<p>This research aimed to give an account of the development of concepts of text and discourse and the various approaches to analysis of texts and discourses, as this is reflected in core linguistic literature since the late 1960s. The idea was to focus specifically on literature that notes the development stimulated by a proliferation of electronic media. Secondly, this research aimed to describe the nature of electronic news texts found on the internet in comparison to an equivalent printed version, namely texts printed in newspapers and simultaneously on the newspaper website.</p>

Contrary to common folk and expert theory, the human self is not unitary. There is no Cartesian theatre or homunculus functioning as a metaphorical overlord. Rather, it is an abstractum gleaned from a person�s experiences-a centre of narrative gravity (Dennett 1991). Experiences are a person�s cognisance of her ventures in life from a particular unique perspective. In perspectivising her experiences, the person imputes a certain structure, order, and significance to them. Events are seen as unfolding in a certain inherently and internally coherent way characterised by causality, temporality, or intentionality, etc. In other words, a person�s self emerges out of her innumerable narrativisations of experience, as well as the different protagonist roles she plays in them. Her behaviours in different situations can be understood as different life-narratives being foregrounded, when she is faced with different stimuli different experiences/events present. In real life, self-reflective discourse frequently alludes to a divided, partitive self, and the experiences/behaviours that it can engage in. In academic study, this concept of the divided and narrative-constructivist self is well-represented in disciplines ranging from philosophy (e.g., Dennett 1991, 2005), developmental psychology (e.g., Markus & Nurius 1986; Bruner 1990, 2001; Stern 1994), cognitive psychology (e.g., Hermans & Kempen 1993; Hermans 2002), neuropsychology (e.g. Damasio 1999), psychiatry (e.g., Feinberg 2001), to linguistics (e.g., McNeil 1996; Ochs & Capps 1996; Nair 2003). Depending on the particular theory, however, emphasis is often placed either on its divided or its narrative-constructivist nature. This thesis argues, however, that the two are coexistent and interdependent, and both are essential to the self�s ontology. Its objectives are therefore: (i) to propose a partitioned-narrative model of the self which unifies the two perspectives by positing that the partitioned-representational (Dinsmore 1991) nature of narratives entails the partitioned structure of the self; and (ii) to propose that the partitioned-narrative ontology of the self is what enables and motivates much of our self-reflective discourse and the grammatical resources for constructing that discourse. Partitioning guarantees that a part of the self, i.e., one of its narratives, can be selectively attended to, foregrounded, objectified, and hence talked about. Narrativity provides the contextual guidance and constraints for meaning-construction in such discourse. This claim is substantiated with three application cases: the use of anaphoric reflexives (I found myself smiling); various usages of proper names, including eponyms (the Shakespeare of architecture), eponymic denominal adjectives (a Herculean effort), etc.; and partitive-self constructions which explicitly profile partitioned and selectively focal narratives (That�s his hormones talking). When analysed using the proposed model, these apparently disparate behaviours turn out to share a common basis: the partitioned-narrative self.

Abstract Ongoing tension surrounding values education in both the wider community and among politicians and academics, as well as the plethora of values education programs on the commercial market, all contribute to a number of competing values education discourses that can make it difficult for individual classroom teachers to make choices regarding what and how to teach values. The aim of the current study was to contribute to an understanding of discourses of values education in Australia and investigate the way in which the Discourse models of government policy documents and classroom teacher Discourse models of values education intersect in terms of both alignment and fragmentation. In addressing the problem of how teachers choose to bring clarity to competing values education discourses, this research comprises two parts. The first part is an analysis of a key policy text, the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools (2005). The second part focuses on fourteen interviews with seven primary school classroom teachers conducted at different times during one school term. Each teacher was interviewed twice. The interviews were treated as objects of analysis and not just as an information source. The informal theories that underpin the policy and interview texts are analysed through James Paul Gee’s (2005) lens of “Discourse models”. This is a critical discourse approach to analysing a social phenomenon, with analytic focus placed on the language in the texts, as well as the localised and broader social context in which the language is situated. The way in which the policy and interview texts functioned strategically was analysed. The Discourse models evident in the texts were then identified through the use of ‘storylines’ as an analytic tool. In identifying Discourse models, insight was gained into how the official policy and the teacher participants in the study conceptualised values education. Analysis of the policy document showed how the text acted strategically to build legitimacy and the appearance of consensus surrounding the approach to values education advocated in the document. The storyline that emerged was one of the Australian Federal Government as a ‘hero’ intervening in values education to save young people who are at moral risk in the 21st century. Analysis of the interview transcripts showed how these texts also acted strategically to build legitimacy and the appearance that each