Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Born to American parents in Japan, Monash Master of Applied Linguistic alumnus Shana Ryan writes about her linguistic and cultural journey as a third culture kid

Where is Home? — Wandering Through Identities as a Third Culture Kid — Linguaphile Magazine Where is home for those who have lived in many places but never fully belonged to any? As a third culture kid (TCK) born to American parents in Japan and now living in Melbourne, Shana spent her life navigating the blurred lines of cultural identity. In this piece, she explores what it means to be

***Reminder***
This seminar is tomorrow, September 10

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar and masterclass by Yoko Nakai (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) on Tuesday, September 10 from 11am-12:30pm.

Yoko will speak on "Career development and interactional competence in Japanese". This seminar will be immediately followed by an on-campus Masterclass for interested PhD students.

See abstract and bio and below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561, Menzies Building or get in touch with Howie Manns for the zoom link.
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Abstract

In language teaching classes, it is necessary to consider how learners acquire and use the language in the context of their career development. It is also important to acknowledge what kind of interactional competence is required for learners to develop their careers.

In this Seminar, I will first briefly review the concept of interactional competence (linguistic competence, socio-linguistic competence and social-cultural competence) which J. V. Neustupný argued was of critical importance in the field of Japanese language teaching, while he was at Monash University. Mastery of these competences is required for Japanese language learners to successfully interact with Japanese language speakers as well as develop careers in which they rely on use of the Japanese language.

Second, I will introduce my research on career development and language use by international students who had studied in Japan. For example, I will demonstrate how the academic Japanese that international students acquired was utilized effectively in their workplaces in Japan (Suganaga and Nakai. 2016). Then, I will show the design of teaching materials for career development support for Japanese language learners with a focus on tasks and projects (Nakai et al. 2023).

Finally, I will discuss the projects in progress to develop teaching materials suitable for conversational education as well as the materials for Japanese language teachers’ training.

Biography

Dr. Yoko Nakai is a professor in the School of Japan Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She received her M.A. in Japanese Linguistics from The University of Minnesota, USA in 1999, and her Ph.D. in Japanese language education from Waseda University, Japan in 2010.

Her Research topics are (1) Conversational data analysis, (2) The career development of Japanese language learners, and (3) The development of teaching materials for conversational education and career development. She published her doctoral thesis as Japanese Conversational Education for Raising Interactional Competence (Hituzi Syobo, 2012). She also published the following textbook with her colleagues; Insights into the evolution of conversational data analysis as derived from literature analysis and interviews: From research to practice (Nakanishiya Publishing, 2017), Envisioning My Career Plan through Episodes and Tasks (Bonjinsha Publishing, 2022), The Practice of Conversation Data Analysis: Analyzing Conversations around You (Nakanishiya Publishing, 2022), Design and Practice of Japanese Conversation Classes: From the Basics to the Applied (3A Corporation, 2024).

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar and masterclass by Yoko Nakai (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) on Tuesday, September 10 from 11am-12:30pm.

Yoko will speak on "Career development and interactional competence in Japanese". This seminar will be immediately followed by an on-campus Masterclass for interested PhD students.

See abstract and bio and below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561, Menzies Building or get in touch with Howie Manns for the zoom link.
-------------------------
Abstract

In language teaching classes, it is necessary to consider how learners acquire and use the language in the context of their career development. It is also important to acknowledge what kind of interactional competence is required for learners to develop their careers.

In this Seminar, I will first briefly review the concept of interactional competence (linguistic competence, socio-linguistic competence and social-cultural competence) which J. V. Neustupný argued was of critical importance in the field of Japanese language teaching, while he was at Monash University. Mastery of these competences is required for Japanese language learners to successfully interact with Japanese language speakers as well as develop careers in which they rely on use of the Japanese language.

