in a new way. The research brings together ideas around quality content for both Government funding framework considerations of the digital space and, a methodology for sustainable media (film and television) business principles and practices.
Traditional story telling is limited to who it can reach, whose voice can be heard and how a story is indeed structured. With the opportunity of digital spaces, audiences become accessible, complexities and sensitivities of story content addressed and audience are provided with the ability to interact and in some instances shape the content of story. Within principles of quality content control, best practice website architecture and traditional communication methods a new way of storytelling emerges from this real time case study.
Supervisors
Prof. Sally Burford and Prof. Sam Hinton
Ross Hamilton
Master of Arts in Communication
Thesis
Changing attitudes of Australian Soldiers in World War 1
My research project will examine how the attitudes of Australian soldiers may have changed during World War 1 between Gallipoli and the AIF's first disasterous engagement at the Battle of Fromelles on the western front in 1916. By accessing source documents including correspondence and diaries of the combatants, I hope to establish what changes may have occurred in the mindset of the soldiers, particularly that of new arrivals to the front. Was Gallipoli already being seen as glorious defeat? The bulk of the findings will be presented as a work of creative writing supported by a research paper detailing specific research findings.
Supervisors
Paul Magee, Anthony Eaton
Pam Harvey
PhD in Communication
Thesis
‘Suffering and Fear: Chronic Illness in Young Adult Fiction’
This research project will focus on the effects that suffering physical and mental illness – and the fear of this suffering - has on the developing character of adolescents. Through a novel for young adults and an exegetical component that explores illness narratives, the developmental, societal and creative implications of ongoing illness are investigated.
The project will consist of two components: a major creative work and its accompanying exegetical essay. The creative element is a work of prose fiction for young adults (YA). The exegetical essay will explore, by literature review and critical reading, two main themes: character development in relation to the genetic and environmental factors influencing inheritance during adolescence (focusing on ‘hereditary’ family illnesses, and the talent of musicality); and narrative realism and creating stories that are relevant and meaningful for the reader.
Supervisors
Dr Anthony Eaton, Dr Belle Alderman
Bo (Scott) Liu
PhD in Education
Thesis
A processing approach to the L2 acquisition of Chinese syntax
This study aims to explore L2 Chinese acquisition at syntactic level with Processability Theory (PT) as its theoretical basis. The purpose is twofold: one is to further test the applicability of PT-based processing procedures to Chinese syntax and the other is to work out Chinese-syntax-specific processing procedures. To address the research questions, I will conduct a longitudinal study on adult L2 Chinese learners with English as their native language at one Chinese university. Various communicative tasks are to be used in regular intervals to elicit linguistic data for the sentence structures under investigation. The research findings will expand and enrich processability theory and make contribution to the research on Second Language Acquisition.
Supervisors
Dr Yanyin Zhang, Dr Linda Li
Tanya Kiermaier
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication
Thesis
Textual Bodies in Writing for Young People
Phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty bring the body to the centre of philosophical debate challenging the Cartesian dualism of mind as separate to body. Merleau-Ponty argues that the body is our unmediated access to the world, rather than a tool of the mind. Through a phenomenological inquiry into children’s literature, and practice-led research in writing a novel for young adults, I will explore representations of the body in fiction for young people, seeking the embodied adolescent subject as a being-in-the-world, and creatively investigating how that subject is written into being.
Supervisors
Prof. Jen Webb, Dr Jordan Williams, Assistant Prof Anthony Eaton
David Marshall, MBA
PhD in Communication
Thesis
Political communication and media management: The operation of the Prime Ministers Media Unit during the period of the Howard Government: 1996-2007
Supervisor
Prof Peter Putnis
Paitaya Meesat
PhD in Education
Research Topic: Scaffolding program in Listening-Oriented Course for Foreign Learners in Thai Language
According to an assumption of a Thai educator, international students in Thai universities have to enroll in the same required courses and choose from the same curricula taken by Thai students. By the time an international student enrolls in a Thai university, he/she is assumed to have native level Thai language as this is needed for them to take the same required courses as a Thai student in Thai. However, since many Chinese students did not arrive in Thailand with the requisite level of Thai, they have evidently faced hardship in coping with academic lectures taught in Thai. With this concern, this research aims to improve foreign students’ listening comprehension skills for a college academic lecture by designing an effective academic-goal oriented intensive Thai listening course (45 hours). To develop learners’ comprehension listening skills, scaffolding program integrating mix methodologies will be employed in this research. Moreover Somatically Enhanced Approach (SEA) will be used to this listening oriented course since it helps learners become effective listeners and conscious of the role of phoneme awareness. SEA also guides learners the perception on word boundaries, crucial content words, weak forms, sentence boundaries, verbal signposts, discourse markers and information structure in the academic discourse. Targeted on the enhancement of listening, comprehension in academic setting, this research will be conducted with a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodology. The participants of this study are 30 full-time Chinese students who are enrolled in the international business program at Dhurakij Pandit University, Thailand.
