This report investigates the use of authentic readings and videos to teach Portuguese language and culture in the foreign language classroom. It starts with a discussion of the current state of the field about definitions of culture, their pedagogical implications and some approaches to teaching culture in the foreign language classroom. This discussion is followed by a review of recent research supporting the use of authentic videos and films to teach the target language and culture concomitantly, and a thorough description of the Brazilian literary genre of crônica, based upon the works of preeminent Brazilian literary critics and historians. The report ends with a unit design proposal based on the literature reviewed and grounded in second language acquisition theories and research. The proposed innovative approach that incorporates authentic non-scripted videos and literary readings, such as crônicas, provides a strong support to teachers that seek to teach cultural perspectives as well as products and practices in the foreign language classroom. / text

This study explores the complexities associated with graduate language instructors’ identities and teaching practices, specifically with regard to the teaching of culture in the FL classroom. These areas are important to study because negotiating various identities has been shown to impact language learning and teaching (Dippold, 2006; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Menard-Warwick, 2008). In addition, instructors’ identities and the influence on their teaching practices may impact pedagogy (Menard-Warwick, 2008). The study investigates the identities and experiences of eight graduate instructors of German – four (two male and two female) native and four (three male and one female) non-native speakers of German – in the spring semester of 2009 at the University of Texas at Austin. The participants included novice and advanced German instructors at different levels in their graduate studies. Three questionnaires, three self-reflective journal entries, three observations, one focus group interview, and individual interviews with each participant provided the data for this study. These data were analyzed using qualitative methods, specifically grounded theory and discursive psychology. The themes and categories, as well as interpretive repertoires and subject positions which are based on Edley’s (2001) analytical framework, offered an in-depth understanding of teacher identities and the impact of identities on teaching practices in regard to culture. Findings illustrate that the participants negotiated their identities in interaction and dialogue with others (Bakhtin, 1981) and in different communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). In discussing their identities, instructors also used various interpretive repertoires, underscoring their individuality and their experiences. The study’s findings suggest, furthermore, that the issue of teacher identities needs to be included in teacher training and must play a significant role in FL education, in order to support language teaching and learning. / text

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The present study analysed the use of hedges in English medical research articles written by Japanese and American researchers. The study also examined the relationship between Japanese medical professionals' employment of hedges and their writing process. Sixteen English medical articles: eight written by Japanese and eight by Americans were examined. Four of the Japanese authors discussed their writing process through questionnaires and telephone interviews. / The overall ratio of hedges in articles written by the two groups differed only slightly; however, analyses revealed a number of specific differences in the use of hedges between the groups. For example, Japanese researchers used epistemic adverbs and adjectives less frequently than the American researchers. The results were discussed in relation to the problems of nonnative speakers' grammatical competence, cultural differences in rhetorical features, and the amount of experience in the use of medical English.

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most pre-eminent writers of contemporary literature. He is best known as a literary author who has written the controversial religious satire in The Satanic Verses, which brought him a prolonged death threat imposed by Islamic authorities. The novel Midnight’s Children won the prestigious Booker of Bookers prize in 1993 and the Best of the Booker award in 2008. Throughout his writing career, however, he has exceeded his role as a novelist and shown his commitment to using his fame and cultural authority to open debates and publicize his opinions on social and religious issues and world politics. This thesis analyses the various aspects of controversies surrounding Rushdie, as an elite transnational author, a literary celebrity, a public intellectual and an outspoken critic on sensitive topics. It comes to examine the social significance of public personas and the nature of complexity embedded in their career. Rushdie’s presence draws the media’s attention, and more often than not, instigates international disputes and contentions. By looking at different aspects of Rushdie’s identity, the thesis addresses controversies raised by his diverse roles and his traversing of spaces in the cultural industry – in academia, the book market, public forums, talk shows, celebrity jamborees and even fashion magazine dinner parties. As an elite postcolonial writer, does his iconic status “compromise” him in the literary field by the generation of exotic cultural stereotypes and the exploitation of his Indian upbringing? What can literary and cultural critics do to work beyond condemning this trend? As a literary celebrity and public intellectual, do his involvements in publicity activities and New York’s celebrity circuit make him abandon the professional integrity and the time-honored “disinterested” position of the writer? How should the reader understand the connections between the media and the author, and the novel and popular culture? In addition, given his deeply skeptical position on religious matters, how does the writer understand the world of Islam, and how does this understanding underpin his antagonistic relationship with the fundamentalists? Addressing these questions, the thesis is by no means an account of a single writer’s life and career, but suggests that the complexity of intellectual life in general is made necessary in a cultural landscape saturated with media hype, publicity maneuvers and commoditization. In such contexts, writers exploring their time must, in different degrees, participate actively in what they write against, and be implicated in these processes. Under the influence of the market, the change in social trends and with their aspired career in mind, it seems that there can be no non-involvement for these individuals. Yet, by taking the case of Rushdie, I also argue that implicit in the novelist’s self-conscious manipulation of his diverse roles and the parodic metafiction in his work are important indications about the image construction of controversial public personas, the cultural meaning of the novelist as a public intellectual, and the implicated career that a writer may have at the turn of the century.