Second, I will introduce my research on career development and language use by international students who had studied in Japan. For example, I will demonstrate how the academic Japanese that international students acquired was utilized effectively in their workplaces in Japan (Suganaga and Nakai. 2016). Then, I will show the design of teaching materials for career development support for Japanese language learners with a focus on tasks and projects (Nakai et al. 2023).

Finally, I will discuss the projects in progress to develop teaching materials suitable for conversational education as well as the materials for Japanese language teachers’ training.

Biography

Dr. Yoko Nakai is a professor in the School of Japan Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She received her M.A. in Japanese Linguistics from The University of Minnesota, USA in 1999, and her Ph.D. in Japanese language education from Waseda University, Japan in 2010.

Her Research topics are (1) Conversational data analysis, (2) The career development of Japanese language learners, and (3) The development of teaching materials for conversational education and career development. She published her doctoral thesis as Japanese Conversational Education for Raising Interactional Competence (Hituzi Syobo, 2012). She also published the following textbook with her colleagues; Insights into the evolution of conversational data analysis as derived from literature analysis and interviews: From research to practice (Nakanishiya Publishing, 2017), Envisioning My Career Plan through Episodes and Tasks (Bonjinsha Publishing, 2022), The Practice of Conversation Data Analysis: Analyzing Conversations around You (Nakanishiya Publishing, 2022), Design and Practice of Japanese Conversation Classes: From the Basics to the Applied (3A Corporation, 2024).

***For year 10, 11 and 12 students***

Kate Burridge and and Howie Manns are presenting on the language of pop culture as part of the Monash Arts school holiday program for secondary students.

Kate and Howie will present at 11am on September 25. The broader program includes visits to the Monash Media Lab and tours of the Caulfield campus.

Details and sign up for the pop language talk here:
https://www.monash.edu/discover/events/course-information/discover-the-language-of-pop-culture

Details and sign up for the broader program/workshop here:
https://www.monash.edu/discover/events/course-information/discover-monash-arts-school-holidays-workshop

Why is it hard for adults to learn a language? Catch Ward Peeters's chat with ABC Tasmania and find out!

Tasmania Afternoons - ABC listen Lots of science today! Scientific songs, space stuff for kids on the West Coast, and Young Tassie Scientists who've been in your local schools getting kids excited about science.

Kate Burridge and Howie Manns bring a linguistic perspective to why "weird" might be working well for Democrats

How the US election turned ‘weird’ – and why it’s working for the Democrats In political campaigns, certain words can sometimes land outsized blows. And in the 2024 presidential election, that word is “weird”.

***Reminder***
This seminar is tomorrow (Tuesday, August 13)

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar and masterclass by Joseph Comer (University of Bern, Switzerland) on Tuesday, August 13 from 11am-12:30pm.

Joseph will speak on "'Window for exploration' or 'perfect Plan B' The metadiscursive production of passports as (border) objects and luxury commodities". This seminar will be immediately followed by an on-campus Masterclass for interested PhD students.

See abstract, bio and masterclass info below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561, Menzies Building or register to join online here:
https://monash.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtf-qsqjIjE9b3T-aPGUsTRwWHSndKCdcB #/registration
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'Window for exploration’ or ‘perfect Plan B’? The metadiscursive production of passports as (border) objects and luxury commodities

Abstract

Studies of citizenship increasingly attend to the concept less as a preconceived, fixed status (aligned neatly with sovereign borders) than as a discursive accomplishment: produced through iterative acts of mediation/mediatization and varied semiotic resources. This ‘discursive turn’ necessarily entails analysis of what regimes and performances of citizenship do – what they express and achieve – and the critical interpretation of these outcomes in relation to matters of inequality, global mobility, and conditions of late capitalism. Building on this theoretical foundation, this seminar focuses on a highly salient (metonymic) manifestation of citizenship in everyday life, which remains relatively under-examined in sociocultural linguistic research: the passport.