Supervisors:
Dr. Felicia Zhang , Dr. Eleni Petraki ,and Dr. Elke Stracke
Kabu Okai-Davies
PhD in Communication (Creative Writing)
Thesis
Autobiography of change
Situating African and African American Autographical writing within the context of Life-Writing. This is a creative writing research work, through the genre of auto/biographical narration about my life as an African Writer. Born and raised in Ghana, lived in England and America, travelled around the world and now lives in Australia, hoping to return to Africa to complete the cycle of my life.
Title of Autobiography: Curfew’s Children: Set against the background of Ghana’s history the story of my life unfolds from birth till the time I lift Ghana for America.
The work is concluded with reflections on my life in Australia, looking back at my life in America and looking beyond Australia.
Exegesis: For the purpose of this doctorate, I have selected the autobiographical writings of the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, (Ghana an Autobiography 1957) and Barack Obama, the first African American to be President of the United States, (Dreams for my Father, 1995) as my exemplars, followed by a historic and analytical overview of the auto/biographical genre.
In the case of writing about my life, I have a vast collection of personal diary writings and photographs that stretch over thirty years, from which I will draw material to support what I remember about my life, my family in Ghana, America and Australia, as well as visits to other parts of the world.
Supervisor
Dr Adam Dickerson and Prof. Jen Webb
Hoang Pham
PhD in Education
Thesis
The use of humour in EFL teaching
This project will explore the perceptions of humour and its role in English teaching/ learning of university teachers and students of English in Vietnam, teachers’ use of humour in their classes, and students’ response to teachers’ use of humour. It will investigate the seemingly limited role of humour in English teaching/ learning in the context of an Eastern, developing country, where English has a prestigious position and the mastery of English an advantage, if not a prerequisite, for success in many fields and professions. To do this, as for university teachers of English, their perceptions of humour and its role in their teaching will be collated with their actual use of humour in the classroom. As for university students of English, their perceptions of humour and teachers’ use of humour in class will also be sought, together with their response to this use of humour by their teachers. It is proposed that an understanding of humour and its role in English teaching/ learning in a non-Western context will contribute to the appropriate and beneficial application of humour in foreign language teaching in general.
Supervisors
Assistant Prof. Eleni Petraki, Dr. Jeremy Jones
Catherine Potter
PhD in Communication
Thesis
Landscape dreaming: flora culture Australis
Landscapes can be seen as cultural constructs, reflections of our personal and collective realities, memories, myths and beliefs. Thus, no one story, no single history, can represent all realities. Throughout time, different social, cultural and spiritual contexts have resulted in myriad perceptions of and responses to the Australian land and bush. How can some of Australia’s non-Indigenous and Indigenous perceptual landscape histories be revealed through an ethical ‘clash of discourses’? How can different cultural constructs of reality about land and the inter-connectedness of people, plants and place in Australia be ethically and cohesively represented through different textual forms?
Supervisor
Prof Jen Webb
Irena Skiba
PhD in Communication
Thesis
Polish migration to Australia 1980-2008 Communication Problems after migration.
The aim of this project is to document how knowledge or lack of knowledge of the English language formed the lives of migrants in Australia: Languages impact, power and possession of control over people.
There have been numerous studies about all the difficulties migrants faced after arriving in a new country, but I was unable to find any studies, which have documented how the knowledge of English language shaped the life of those people.
They have been a quite a few studies of migrants to Australia from countries such as Vietnam, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and to the difficulties they have had in encountering prejudice or cultural discrimination. Over the same period the difficulties faced by immigrants from Europe have been subjected to less frequent scrutiny than was the case in the post.
This research could be conducted with migrants from any country but as case studies, and because I have personal experience as a Polish immigrant, this study will examine the experience of migrants from Poland.
Supervisor
Prof Greg Battye
Ben Stubbs
Master of Arts in Communication
I am investigating the remnants of the Australian social utopia 'New Australia' in the Paraguayan jungle to explore the lives of the Australians that were left behind along with the intrigues of the South American country they escaped to more than 100 years ago.
Supervisor
Paul Magee
Sarah St Vincent Welch
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication by Research
Thesis
Collections of stories stories of collection: Museologists as storytellers and storytellers as museologists.
Are there similarities between writing and editing collections of short stories, and acquiring, developing and exhibiting collections in a museum or gallery? Do these areas have knowledge, practice or theory to share about storytelling? What is the relationship of collecting to telling stories? These questions will be addressed in two ways: by practice-led research involving writing a short story collection about collecting and collections, and a thesis based on the analysis of four exhibitions and four short story collections and interviews with their curators, writers and editors.
