Introduction. After more than a century of investigation into various aspects of Konrad von Würzburg's Engelhard, its source or sources are still unknown. Moriz Haupt, when he edited the poem in 1844, simply established the fact that it resembles the tale of Amicus and Amelius. Haupt felt however that Engelhard was so different from those versions of Amicus and Amelius which he knew, 'dass entweder das lateinische buch nach welchem er dichtete (212. 6493) ein anderes war oder er selbst den stoff mit grosser freiheit behandelt hat. / Note: Thesis is published. Oettli Peter H. (1986) Tradition and creativity : the Engelhard of Konrad von Würzburg : its structure and its sources. New York : Peter Lang

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / The French farce of the period 1450-1550 contains a cornucopia of verbal expressions that we may term 'exclamatory’; swearing, oaths, curses, insults, supplications, interjections, exhortations, scatology, invocations of saints, and so on. Yet this literary form, considered by researchers be a repository of spoken French of the later Middle Ages, remains largely unexplored from this standpoint. Indeed, there are few studies of 'expressive' modern language in existence, due largely to the inferior status given to this linguistic register by the majority of researchers. This thesis seeks to examine and quantify the formulaic nature of exclamatory discourse in the farces. By adopting a broader definition of the word 'exclamation' than that currently accepted, we seek to unite the disparate and fragmentary attitudes of the few researchers who have expressed the view that this aspect of discourse merits further analysis. It is asserted that examination of formulae (i.e. leitmotivic usages) allows an objective assessment of affective language; the formulaic constructions are shown to be themselves subject to formulaic modification. A database of 7668 quotations (68,500 words) from 99 farces is used to establish a taxonomy which shows usage in context. The taxonomy is organised around headwords, which form the nuclei of the various expressive domains. From this taxonomy, 858 formulae are extracted and described. The relative frequency of occurrence of the phrases in the taxonomy is portrayed in graphical form. The field of research from 1900 to the present is examined. The attitudes of researchers are shown to have undergone evolutionary rather than revolutionary development in the course of the century; the abovementioned divergence of methodologies (and definitions of the field of research), is asserted to have hindered an advance of research in this area. Possibilities for further research are suggested, for example in the field of comparative inter-lingual studies.

This thesis offers a detailed reading of the fiction of the Dalmatian New Zealand author Amelia Batistich and the Danish New Zealand author Yvonne du Fresne from the perspective of multicultural literary criticism. It draws strongly throughout on interviews and discussions with the authors themselves, and on their personal papers. The Introduction explores the term "multicultural literary criticism", examines its significant development in theory and practice in Australia (especially in the writings of Sneja Gunew), and discusses the challenging issues raised by its use in a bicultural context, in New Zealand. The body of the thesis is organised into two parallel sections, the first (of five chapters) on Batistich and the second (of four chapters) on du Fresne. Each section begins with an introduction to the writing life of the author concerned, with particular reference to the forces. Shaping her sense of identity as a New Zealander from an ethnic minority community. Subsequent chapters then discuss chronologically the development of the author’s work from short fiction and articles through to the later novels. Each author's struggle to find a fictional voice which expressed her identity as a hybrid New Zealander is highlighted. The role of editors and publishers in shaping the migrant voice of both authors is also explored, and the reception of both authors' works by critics often unwilling or unable to read for difference in a literary landscape dominated by the perception of New Zealand as socially homogeneous. The thesis argues - in an extended enquiry into the constructedness of identity - that both authors have struggled throughout their careers to find a place for both themselves and their characters in New Zealand literature. The bibliography contains a checklist of the published writings of both authors, primary and secondary material related to the field of ethnic minority writing, and a checklist of other migrant writings and creative multicultural works in New Zealand. “No matter how far fate has blown the frail tree of my life across foreign lands, its roots have always sucked nourishment from that little barren clod of soil from which it sprung." Ivan Meštrović (Dalmatian sculptor, 1883-1962.) “The earth is our mother, wherever we find ourselves." Amelia Batistich, The Olive and the Vine. “Today a gap had closed; I felt my two countries firmly under my feet. Both equal." Yvonne du Fresne, Motherland P.205 My Two Countries Here is the fern, the kauri sapling straight as a larch Young, like my county, strong. There is the olive, grey with dreams Crouched over the stony land - like a woman in childbirth. Both gave me life - the kauri and the olive. Here my father ate the bread of exile. There my grandfather ate the black bread of poverty- By the blue Adriatic But what matter now? My grandfather sleeps in his own earth- His bones have melded with his own soil- Alien, my father sleeps on Hillsborough Hill overlooking the Manukau. But here was his work- Here was his home. Amelia Batistich (1985) / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