As hallmarks of sovereign ‘documentary regimes’ (Cavanaugh 2016) which constitute what they purport to depict, passports represent not just identity, nor geographic division, nor inequity in global social and economic capital, but concatenating 'sites of engagement' (Scollon 2005) for the above across wide-ranging text trajectories (Blommaert 2006). Furthermore, for all their alchemical entanglement of material and symbolic value, passports carry a constant paradox. Lock and key, at once, they constrain as they release: securing individuals’ belonging to legitimised states (for all states’ benefit) even as they allow state control to be transcended.

In this seminar, I orient to nation-state passports as (at once) ‘thingified’, commodified texts, ‘mobile borders’ (Keshavarz 2018); a generic resource for distinction; vivid representations of individual and geopolitical identity; and a pivotal medium within contemporary ‘nation-branding’. Embracing their semiotic complexity, I use multimodal critical discourse-analytic methods to apprehend passports' global metadiscursive production in two niche industries. The first is citizenship-by-investment (aka ‘golden passports’), through which these documents are ‘sovereign prerogatives’ introduced to an elite marketplace (Surak 2021). The second is identity management, through which states and corporate actors alike announce the spectacular, evocative designs of new passports (and their heavily-securitised production). In critically investigating these industry discourses about passports, I invite further reflection on their ephemeral/symbolic qualities, as well as the underexplored political economy, international order and semiotic labour they entail – and how these intersect through the drastic inequality and immobility they enforce.

Masterclass
Students attending the masterclass are invited to read the following to prepare for the discussion:
Comer, Joseph (2023, online). : Neoliberal affects, embodied hopes, and anticipatory chronotopes in corporate LGBTQ diversity discourse. Language in Society.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404523000593

Biography
Joseph Comer completed his PhD in English Linguistics (Language and Communication) at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2019. His first book, Discourses of Global Q***r Mobility and the Mediatization of Equality, was released in September 2021. He is now an associated researcher with the Centre for the Study of Language and Society, University of Bern, and undertaking an SNSF Postdoc Mobility fellowship examining contemporary discourses about citizenship and passports.

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar and masterclass by Joseph Comer (University of Bern, Switzerland) on Tuesday, August 13 from 11am-12:30pm.

Joseph will speak on "'Window for exploration' or 'perfect Plan B' The metadiscursive production of passports as (border) objects and luxury commodities". This seminar will be immediately followed by an on-campus Masterclass for interested PhD students.

See abstract, bio and masterclass info below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561, Menzies Building or register to join online here:
https://monash.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtf-qsqjIjE9b3T-aPGUsTRwWHSndKCdcB #/registration
--------------

'Window for exploration’ or ‘perfect Plan B’? The metadiscursive production of passports as (border) objects and luxury commodities

Abstract

Studies of citizenship increasingly attend to the concept less as a preconceived, fixed status (aligned neatly with sovereign borders) than as a discursive accomplishment: produced through iterative acts of mediation/mediatization and varied semiotic resources. This ‘discursive turn’ necessarily entails analysis of what regimes and performances of citizenship do – what they express and achieve – and the critical interpretation of these outcomes in relation to matters of inequality, global mobility, and conditions of late capitalism. Building on this theoretical foundation, this seminar focuses on a highly salient (metonymic) manifestation of citizenship in everyday life, which remains relatively under-examined in sociocultural linguistic research: the passport.

As hallmarks of sovereign ‘documentary regimes’ (Cavanaugh 2016) which constitute what they purport to depict, passports represent not just identity, nor geographic division, nor inequity in global social and economic capital, but concatenating 'sites of engagement' (Scollon 2005) for the above across wide-ranging text trajectories (Blommaert 2006). Furthermore, for all their alchemical entanglement of material and symbolic value, passports carry a constant paradox. Lock and key, at once, they constrain as they release: securing individuals’ belonging to legitimised states (for all states’ benefit) even as they allow state control to be transcended.

