News and Events Archive
Gesture and Language Studies: A Colloquium
28th March 2008, 10am-4pm Venue TBC
When speakers can see each other, they use their gestures as an essential part of their communication. What do hand gestures “say” that words cannot? When do gestures occur? Do we use them in lieu of language? How does gesture relate to language acquisition and second language learning?Staff from the School of Languages and Linguistics UNSW and from the University of Melbourne will address some of these questions during a one-day colloquium.
For more information contact:
Dr Alexis Tabensky, A.Tabensky@unsw.edu.au
Dr Kyriaki Frantzi, K.Frantzi@unsw.edu.au
Dr Bettina Boss, B.Boss@unsw.edu.au
International Chinese Studies Lecture
Professor Wolfgang Kubin
Chair in Sinology, Friedrich Wilhelm University, Bonn, Germany
Banning Lu Xun? A new Epoch of Indignation
Thursday 6 December 2007 12 noon – 1 pm
Morven Brown Building Room MB 211
Gate 8 High Street Kensington
The paper will raise two questions: First, how do we read texts? Do we read them only as historical documents or also to help us understand the actual situation we are in or the society is confronted with. Second, Lu Xun is now being replaced by Jin Yong in the textbooks of Chinese schools. Does this replacement come all of a sudden or are there political reasons behind the Government’s decision? The paper will argue that some of Lu Xun's essay can be read in the light of June 4th and that some of his stories do not fit to the image China has produced of herself in recent years.
Korea-Australasia Research Centre (KAREC) at UNSW to host a special seminar
Date: Thursday 29 November 2007
Time: 2-4pm
Venue: ASB119, Level 1
Australian School of Business Building (UNSW Map E12)
(The closest entrance is from Gate 2, High Street)
From Diversification Premium to Diversification Discount during Institutional Transitions
Presented by Professor Mike W Peng
Professor Peng holds the first ever Provost's Distinguished Professorship at the University of Texas in Dallas. With three books (currently writing his fourth book) and nearly 50 articles in top journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Studies, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Management, Management International Review and Harvard Business Review, Professor Peng is widely regarded as one of the most prolific and most influential scholars in the field of IB/Strategy.
Linguistics Program Seminar
School of Languages and Linguistics
Monday, 3 December 2007
11 – 12.30
Room: Civil Eng 102
Dr Seppo Kittilä
Department of General Linguistics, University of Helsinki
The beneficiary in Finnish from a cross-linguistic perspective
In my talk, I will discuss cross-linguistically relevant features of beneficiary coding, but I will focus on one language, namely Finnish. My talk begins with a functional definition of the notion ‘beneficiary’, which is followed by an illustration of the formal means languages employ for coding this role. Last, I will discuss semantic/functional properties of beneficiaries, first from a general perspective, after which I will focus on certain traits of beneficiaries in light of Finnish data.
‘Beneficiary’ is in this talk understood as a participant that is indirectly affected by an event without being its agent, its primary target or its obligatory participant. Moreover, the effect of the event on the beneficiary is naturally deemed beneficial. Beneficiaries have features (both semantic and formal) in common with other participants, such as recipient and indirect causes, but together the noted features render it possible to distinguish beneficiary from all other participants.
Beneficiary is a very heterogeneous notion, which is also manifested in its formal coding. Languages may code beneficiaries by case forms (such as dative and allative), by adpositions (such as ‘for’), beneficiaries may be parts of serial verb constructions (often including the verb ‘give’), or beneficiaries may be accommodated via applicativization. In some languages (and secondarily perhaps in all languages), benefaction is coded bi-clausally, as in he mowed the lawn, which was beneficial to me. As will be shown, this variation is not merely cross-linguistic, but many (probably most, if not all) languages (such as Finnish, Korean, German and Thai) have multiple ways of coding benefaction.
Traditionally, benefaction has been approached from the standpoint of the beneficiary alone and different instances of beneficiary have been distinguished based on the nature of the effect an event has on the beneficiary. This is the case, for example, in the typology proposed by Van Valin & LaPolla (1997) who distinguish three types of benefaction labelled as plain benefactive (such as ‘he sang for the children’), deputative-benefactive (‘he mowed the lawn for/instead of me’) and benefactive-recipient (‘he baked me a cake’). As such, this typology covers all instances of beneficiary, but all the types comprise subtypes. Moreover, as will be shown in my talk, other features are relevant to the coding of beneficiaries as well. Especially relevant in this regard are features related to the agent of the denoted event. In addition, the fact whether the referent of the beneficiary was an expected agent of the event it is part of contributes to beneficiary coding at least in Finnish and Korean. All of these features will be discussed in detail in my talk.
Korea comes to UNSW
31 August 2007
Senior diplomats and education specialists from leading Korean universities have met at UNSW to explore new ways to tap the growing interest in Korean studies.
The 4th Korea Australasia Research Centre (KAREC) International Symposium drew more than 60 diplomats and education specialists from universities across Korea and the wider Asian region to develop strategies to promote Korean studies internationally.
KAREC, a joint research centre of the Australian School of Business and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW, conducts and coordinates research into all areas of Korean studies and Korea-related issues in Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia.
In 2006 it was selected as one of four global research centres to promote Korean studies by the Korean Ministry of Education and the Academy of Korean Studies, receiving a research grant of $1.5 million.
“It was exciting to have these high-profile representatives present at the symposium,” said Mack Williams, former Australian ambassador to Korea and co-chairman of KAREC’s advisory board.
“Their presence will ensure the development of cooperative strategies for the development of Korean studies in the region.”
Associate Professor Chung-Sok Suh, KAREC director and symposium convenor says the meeting provided a benchmark for cooperation in Korean studies research.
“The ideas generated at the KAREC symposium will be made available for other universities in the region to use in their studies,” he says.
“For UNSW, we have consolidated our research networks in Korean studies and presidents and vice-presidents of eight leading universities in the region have joined KAREC’s advisory board to establish a strategic plan to strengthen research ties over the next two years.”
More here
