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This thesis takes Discursive Psychology as its main theoretical influence. Drawing on the resources of Discursive Psychology and utilising analytic tools provided by Conversation Analysis, these principles are applied to the study of addiction, and specifically alcohol problems. The data explored are telephone calls to an alcohol helpline. Four analytic chapters are presented. The first focuses on the concept of loss of control over drinking, identifying features of how this concept is constructed in talk and suggests possible functions of control talk for both callers and Advice Workers. The second analytic chapter examines how Advice Workers respond to callers' professed impaired control over their drinking and I demonstrate that embedded in discursive sequences of problem formulation and advice giving are issues of agency, accountability and responsibility. The thesis moves on to explore the role of knowledge in calls to an alcohol helpline and the analysis reveals that both the expert status of the Advice Worker and the speciality of the topic are co-constructed between the speakers on the helpline. The final analytic chapter features just one telephone call and demonstrates the application of such an analysis for alcohol service providers. The thesis ends with a discussion of the main overall findings and the implications of the research for clinical practice. I close by arguing that initial agency contact is a very important site of study and recommend that this should be explored utilising naturally-occurring talk.

The importance of trust in Electronic Commerce (EC) has been addressed for about two decades and various theories have been applied to investigate the issue. In spite of a consensus among researchers of trust in a website being a risky decision, they have neither applied decision making theories (e.g. two systems of reasoning) in the context nor created a risky situation when examining their hypotheses about trust in EC. Instead, the decision is implicitly assumed to be deliberative although not enough evidences have been collected to support the assumption. An in-lab experiment was conducted to investigate the above shortcomings in the literature. Findings show that unlike the current belief, intuition (and not deliberation), is the dominant decision making process when trusting an unknown website in a risky situation. The level of trust is significantly different when risk is not involved. In addition, one of the well-established constructs, “situational decision making to trust”, was not confirmed by the collected data in the risky situation. The results conflict with EC and trust literature and clarify the crucial role of risk in decision making to trust. Hence, the studies that have measured and validated trust and related constructs without the actual risky situation might need to be reconsidered.

Les calculs Monte-Carlo de criticité permettent d'estimer le facteur de multiplication effectif ("k-effectif") d'un système fissile au cours d'itérations simulant la propagation d'une population de neutrons, formant une chaîne de Markov. L'initialisation arbitraire de la population des neutrons simulés peut biaiser fortement l'estimation du k-effectif du système, défini comme la moyenne de la séquence des k-effectifs estimés à chaque itération. Un modèle simplifié de cette séquence de k-effectifs d'étapes est établi à partir du contexte technique d'exploitation industrielle des calculs Monte-Carlo de criticité. Des tests statistiques, inspirés des propriétés du pont brownien, sont construits pour discriminer la stationnarité de la séquence des k-effectifs d'étapes. Le régime transitoire initial éventuellement détecté est alors supprimé pour améliorer l'estimation du k-effectif du système. Les différentes déclinaisons de cette méthodologie sont détaillées puis comparées, d'une part sur un plan d'expériences représentatif des calculs Monte-Carlo de criticité, et d'autre part sur des calculs réels de configurations de criticité. Finalement, les performances observées sur ces applications permettent d'envisager une exploitation pertinente dans les calculs Monte-Carlo de criticité industriels.

Non-heterosexually identified young people, particularly those with a lesbian identity, have always experienced a marginalised position within Australian culture (Burnett, 1997; Gamson, 2000; Signorile, 1995; Thonneman, 1999). There is very little empirical research available which explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives (Brown, 1995; Burnett, 1997; Gamson, 2000). Hence myths, stereotypes, invisibility, lack of understanding and marginalisation of non-heterosexual identified people continue to be perpetuated in mainstream Australian society (Baird, 2005; Burnett, 1997; MacBride-Steward, 2004). The anthropological study presented in this dissertation was designed to explore and theorise the lived experiences of young lesbians post-initial coming-out within an Australian context using Memory Work methodology (Haug, 1987). The first goal of this project was to describe and provide details of the under researched and misunderstood lives of young lesbians between the ages of 23 and 33 years of age who had identified as lesbian for between two and ten years; what is termed here as post-initial coming-out. The second goal of the study was to gain insight into how young lesbians, post-initial coming-out, make sense of their lives, selves and identities, and positioning within society given the negative myths and stereotypes which currently exist within the general population in relation to people with non-heterosexual identities. The literature and data presented throughout the dissertation highlight the issues of invisibility, marginalisation, and homophobia experienced by each of the participants within a predominately heterosexual society. They also emphasised the inner strength and resilience developed by each of the participants in the face of adversity as they attempted to construct and make sense of their self narrative and positioning as defined by themselves and the positioning and identity imposed upon them by significant others. The data have been organised into four main focus areas; negotiating the family, work, heterosexual and lesbian landscapes. Lastly, the study sought to further develop and refine the Memory Work methodology (Haug, 1987), particularly as it pertains to a doctoral research program. This study has been able, via the use of Memory Work methodology, to provide richly descriptive and in-depth snap-shots of the lives of young lesbians post-initial coming-out in an Australian context which represents a unique contribution to the research literature. The study concludes with reflections on the methodology as it pertains to a doctoral research program and recommendations for further research which have developed as a result of this investigation. The five participants in this study were strong, independent, brave young wimmin searching for acceptance and an understanding of their post-initial coming-out lesbian identities in an Australian context. While there were only a small number of participants, their memories and experiences yield rich new insights into the everyday lives and experiences of young lesbians.