In this seminar, I orient to nation-state passports as (at once) ‘thingified’, commodified texts, ‘mobile borders’ (Keshavarz 2018); a generic resource for distinction; vivid representations of individual and geopolitical identity; and a pivotal medium within contemporary ‘nation-branding’. Embracing their semiotic complexity, I use multimodal critical discourse-analytic methods to apprehend passports' global metadiscursive production in two niche industries. The first is citizenship-by-investment (aka ‘golden passports’), through which these documents are ‘sovereign prerogatives’ introduced to an elite marketplace (Surak 2021). The second is identity management, through which states and corporate actors alike announce the spectacular, evocative designs of new passports (and their heavily-securitised production). In critically investigating these industry discourses about passports, I invite further reflection on their ephemeral/symbolic qualities, as well as the underexplored political economy, international order and semiotic labour they entail – and how these intersect through the drastic inequality and immobility they enforce.

Masterclass
Students attending the masterclass are invited to read the following to prepare for the discussion:
Comer, Joseph (2023, online). : Neoliberal affects, embodied hopes, and anticipatory chronotopes in corporate LGBTQ diversity discourse. Language in Society.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404523000593

Biography
Joseph Comer completed his PhD in English Linguistics (Language and Communication) at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2019. His first book, Discourses of Global Q***r Mobility and the Mediatization of Equality, was released in September 2021. He is now an associated researcher with the Centre for the Study of Language and Society, University of Bern, and undertaking an SNSF Postdoc Mobility fellowship examining contemporary discourses about citizenship and passports.

***Reminder***
This seminar is tomorrow

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Linguistic and Applied Linguistic Seminar Series. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Mental Simulation and Language Comprehension Michelle Liu (Monash University) According to the simulation view, language comprehension often constitutively involves perceptual-motor simulations. In this talk, I will survey the empirical evidence for the simulation view. Drawing on recent work on con...

Monash's first linguistic seminar will take place next Tuesday, July 30 (11am-12:30pm). It will be by Michelle Liu (School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University), who will speak on "Mental simulation and language comprehension". This seminar will be immediately followed by an on-campus Masterclass for interested PhD students.

See abstract, bio and masterclass info below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561, Menzies Building or register to join online here:
https://monash.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckfuCurzovEtDTAQZDrqT4wLdyjKw21uH3 #/registration
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Presentation/abstract:

Mental Simulation and Language Comprehension
Michelle Liu (Monash University)
According to the simulation view, language comprehension often constitutively involves perceptual-motor simulations. In this talk, I will survey the empirical evidence for the simulation view. Drawing on recent work on concept, I make suggestions as to how the simulation view can be reconciled with the traditional view on which language comprehension constitutively involves amodal symbol manipulation, elaborating on when perceptual-motor simulations may be deployed for language comprehension. I shall also illustrate how the simulation view can illuminate a particular puzzling behaviour of polysemous words. I end the talk by noting how perceptual-motor simulations can have a significant impact on language users through different forms of language.

Masterclass
Masterclass students are invited to read one or both of the following readings for discussion before attending:
Liu, M. (2024). Mental simulation and language comprehension: the case of copredication. Mind and Language, 39: 2-21 (more relevant to linguistics)
Liu, M. (forthcoming/online). How to think about Zeugmatic oddness. Review of Psychology and Philosophy.

Biography
Michelle Liu is a lecturer in philosophy. She joined Monash in July 2023. Michelle completed her DPhil in philosophy at Oxford in 2019, followed by a two-year lectureship at the University of Hertfordshire and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. Michelle works on various topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and aesthetics. Her DPhil thesis was on the nature of consciousness. Much of her recent work is on polysemy and the role of mental imagery in language comprehension.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Linguistic and Applied Linguistic Seminar Series. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Mental Simulation and Language Comprehension Michelle Liu (Monash University) According to the simulation view, language comprehension often constitutively involves perceptual-motor simulations. In this talk, I will survey the empirical evidence for the simulation view. Drawing on recent work on con...