participant’s approach to values education was right, normal and needed. A similar storyline emerged in the interview texts, where young people were in need of rescuing due to the moral peril of current times but it was the teacher participants who were now in the role of ‘hero’. The teacher participants in the study showed that they called upon a multiplicity of social roles, everything they were as moral beings, in their efforts to rescue students. The results indicate that there is both alignment and fragmentation in the Discourse models identified in both the policy and interview texts. Values education was conceived of in largely behavioural terms, where values were fixed, and change towards these value norms was focused on the individual behaviour of the student. Alignment centred on a dominant ‘salvation’ story in the texts that regarded values education as a way to rescue students from moral peril. This master model of the salvation story was fractured, however, by the experiences of the classroom teachers in the study. Most poignant was that not all students were able to be rescued despite the best of professed intentions. There are several implications emerging from these findings. First, the explicit move towards fixed values norms has exclusionary effects. Second, the focus on changing the behaviour of students as individuals ignores systemic levels of oppression. Third, and overall, the didactic teaching of values creates tensions over the perceived interference of the state in the lives of young people. Recommendations emerging from the study include that teachers be given increased opportunities to become more aware of their own values systems, the impact of these in the classroom; and develop their understanding of the broader social structures in which values education in classrooms is situated. This awareness is a necessary complement to the official discourses of values education in Australia in order to mitigate the potential exclusionary effects of policy. 130105 Primary Education 35%, 160506 Education policy 35%, 1399 Other Education 30%

Abstract Ongoing tension surrounding values education in both the wider community and among politicians and academics, as well as the plethora of values education programs on the commercial market, all contribute to a number of competing values education discourses that can make it difficult for individual classroom teachers to make choices regarding what and how to teach values. The aim of the current study was to contribute to an understanding of discourses of values education in Australia and investigate the way in which the Discourse models of government policy documents and classroom teacher Discourse models of values education intersect in terms of both alignment and fragmentation. In addressing the problem of how teachers choose to bring clarity to competing values education discourses, this research comprises two parts. The first part is an analysis of a key policy text, the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools (2005). The second part focuses on fourteen interviews with seven primary school classroom teachers conducted at different times during one school term. Each teacher was interviewed twice. The interviews were treated as objects of analysis and not just as an information source. The informal theories that underpin the policy and interview texts are analysed through James Paul Gee’s (2005) lens of “Discourse models”. This is a critical discourse approach to analysing a social phenomenon, with analytic focus placed on the language in the texts, as well as the localised and broader social context in which the language is situated. The way in which the policy and interview texts functioned strategically was analysed. The Discourse models evident in the texts were then identified through the use of ‘storylines’ as an analytic tool. In identifying Discourse models, insight was gained into how the official policy and the teacher participants in the study conceptualised values education. Analysis of the policy document showed how the text acted strategically to build legitimacy and the appearance of consensus surrounding the approach to values education advocated in the document. The storyline that emerged was one of the Australian Federal Government as a ‘hero’ intervening in values education to save young people who are at moral risk in the 21st century. Analysis of the interview transcripts showed how these texts also acted strategically to build legitimacy and the appearance that each participant’s approach to values education was right, normal and needed. A similar storyline emerged in the interview texts, where young people were in need of rescuing due to the moral peril of current times but it was the teacher participants who were now in the role of ‘hero’. The teacher participants in the study showed that they called upon a multiplicity of social roles, everything they were as moral beings, in their efforts to rescue students. The results indicate that there is both alignment and fragmentation in the Discourse models identified in both the policy and interview texts. Values education was conceived of in largely behavioural terms, where values were fixed, and change towards these value norms was focused on the individual behaviour of the student. Alignment centred on a dominant ‘salvation’ story in the texts that regarded values education as a way to rescue students from moral peril. This master model of the salvation story was fractured, however, by the experiences of the classroom teachers in the study. Most poignant was that not all students were able to be rescued despite the best of professed intentions. There are several implications emerging from these findings. First, the explicit move towards fixed values norms has exclusionary effects. Second, the focus on changing the behaviour of students as individuals ignores systemic levels of oppression. Third, and overall, the didactic teaching of values creates tensions over the perceived interference of the state in the lives of young people. Recommendations emerging from the study include that teachers be given increased opportunities to become more aware of their own values systems, the impact of these in the classroom; and develop their understanding of the broader social structures in which values education in classrooms is situated. This awareness is a necessary complement to the official discourses of values education in Australia in order to mitigate the potential exclusionary effects of policy. 130105 Primary Education 35%, 160506 Education policy 35%, 1399 Other Education 30%