This research is a practical attempt to develop academic writing pedagogy at secondary level in New Zealand because from interviews with teachers, personal experience and literature in the professional journal for teachers of English in New Zealand, English in Aotearoa, it appears that this would be a useful enterprise. Literature relating to this, and extending to the related contexts of the UK and Australia has been reviewed. The approach taken is an investigation of top-rated senior secondary writing in subject English, using elements of Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). The concepts of SFG chiefly drawn upon, namely, Theme and linguistic metafunctions, and their application to the data are presented and explained. This grammatical model was chosen because it allows the interface of grammatical structure and linguistic function to be explored, which in turn permits insight into how the qualities of top-rated writing may be formulated grammatically. This insight may then become part of teaching resources in academic writing by way of both pre- and in-service training material for teachers. Over 100 top-rated English literature essays (graded by teachers) were collected from students, via their schools, so that the data obtained were authentic. Two samples were collected: timed and untimed writing. Each sentence of each essay was typed into one of nine Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, representing locations within the essay. The nine locations were: three introduction locations: initial sentence, medial sentences, terminal sentence; three paragraph locations (all paragraphs in the body of the essays, not introductions or conclusions): initial sentence, medial sentences, terminal sentence; and, three conclusion locations: initial sentence, medial sentences and terminal sentence. The initial grammatical elements and their metafunction(s) for each sentence were categorised. Percentages in each category for each location were calculated so that individual locations could be compared for grammatical and metafunctional characteristics. Grouped locations were also considered where this seemed felicitous; for instance, introductions were compared to conclusions or medial sentences compared to boundary sentences (initial and terminal). Comparisons were also made between the timed and untimed samples. The results showed that some grammatical structures could be associated with particular grouped locations and metafunctional characteristics were not independent of location. The research was also able to suggest grammatical means to achieve metafunctional effects that align with descriptors for writing given by examination boards. For example, clear, logical organisation of writing is highly valued by examination boards. This is achieved by means of elements that perform the textual linguistic metafunction. A variety of grammatical elements to perform this function and their most prominent locations were identified. It is intended that the findings may be a highly directed way to help teachers address some of the writing challenges faced by their students at secondary level.

This research is a practical attempt to develop academic writing pedagogy at secondary level in New Zealand because from interviews with teachers, personal experience and literature in the professional journal for teachers of English in New Zealand, English in Aotearoa, it appears that this would be a useful enterprise. Literature relating to this, and extending to the related contexts of the UK and Australia has been reviewed. The approach taken is an investigation of top-rated senior secondary writing in subject English, using elements of Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). The concepts of SFG chiefly drawn upon, namely, Theme and linguistic metafunctions, and their application to the data are presented and explained. This grammatical model was chosen because it allows the interface of grammatical structure and linguistic function to be explored, which in turn permits insight into how the qualities of top-rated writing may be formulated grammatically. This insight may then become part of teaching resources in academic writing by way of both pre- and in-service training material for teachers. Over 100 top-rated English literature essays (graded by teachers) were collected from students, via their schools, so that the data obtained were authentic. Two samples were collected: timed and untimed writing. Each sentence of each essay was typed into one of nine Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, representing locations within the essay. The nine locations were: three introduction locations: initial sentence, medial sentences, terminal sentence; three paragraph locations (all paragraphs in the body of the essays, not introductions or conclusions): initial sentence, medial sentences, terminal sentence; and, three conclusion locations: initial sentence, medial sentences and terminal sentence. The initial grammatical elements and their metafunction(s) for each sentence were categorised. Percentages in each category for each location were calculated so that individual locations could be compared for grammatical and metafunctional characteristics. Grouped locations were also considered where this seemed felicitous; for instance, introductions were compared to conclusions or medial sentences compared to boundary sentences (initial and terminal). Comparisons were also made between the timed and untimed samples. The results showed that some grammatical structures could be associated with particular grouped locations and metafunctional characteristics were not independent of location. The research was also able to suggest grammatical means to achieve metafunctional effects that align with descriptors for writing given by examination boards. For example, clear, logical organisation of writing is highly valued by examination boards. This is achieved by means of elements that perform the textual linguistic metafunction. A variety of grammatical elements to perform this function and their most prominent locations were identified. It is intended that the findings may be a highly directed way to help teachers address some of the writing challenges faced by their students at secondary level.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Univ., 2004. / Härtill 3 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-94).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-104).