After the Cultural Revolution officially ended in 1977, China began its reforms from 1978. Although the initial goal of the reforms was to improve the nation's economy, changes soon took place across other fields ranging from politics to culture, from society to the legal system. These changes throughout the 1980s and 1990s had a significant impact on the development of Chinese film. Contemporary Chinese films reflect these changes either directly or indirectly. This thesis studies the development of film in post-Cultural Revolution China to the mid-1990s. The thesis argues that Chinese film experienced a shift of cultural identity from being subject to Chinese tradition to submitting to transnational globalism. The causes of this shift were a combination of China's own reform process and international cultural and financial involvement in the Chinese film industry. In light of some Western cultural theories, such as structuralism, post-structuralism (including deconstruction), psycho-analysis and postmodernism, this thesis examines a series of acclaimed Chinese directors and films. Many of these directors and films are internationally well known either for their cinematic achievements or for the political controversies about their films. They are seen as representative, especially when contemporary Chinese film is assessed from a cross-cultural, global perspective. In a new millennium Chinese cultural policies on film production and censorship are changing. This thesis summarizes how the Chinese film industry in the last two decades has responded to, and from time to time accelerated the country's modernization, commercialization and internationalisation. / http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Tradition-Globalism-Post-Cultural-Revolution/dp/3639111060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236640154&sr=1-1 / Note: A book based on this thesis is published by VDM Verlag (2008) ISBN 3639111060 and available from http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Tradition-Globalism-Post-Cultural-Revolution/dp/3639111060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236640154&sr=1-1

Every writer works within a particular social contest which influences the way in which he apprehends and attributes value to the experience he represents in his work. This influence does not promote an absolute uniformity of outlook among writers, nor does it necessarily limit the formal possibilities open to them: rather it predisposes writers to favour arguments or experiences that confirm certain ways of seeing society which, though they may vary in their emphases, are still contained within identifiable parameters. It is possible to describe the nature of the culture of any period by defining the ‘structure of feeling’ shared by writers – that blend of theories and assumptions which constitutes the organising vision through which their social concerns and aesthetic ideals achieve a formal reconciliation. With the novel, this structure of feeling may be identified by attempting to locate the point of vision of the writer as it is stated in terms of social reality. For what is seen and rendered in the novel represents an interpretation of social reality, an image of society, stated in terms of the structure of feeling prevailing during the period in which the writer is working. The purpose of this present study is to relate these general principles to a consideration of literature in New Zealand concentrating on work produced between 1960 and 1970. To do so necessarily involves an order, firstly, to define the values which are held in common within the New Zealand literary tradition – that is to say, the structure of feeling which prevails here – and secondly, to discover how the themes which are treated most consistently during this decade are subsequently developed, or, alternatively, resist development. An associated purpose is to identify the themes which recur in the work of writers whose approach to literature, and the forms they choose, are otherwise very different; to illustrate the origin of these common concerns in the structure of feeling which informs literary culture in New Zealand; and to show how that structure is expressed in relation to the new experiences and phenomena encountered here as a result of the rapid social change which has occurred during the 1960s. The argument of this study is developed mainly through an examination of prose fiction, in particular the work of Frank Sargeson, Noel Hilliard, Janet Frame, Maurice Duggan, Maurice Gee, and Maurice Shadbolt. Criticism and occasional writing – particularly that found in popular magazines – is also referred to. What should be conclusively demonstrated is the extent to which the structure of feeling which informs New Zealand literature has been rendered obsolete by recent rapid changes in New Zealand society; that the assumptions about society implicit in this structure of feeling prevent the writer from fully apprehending the nature of his experience; and that if literature here is to remain a valuable source of social knowledge, new ways of seeing – and new forms which can effectively express them – must be developed.