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This thesis comprises a novel, Disco Apocalypse: Liminal Fictoscapes, and an accompanying exegesis, Hatricks: Where did the White Rabbit Go? which together explore socio-political and aesthetic currents in contemporary culture and literature by means of an authorial journey. The ultimate aim of the thesis is to create a body of work which applies a critical analysis and produces an original and exhilarating cutting edge narrative. Disco Apocalypse is a contemporary novel set in Melbourne, South America and Japan that explores the lives of two sisters, Kit and Suzy G who take a road/air journey to Peru, Brazil and Hiroshima. Kit is a film maker whose observational skills bring a visual acuity to the description of places and events in the cities and towns visited out on the road. In the course of the novel Suzy G disappears when her plane goes down over Bass Strait and no remains of the aircraft are discovered. The exegetical narrative was constructed in a manner resembling a series of reflections or reflective surfaces that highlight the images displayed in each segment. This process hovers in liminality, the second stage in a ritual event, where we are caught 'betwixt and between' the world of the novel and the world of the exegesis. PLEASE NOTE: Volume 1 of this thesis, the novel, is not available online.

This thesis explores the popularity in India of a contemporary prime time television serial, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (Because Mother-in-law was Once a Daughter-in-law) which is now the longest running serial in India. Locating the emergence of this new genre of ‘family serial melodrama’ in light of the commercialisation, fragmentation and diversification of the Indian television marketplace, the thesis outlines public concerns about this generic development, and analyses the textual hybridity of this serial. In the context of these interrelated industrial, social and textual developments in television, the thesis then drawing on ethnographic perspectives illuminates the micro-social dynamics involved in the appeal of Kyunki, especially within a broad understanding of the nature of family viewing. Through its case study of the serial, the thesis quite explicitly demonstrates that appeal of even the apparently most ‘trivial’ television lies in the ways in which television contributes to political constructions of society through the discursive space it forms for viewers to forge social meanings and negotiate structures of social power. The ‘multidimensional’ approach the thesis appropriates and develops upon in pursuing this investigation, contributes significantly also to the emergent and evolving field of ‘third generation’ audience studies, particularly in its focus on family, more so in its observations of family dynamics and discourses. In addressing questions specifically about audiences’ relationship with the serial, the thesis drawing on the ethnographic interviews with viewers and their families, argues that for audiences the serial offers a representation of India simultaneously in notions of family and transcendent ideas of womanhood. Analysis of these notions further reveal how realms of the ideal, real and unreal form an important conceptual spectrum through viewers make sense and negotiate meanings, and contribute in politically constructing society. In this way demonstrating that appeal of this seemingly ‘trivial’ television programme is also in the space it provides for political negotiations, the thesis conclusively suggests that study of popular narratives, especially feminine narratives, must invariably be considered within the frame of ‘politics’ while also customarily with ‘pleasure’.

How can we identify and emerge from the chain of bodies, territories and cultures, called 'my body', my 'self'? Can the performing body transcend cultural boundaries? What would such transcendence look like? If it happens, what can it say about a possible intercultural body format? How to create a performance with an extracultural approach? Invasion, migration, and population dislocation over the last five centuries has caused significant movement amongst global populations. Cross-cultural performances have developed from these invasions, migrations, and dislocations. The late 20th and early 21st Centuries have seen the development in the 'West' of intercultural and extracultural theatre/performance. This project presents a performance derived from the unique combination of Brazilian and Australian performance practice. It sheds light on the power of the theatrical event for disparate audiences, and on the performer’s experience of the creative process while generating a new performance text that addresses the questions: What is it to 'be' 'Brazilian'? Does 'Brazil' exist? What is it to be 'Latin American'? Does 'Australia' exist? This project, Little World: Four 'Autoethnographic' Performances, explores the author/performer’s 'being' 'Brazilian', being 'Latin American' in 'Australia', and a 'performer' in 'theatre', through autobiographical and autoethnographic performance drawing on the writings of Clarice Lispector, Franz Kafka, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and the performance practices of Brazilian Candomblé and Japanese Butoh. It attempts to place the spectator in the position of the performer, encountering 'Australia' through another culture and language. And following Oswald de Andrade’s 'anthropophagy', it proposes and enacts the cannibalising of the 'foreign(er)', the digestion of foreign stereotypes to produce new identities. The thesis component of the project will provide a first person autobiographical and autoethnographic account addressing the questions raised above; the performance-making processes; and the social and theoretical contexts and the aesthetic elements of the performance.