Supervisor
Prof Jen Webb
Samantha Thompson
PhD in Communication (Creative Writing)
Thesis
‘An Ambulant Fetish’: The Politics of Disease, Disfigurement & Desire in Angela Carter’s Fiction.
Much has been written about Angela Carter’s reliance upon spectacle: the titillating aspects of the grotesque as represented by freaks, the diseased and disfigured, and articulated through Bakhtin’s theory of Carnivale; the subversive power of the objectified, fetishized female body as she engages in a dialogue with Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Few scholars, however, have been critical of Carter’s attraction to the use of sexual violence as a means of creating political agency for women. In her polemic, The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography, Sade’s libertine heroines are put forward as ‘moral pornographers’, sexual terrorists who rape and torture in acts of power and personal agency seen by Carter as synonymous with doing violence to the literary canon, to male domination.
This thesis will explore the problems inherent in Carter’s work. In the search for alternative approaches to the project of hegemonic and discursive destabilisation, it will also investigate the disruptive influence of freaks, the diseased and disfigured in the work of feminist writers from other traditions.
Creative Project
Hysteria, a historical novel set in nineteenth-century Melbourne and Canton, explores the impact of gender roles, exploitation and marginalisation on identity. Illness or disfigurement – for Peg, a prostitute whose youthful body has become a commodity; and Mai-Shing, a Cantonese opera singer who performs for the pleasure of men – signifies an end to objectification and exploitation. They learn to act within the confines of their socially proscribed roles, to form alliances, to use what few resources they have, and in their own ways, to make their escape.
Lisa Waller
PhD in Communication
Thesis:
Two-Way Talk: The relationship between News Media and The Northern Territory’s Bilingual Education Policy 1988-2008
The Northern Territory’s bilingual education policy has been the subject of heated public and policy debate and policy shifts since its inception in 1973, however, the significance of the relationship between journalism and policymaking had been virtually ignored until media coverage was recognised as a factor in the decision to dismantle the policy in 2008. I have therefore identified a need to explore how the news media indirectly informed the way this policy was formulated and represented from 1988 to 2008. While the policymaking process is shaped by discourse, political interests and the agency of the actors involved, my project emphasises how media power is reproduced within the policy community. This requires an examination of the everyday interactions (or lack of interactions) among journalists and other members of the policy network, including not only current and former politicians, political advisers and bureaucrats, but also educational leaders, members of support groups and Indigenous communities. This study, which is part of the ‘Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1988-2008’ ARC Discovery Project, will build theory on the role of the news media within the policy community over a 20-year period through a study of how the practices of its members were ordered by the news media.
Supervisor
Assoc Prof Kerry McCallum
Simon Weaving
PhD in Communication
Thesis
Writing an Australian film noir
My creative doctoral research work the outcome of which will be a screenplay and a theoretical text - is helping me understand the origins of the film noir genre in more depth so as to determine why it has never been popular with Australian filmmakers before me. In exploring the nature and function of genre generally, the research is also helping me understand how best to adapt and use a genres powers in an Australian context. As a filmmaker I have always been drawn to the film noir form for both its aesthetic mode and its more grounded set of narrative conventions. There is a dark complexity in noir storytelling that seems to better reflect the opaque nature of human desire in action in the world, and it has long been a personal desire to apply noir sensibilities to an Australian screen story. Yet, as I started developing my early thoughts, alarm bells began to ring in the distance. Were there good reasons why Australian screenwriters and directors had not tackled the genre in the post-war period itself? Perhaps there was something about the style that didnt fit with the landscape of Australian stories or resonate with Australian audiences? I was also greatly concerned that the genre had become over-used and its key markers reduced to a collection of tired clichs. The screenplay I wanted to write wasnt parody or comedy, but a realistically serious and redemptive narrative using characters and settings clearly identifiable as Australian.
URL
Supervisor
Prof Greg Battye
Sri Wahyuni
PhD in Education
Thesis
Learning Strategies for Speaking Skills of Indonesian EFL Tertiary Students across L2 Proficiency and Gender: A Case Study
In this case study research, I am seeking to investigate the use of learning strategies for the Speaking skills by Indonesian EFL tertiary students at Gajayana University of Malang across L2 proficiency and gender. The research questions addressed in this study include what learning strategies for the Speaking skills the students use; how the high/medium/low proficiency students use the strategies; why they use the strategies in such certain ways; how female/male students use the strategies; and why they use the strategies in such certain ways. To answer these research questions, I am using a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods by using a survey, proficiency test, interviews, learning diaries, classroom observation and archival records as the instruments for the data collection. As the outcomes, I anticipate that the students use some learning strategies one of which may be the most or the least favoured by the students. I also anticipate that the students with different gender and levels of English proficiency use learning strategies in different ways.
Supervisors
Dr. Elke Stracke, Dr. Jeremy Jones