Congratulations to Suzanne 🎉

We are delighted to announce that the 2024 Michael Clyne Prize for the most outstanding postgraduate research thesis in immigrant bilingualism and language contact (awarded jointly with Australian Linguistic Society) has been awarded to Dr Suzanne Grasso (Monash University) for her doctoral thesis entitled Multilingual development advice at the Maternal and Child Health Service.

Many congratulations to Suzanne on this outstanding record of achievement!
Thesis summary: Educating parents about multilingual development at an institutional level is integral to supporting culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families to develop their family language policy (FLP) and facilitate heritage language (HL) development. However, research in the field acknowledges that there are still significant gaps in health professionals’ understanding of the issues parents face while raising their children in their HL. This can impact the provision of professional advice around multilingual development and lead to marginalisation of HLs and eventual language shift. This thesis set out to identify the ways in which health professionals influence FLP for CALD families in Australia, focusing on the Victorian Maternal and Child Health (MCH) service. I present three case studies which are drawn from a wider dataset that includes 11 recorded MCH consultations between 12 nurses and 14 parents with children aged between 0 and 3.5 years, supplemented by individual follow-up interviews with parents, nurses, and their team leaders. I explore how and to what extent professionals and families discuss multilingual development, the barriers that can prohibit discussion around multilingual development, and ways to improve practice in this area. This thesis showed that family centred care, continuity of care and a positive therapeutic relationship contributed to the development of rapport, trust and continued engagement at the MCH. Encouragement and reassurance around multilingual parenting proved useful when paired with evidence-based explanations as to why a multilingual FLP would not confuse a child. This is especially relevant when children display atypical development or behaviours of concern. Parents, nurses and team leaders identified perceptions of judgement and a lack of empathy as major barriers to raising concerns around multilingual development, particularly when nurses negotiate difficult conversations around language delay. Having to cover many parenting issues within a 30-minute time window meant that nurses were often unable to adequately address or develop discussion around HL development issues raised in consultations. Nurses and team leaders reported that limited time can lead to rigid, task-based nursing, and less flexibility to utilise clinical judgement to tailor a session to their client’s needs. Parents assumed that nurses lack knowledge about multilingual development because the information they provide is perceived as generic and not evidence-based, and sometimes the family’s multilingual FLP is not even addressed in consultation. There is no research that conclusively indicates that learning multiple languages will result in children experiencing language delay, yet this was a commonly reported belief of MCH nurses, indicating a need for professional development. To promote multilingual development discussion, and more accurately tailor consultations to the family’s multilingual FLP, resources and professional development are recommended for practitioners in the fields of nursing, speech pathology, early childhood education, and training and development.

Monash's Izzy Burke is conducting a survey of grammar in Australian English. Izzy's especially keen for more participation from regional areas. See details below.

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Do you find the glamour in grammar? This research project is investigating whether people in different areas of Australia use different grammar. If you are currently studying linguistics at university, please help us by spending 10-15 minutes of your time completing an anonymous online survey and please tell other people about this project. You do not need to know any special vocabulary about grammar to participate, just an interest in all things grammatical (and listening to some fun speech excerpts!)

Link - https://monash.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0r19RnqsgomeGnY

Howie Manns's "Language, Culture and Power (LCP)" students are in a final push for survey participants. LCP explores the empirical relationship between language, culture and power.

This research/survey task enables Howie's students to develop a research project, and to collect and analyse data to better understand the relationship between language, culture and power.

If you do choose to participate, your participation and identity will remain anonymous, and any answers you give will only be used within the scope of the student's submitted assignment (accessible by Howie, the unit tutor and the student).

If you have any concerns at all, get in touch with Howie. See the survey links and the participant selection criteria below

***Reminder***
This even is tomorrow (Tuesday, May 7)

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar by Margaret Carew (Bininj Kunwok Regional Language and Culture Centre) on Tuesday, May 7 from 11am-12:30pm.

Margaret will speak on "Classifier nouns in Gun-Nartpa".

