Flinders Academic Commons :: Browsing 2003 - Language Studies by Issue Date

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How angry can you be in French and Italian? Integrating research and teaching for the development of pragmatic competencies in L2 classrooms

(Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2005-08) Mrowa-Hopkins, Colette Marie ; Strambi, Antonella

In recent years, discourse analysis has contributed to raising language practitioners’ awareness of the pragmatic aspects of culture in language and communication. However, the application of research data to teaching has often been limited to ESL contexts. On the other hand, the need to use research data in teaching cross-cultural pragmatic competence has been strongly advocated in the literature on SLA (Kasper, 1997), in view of the well-documented absence of the socio-pragmatic aspects of language/culture from foreign language textbooks (Liddicoat, 1997). In this paper we illustrate the rationale, as well as the main theoretical and practical aspects, of a research project designed to allow closer interaction between our research and teaching activities. In 2003, we initiated a cross-cultural investigation of emotion display and self-disclosure by Anglo-Australian, French and Italian speakers, based on the observation and analysis of non-verbal behaviour displayed in contemporary feature films. Following a discussion of issues that pertain to our research, we suggest ways in which our results can be brought into the classroom, with a view to provide opportunities for the development of socio-pragmatic competence in learners of French and Italian.

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Lee Kok Liang: At the Centre, On the Outer

(Lythrum Press, 2006) Wyndram, Lesley

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Paris-Match: Etude sur la representation d'une identite culturelle

(Peter Lang Publishing, 2006) Mrowa-Hopkins, Colette Marie

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"Unrecorded lives": oral narratives of a group of first-generation Campanian women residing in Adelaide, South Australia

(Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2006-12) Glenn, Diana Cavuoto

This study examines issues of identity and cultural maintenance, as evidenced by the oral testimonies of a generational cohort who were born in the region of Campania in Southern Italy and who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s-1960s. During the post-war period of mass migration by Italians to overseas destinations, an Assisted Migration Agreement was signed by Australia and Italy (in 1951); however, the majority of Campanian migrants to Adelaide were not the beneficiaries of assisted passages. Rather, sponsorship by spouses, relatives or paesani, followed by cluster settlement patterns, were strong features of transnational immigration by Campanians to South Australia in the post-WWII period. As a result, the journeying and resettlement experiences of this project’s sampling of first generation Campanian women were predominantly influenced by family kinship networks operating within a system of chain migration. The paper will consider the ways in which the project informants developed mechanisms in order to survive the difficulties of cultural displacement and marginalisation from mainstream culture. The participants’ “outsider” point of view provides valuable information on the significance of cultural dislocation as a feature of South Australian society in the last fifty years.

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Towards the formulation of cultural scripts related to the communication of anger: An analysis framework

(Niemeyer, 2007) Strambi, Antonella ; Mrowa-Hopkins, Colette Marie