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / This thesis is a contrastive genre study which explores newspaper commentaries on terrorism in Chinese and Australian newspapers. The study examines the textual patterning of the Australian and Chinese commentaries, interpersonal and intertextual features of the texts as well as considers possible contextual factors which might contribute to the formation of the newspaper commentaries in the two different languages and cultures. For the framework of its analysis, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics, English for Specific Purposes and new rhetoric genre studies, critical discourse analysis, and discussions of the role of the mass media in the two different cultures. The study reveals that Chinese writers often use explanatory rather than argumentative expositions in their newspaper commentaries. They seem to distance themselves from outside sources and seldom indicate endorsement of these sources. Australian writers, on the other hand, predominantly use argumentative expositions to argue their points of view. They integrate and manipulate outside sources in various ways to establish and provide support for the views they express. It is argued that these textual and intertextual practices are closely related to contextual factors, especially the roles of the media and opinion discourse in contemporary China and Australia. The study, by providing both a textual and contextual view of the genre under investigation in the two languages and cultures, aims to establish a framework for contrastive rhetoric research which moves beyond the text into the context of production and interpretation of the texts as a way of exploring reasons for the linguistic and rhetorical choices made in the two sets of texts.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / There is increasing awareness among linguists that discourse analysis inevitably involves analyses of meanings arising from the combination of multiple modes of communication. The evolving multimodal pedagogic environment for teaching English as a foreign language (henceforth EFL), among other communicative contexts, calls for a social, semiotic, and linguistic explanation. Situated within the theoretical landscape of social semiotics and in the pedagogic context of EFL education, the present study aims to elucidate how linguistic and visual semiotic resources are co-deployed to construe interpersonal meaning in multimodal textbooks. The data drawn upon are eighteen EFL textbooks for primary and secondary schooling, published by People’s Education Press between 2002 and 2006. The research design consists of three complementary sub-studies. First, it investigates the ways in which the semantic regions of ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION can be modelled in multimodal texts, with special reference to the interplay of voices in textbook discourse. The second sub-study analyzes how verbal and visual semiotic resources are co-deployed to construe the ‘emotion and attitude’ goal highlighted in curriculum standards, with a particular focus on verbiage-image relations. Third, it extends the linguistic concept ‘modality’ to multimodal discourse, exploring coding orientation in texts for different educational contexts and between different constituent genres. The main findings of this thesis are as follows: (1) A range of multimodal resources (i.e. labelling, dialogue balloon, jointly-constructed text, illustration and highlighting) are identified as enabling editor voice to negotiate meanings with reader voice and character voice. It is found that the way in which an ENGAGEMENT value can be scaled is strongly associated with the intrinsic property of the given multimodal resource. The interaction between multiple voices is closely related to contact, social distance, and point of view. (2) It is shown that images play an essential role in realizing attitudinal meanings. Together with verbal APPRAISAL resources, visual semiotic features work to position the readers in ways that align them to set pedagogic goals, guiding them in completing jointly-constructed texts. Moreover, an attitudinal shift from an emotional release to a more institutionalized type of evaluation can be identified as students advance through the school years. (3) It is argued that what counts as real in multimodal texts is socially defined and specific to a given communicative context. The nature of pedagogic discourse should be taken into account when visual displays are produced for pedagogic materials. The implications of this study include both theoretical and pedagogic aspects。Theoretically it adapts and extends APPRAISAL analysis to multimodal discourse, exploring the intersemiotic complementarity and co-instantiation in construing global evaluative stance. This semiotic exploration, in return, suggests ways in which discourse analysis may help textbook users better understand and interpret the multimodal features. With the affordances as well as limitations of semiotic resources made explicit, we may have one step further towards a comprehensive and critical understanding of multimodal construal of interpersonal meaning in pedagogic materials.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Thesis (M.A.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-114).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-266) Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (PhD)--Murdoch University, 1998. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education. Bibliography: leaves 275 - 286.