The first three chapters of this thesis deal with the development of André Malraux's thought in the fields of politics, culture and aesthetics. In the light of Marxist thought, the writer's work as a whole shows a conception of history as fundamentally irrational and non-progressive, governed by existential forces such as the passions of nationalism and class feeling, denounced by Julien Benda. Against History as Fate, Malraux appeals ultimately to the will to consciousness, whose chosen field of expression is art, Malraux's recourse amidst a dying Western culture. The final chapter of this thesis concerns the images that haunt Malraux's work, and sets up a model of the myth underlying the conscious thought of the writer. This 'personal myth' throws light on the writer's inner world, and on the direction his intellectual thought took. Consequently, the theological function of art in Malraux's aesthetical conception stems from his unconscious personality, which gives a profound meaning and unity to the contradictions apparent in the writer.

This thesis is an edition of a manuscript of medical remedies, MS X3346 (now stored in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington) which belongs to the Medical Historical Society of the Auckland branch of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. The manuscript is one of five known copies of a compilation by a sixteenth century Benedictine monk, John of Feckenham, who became Abbot of Westminster during the reign of Mary Tudor. In the dedication to the manuscripts, which is almost identical in each, the Abbot states that 'This Book of Sovereign Medicines' Named for convenience throughout this edition, 'The Book of Sovereign Medicines' was collected by him for 'the poor who have not at all times the learned physicians at hand'. The scribal handwriting, and the names of various people in MS X3346, indicate that it was penned between 1665 and 1675, or about seventy-five years after Feckenham's death. Research into the life of the compiler was undertaken, as was an overview of the medical ideas of the period, together with a study of the popular genre of which the Abbot's work was an example. Also included in this thesis is a Provenance of the manuscript, a description of its state, a comparison of it with the other known copies, and the story of its donation to the Medical Historical Society. A transcript of the manuscript was prepared, maintaining the scribal spelling, punctuation and capitalization as accurately as possible. Following this, a modernized version was made, aiming at a readable text. The layout of the original manuscript and the transcript was maintained as far as possible, to facilitate keying of annotations and comments to the text. The Oxford English Dictionary was used as the standard for spelling and grammar, and an attempt was made to conform to the principles used by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor in the compact edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works. A glossary was prepared defining herbs, ingredients, medical terms and so on. Annotations to the remedies indicate the same or similar examples in other works, especially in the Folger edition of 'This Booke of Sovereigne Medicines' (edited by E.R.Macgill in 1990). Also in the annotations are explanations of words and phrases specific to a remedy, and identification of many of the people mentioned in the work. Quotations from authors of the time of Chaucer to the modern day are included in the glossary and annotations to help define and illustrate medical terms and ingredients perhaps not familiar today. Early herbals were studied, especially those of William Turner and John Gerard. As Eleanour Sinclair Rohde (The Old English Herbals, p.98) has pointed out, Gerard was justly condemned by critics of his own time as well as modern ones for 'having used Dr Priest's translation of Dodoen's ⎂Pemptades⎁ without acknowledgement'. Nevertheless, this editor, like Rohde, has found such pleasure in Gerard’s delightful language, his descriptions of plants, with their habitats and their virtues, that many quotations from his Herball have been included. There is an index of authors and quotations, and also a general index to the contents of the modern version.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / This thesis examines comparatively the first parts of four twentieth-century women's autobiographies that have never been studied together: Simone de Beauvoir's Memoires d' une jeune fille rangdee (1958), Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Janet Frame's To the Is-Land (1982) and Marguerite Duras's L'Amant (1984). Its aim is to show how these women resisted or subverted the established order in their childhood and adolescence and how, through their autobiographical practice, they challenge some assumptions about women's creativity. For this purpose, this study involves a discussion of the reception of each autobiograph, a close analysis of their narrative techniques, and an examination of the institutions in which each protagonist grew up, mainly family, school and/or church. Among these institutions, I emphasise the role of interpersonal relationships within the family, and in particular the mother/daughter relationship. This thesis draws attention to various strategies used by these women to resist subjection: through their bodies, through language, or simply through an escape from the institution, with three of these protagonists choosing to grow up in the street rather than in the family or in the school. Similarly, the way the presence of the narrator is established in the text challenges the reader's perception of the woman writer. I conclude that for these women, the search for identity is not a search for a role or a position but for a place, though they find it in the margins of society.