See abstract and bio below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561 or get in touch with Howie for the link.
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Abstract
Gun-nartpa is a dialect of a non-Pama-Nyungan language of north-central Arnhem Land (Burarra and Gun-nartpa). The language exhibits a diversity of nominal word types and a range of construals for nominal expressions, ‘whose elements function together to establish or track reference’ (Louagie, 2023:683). This paper describes the importance of noun class and pronominal agreement prefixes in indexing discourse referents within nominal expressions. One subclass of nominal words, labelled classifier nouns, is comprised of words that denote the major body parts and by extension the shaped parts of other things. Unlike other nominal words, classifier nouns inherently lack noun class, this being contingent upon the noun class of the whole entity of which they are a part. It is through their integration with the indexical properties of predicating elements in classifier expressions that we observe distinctive patterns of making and tracking reference. This includes marking them as generic or specific, and definite or indefinite. Data for this study comes from linguistic fieldwork for the author’s PhD research (Carew 2016) and various other language documentation and publishing projects carried out by the author and Gunnartpa people in the Maningrida region since 1993.

Biography
Margaret Carew has worked as a linguist in the Northern Territory for most of her career. This started with a year living on the land of the An-nguliny clan at Gochan Jiny-jirra outstation near Maningrida in 1993-1994. She was a lecturer in languages and linguistics with the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics (Batchelor Institute) and subsequently a linguist and project manager for numerous community language projects (1997-2018). In 2016 Margaret finally completed the PhD she commenced in 1993, working with Gun-nartpa people on their language and stories. She worked for the NT Department of Education 2019-2022 in the Bilingual Education and Indigenous Languages and Cultures team, supporting schools to develop and deliver Indigenous language programs. These days Margaret is working with the Bininj Kunwok Regional Languages and Culture Centre, supporting language services to the Maningrida region.

Monash Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is pleased to announce a seminar by Margaret Carew (Bininj Kunwok Regional Language and Culture Centre) on Tuesday, May 7 from 11am-12:30pm.

Margaret will speak on "Classifier nouns in Gun-Nartpa".

See abstract and bio below.

This is a hybrid seminar so you can attend in person in E561 or get in touch with Howie for the link.
----------------------------------
Abstract
Gun-nartpa is a dialect of a non-Pama-Nyungan language of north-central Arnhem Land (Burarra and Gun-nartpa). The language exhibits a diversity of nominal word types and a range of construals for nominal expressions, ‘whose elements function together to establish or track reference’ (Louagie, 2023:683). This paper describes the importance of noun class and pronominal agreement prefixes in indexing discourse referents within nominal expressions. One subclass of nominal words, labelled classifier nouns, is comprised of words that denote the major body parts and by extension the shaped parts of other things. Unlike other nominal words, classifier nouns inherently lack noun class, this being contingent upon the noun class of the whole entity of which they are a part. It is through their integration with the indexical properties of predicating elements in classifier expressions that we observe distinctive patterns of making and tracking reference. This includes marking them as generic or specific, and definite or indefinite. Data for this study comes from linguistic fieldwork for the author’s PhD research (Carew 2016) and various other language documentation and publishing projects carried out by the author and Gunnartpa people in the Maningrida region since 1993.

Biography
Margaret Carew has worked as a linguist in the Northern Territory for most of her career. This started with a year living on the land of the An-nguliny clan at Gochan Jiny-jirra outstation near Maningrida in 1993-1994. She was a lecturer in languages and linguistics with the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics (Batchelor Institute) and subsequently a linguist and project manager for numerous community language projects (1997-2018). In 2016 Margaret finally completed the PhD she commenced in 1993, working with Gun-nartpa people on their language and stories. She worked for the NT Department of Education 2019-2022 in the Bilingual Education and Indigenous Languages and Cultures team, supporting schools to develop and deliver Indigenous language programs. These days Margaret is working with the Bininj Kunwok Regional Languages and Culture Centre, supporting language services to the Maningrida region.