Australian Review of Applied Linguistics - Volume 33, Issue 1, 2010

While strategy instruction research generally focuses on the effect of the teaching on learners’ use of the strategies targeted for instruction, the present study examines the ‘wash over’ effect on learners’ use of pre-existing, non-target strategies. The study involved a treatment class and a comparison class in the ESL oral classroom in Hong Kong. A quasi-experimental design was adopted in which the treatment class received metacognitive strategy instruction to enhance students’ ability to manage English group discussion tasks. A data collection method comprising observations and stimulated recall interviews that aimed to tap respectively overt strategy use and covert strategic thoughts was employed. The findings indicate that, for the treatment class, while there seemed to be no ‘wash over’ effect from target to non-target strategies in the frequency of use of the whole sample of non-target strategies over time, there were increases in the frequency of use of individual, non-target strategies that were pertinent to the specific nature of small group discussion tasks. The findings are discussed with respect to the differential and desirable effects of the strategy teaching and to the relationship between task type and strategy choice. Implications for strategy instruction will also be drawn.

This paper considers the embodied nature of discourse for a professional work setting. It examines language in interaction in the airline cockpit, and specifically how shifts in pilots’ eye gaze direction can indicate the action of talk, that is, what talk is doing and its relative contribution to work-in-progress. Looking towards the other pilot’s face treats talk as occurring outside the predictable and scripted sequential flow of interaction for work. The talk might be casual conversation unrelated to work tasks, or involve negotiation of work arising from locally contingent circumstances. Pilots treat particular sites for looking, cockpit instrument panels and windows, as a home position for gaze for planned and predictable work activity. Looking away from this home position, as either speaker or recipient, treats talk as doing something else. The paper draws on insights and methods of conversation analysis, and uses naturally occurring data, video recordings of pilots at work on actual scheduled passenger flights.

Applied Linguistics is a diverse field, comprising a substantial number of sub-fields, sub-specialisations and related fields. To see that this is the case one need only examine the various hand- books and encyclopaedic references that have been published in the last ten years to see the wide range of topics that have been covered. As with many professional areas in academia, Applied Linguistics is organised around national organisations, with its international structure being a loose confederation known as the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). Given these diverse academic and structural arrangements, it should not be surprising if academics within different national associations were to cluster around different interests within the field. This study explores the question of what emphases are found in various parts of the world in Applied Linguistics, and in particular, the relationship of Australian Applied Linguistics to international trends using a structural text analysis of abstracts related to Applied Linguistics as well as an historical review of the trends involved.

This study explores contemporary attitudes to Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Since at least the 1960s, sign languages have been accepted by linguists as natural languages with all of the key ingredients common to spoken languages. However, these visual-spatial languages have historically been subject to ignorance and myth in Australia and internationally. Absorbing these views, deaf Australians have felt confused and ambivalent about Auslan. Whilst recognising the prestige of spoken and signed versions of the majority language and the low status of their own, they have been nevertheless powerfully drawn to sign language. In the past two decades, a growing awareness and acceptance of Auslan has emerged among deaf and hearing Australians alike, spurred by linguistic research, lobbying by deaf advocacy groups and other developments. These issues are explored using semi-structured interviews with deaf and hearing individuals, participant observation in the deaf community, and analysis of government and educational language policies.