Whole document restricted at the request of the author. / Within a context of Italian women's literary, intellectual, and feminist thought, the dissertation employs two specific literary texts that transgress generic borders, Clara Sereni's Casalinghitudine (1987) and Fabrizia Ramindino's Althénopis (1988), to elucidate paternal and maternal negotiations as a projected model of writing home. Motivated by feminist trespasses upon and resistances to the "fathered" academic canon, the dissertation provides a third literary example through my renegotiation of the theoretical argument in poetic form. Printed on tracing paper, my poetic text overlays and haunts the dissertation with subjective intersections, poetry, and prose that emerge from my research and that constitutes a significant part of my poetry collections published to date. My academic argument draws upon an interdisciplinary heritage by enlisting the thought of French, Italian, and Anglo/American feminisms alongside Italian cultural, literary, and history studies. Part One locates the mother and the maternal in the context of Western feminist theories, Italian feminist thought, and Italian culture. With close reference to the primary texts, it analyses the implications of the missing mother, the surrogate mother, the uncanny in the mother/daughter relationship, maternal kinesis, maternal thresholds, and maternal junctures in terms of a woman writing home. Part Two considers the ramifications of the father figure in the work of six intellectuals (Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray), in an Italian cultural, historical, legal, political, and literary context, and in the light of Italian feminist approaches to the father. Maintaining close links with the two primary texts, I analyse the missing father, the father as authority, and the manner in which in writing home, writing the father traverses and transgresses thresholds such as the cooking pot, the body, and the written page. With a debt to Rosi Braidotti and Adriana Cavarero, I conclude that in writing home, a woman renegotiates both the maternal and paternal through what I have named the practice of equilibrium writing. For the woman writer, equilibrium writing comprises writing out of her roots, writing as both weaving and unweaving, writing out of kinetic movement in order to write a provisional and subjective centre, and writing conjunctions and coalitions. In an extension of Italian feminist approaches to "authority," I contend that such a textual negotiation of the mother and the father constructs a state of auto/authority for the woman writing.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / Alderson (2005) suggests that diagnostic tests should identify strengths and weaknesses in learners' use of language, focus on specific elements rather than global abilities and provide detailed feedback to stakeholders. However, rating scales used in performance assessment have been repeatedly criticized for being imprecise, for using impressionistic terminology (Fulcher, 2003; Upshur & Turner, 1999; Mickan, 2003) and for often resulting in holistic assessments (Weigle, 2002). The aim of this study was to develop a theoretically-based and empirically-developed rating scale and to evaluate whether such a scale functions more reliably and validly in a diagnostic writing context than a pre-existing scale with less specific descriptors of the kind usually used in proficiency tests. The existing scale is used in the Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) administered to first-year students at the University of Auckland. The study was undertaken in two phases. During Phase 1, 601 writing scripts were subjected to a detailed analysis using discourse analytic measures. The results of this analysis were used as the basis for the development of the new rating scale. Phase 2 involved the validation of this empirically-developed scale. For this, ten trained raters applied both sets of descriptors to the rating of 100 DELNA writing scripts. A quantitative comparison of rater behavior was undertaken using FACETS (a multi-faceted Rasch measurement program). Questionnaires and interviews were also administered to elicit the raters' perceptions of the efficacy of the two scales. The results indicate that rater reliability and candidate discrimination were generally higher and that raters were able to better distinguish between different aspects of writing ability when the more detailed, empirically-developed descriptors were used. The interviews and questionnaires showed that most raters preferred using the empirically-developed descriptors because they provided more guidance in the rating process. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for rater training and rating scale development, as well as score reporting in the context of diagnostic assessment.