Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage the ....Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage these challenges. Over 170,000 Australians die each year, most from serious illness. This project should provide significant benefits to future initiatives for enhancing communication about advance care planning, especially in relation to young Australians, older Australians, and Australians with disabilities.Read moreRead less
Driving health care efficiencies and patient care outcomes by improving communication in acute to primary transitions of care. Communication problems are a major contributor to poor outcomes for patients transferring from acute to primary care, accounting for 41 per cent of preventable hospital readmissions. This project aims to identify risk factors for readmission and barriers to successful transitions of care for high-risk patient groups (including the elderly, paediatric and mental health pa ....Driving health care efficiencies and patient care outcomes by improving communication in acute to primary transitions of care. Communication problems are a major contributor to poor outcomes for patients transferring from acute to primary care, accounting for 41 per cent of preventable hospital readmissions. This project aims to identify risk factors for readmission and barriers to successful transitions of care for high-risk patient groups (including the elderly, paediatric and mental health patients), it will then apply these findings to provide effective, measurable and cost-efficient protocols to improve discharge transition outcomes for patients, carers and health service providers. Research outcomes will have general relevance to Australian healthcare settings and include the development of ‘The Safe Transition Communications Tool.’Read moreRead less
Towards a social theory of semiotic technology: Exploring PowerPoint's design and its use in higher education and corporate settings. PowerPoint has become the dominant technology for designing and delivering presentations in many important settings and skills in the use of PowerPoint have become essential for professional and academic success. This study will investigate the use of PowerPoint in higher education and corporate settings in order to discover what these skills are and how the desig ....Towards a social theory of semiotic technology: Exploring PowerPoint's design and its use in higher education and corporate settings. PowerPoint has become the dominant technology for designing and delivering presentations in many important settings and skills in the use of PowerPoint have become essential for professional and academic success. This study will investigate the use of PowerPoint in higher education and corporate settings in order to discover what these skills are and how the design of PowerPoint supports or hinders the achievement of a range of communicative purposes. The study will provide guidelines for evaluating and improving the design and use of PowerPoint and other, similar presentation software.Read moreRead less
Enacting Reconciliation: Negotiating Meaning in Youth Justice Conferencing. 'Restorative justice' initiatives like youth justice conferencing are aimed at strengthening the social fabric by making sure the voices of victims are heard while giving offenders a genuine opportunity to 'set things right' and get back on track with their lives. More detailed research into the way participants use language and other communicative modes will help the convenors of conferences, and the trainers of conveno ....Enacting Reconciliation: Negotiating Meaning in Youth Justice Conferencing. 'Restorative justice' initiatives like youth justice conferencing are aimed at strengthening the social fabric by making sure the voices of victims are heard while giving offenders a genuine opportunity to 'set things right' and get back on track with their lives. More detailed research into the way participants use language and other communicative modes will help the convenors of conferences, and the trainers of convenors, to understand better the potential of this social healing process. This project will also add to Australia's reputation as a world-leader in the field of restorative justice.Read moreRead less
Success and failure in second language learning (SLL). Why do some people succeed in learning a second language to very high levels and others fail miserably despite the fact that both groups may have set out with similarly positive attitudes and high levels of motivation? This research project focuses on the social contexts in which second language learning takes place. It aims to provide an insider account of what it is like to be a successful or unsuccessful L2 user. It will describe the ling ....Success and failure in second language learning (SLL). Why do some people succeed in learning a second language to very high levels and others fail miserably despite the fact that both groups may have set out with similarly positive attitudes and high levels of motivation? This research project focuses on the social contexts in which second language learning takes place. It aims to provide an insider account of what it is like to be a successful or unsuccessful L2 user. It will describe the linguistic and discursive resources language learners have access to, and the ways in which such access is structured in the communities they participate in.Read moreRead less
Emotion in voice matters: Advancing a neural model of auditory emotion perception. Accurate perception of emotion in others is fundamental for positive social relationships, and speaking is the most common source of information from which a person will infer emotional intent. This project capitalises on recent advances in brain imaging technologies to develop a neural theory of vocal emotion perception that integrates research across neuro-cognitive, affective, and language disciplines. This wi ....Emotion in voice matters: Advancing a neural model of auditory emotion perception. Accurate perception of emotion in others is fundamental for positive social relationships, and speaking is the most common source of information from which a person will infer emotional intent. This project capitalises on recent advances in brain imaging technologies to develop a neural theory of vocal emotion perception that integrates research across neuro-cognitive, affective, and language disciplines. This will put Australia at the forefront of an important emerging research field 'social neuroscience', raising our international profile in this area. Findings will provide the theoretical knowledge that is currently lacking in the development of targeted remediation programs for individuals suffering from social communication problems.Read moreRead less
The role of emotion and social cognition in communication disorders. Social neuroscience is a rapidly emerging field that has identified the frontal systems of the brain as critical to social cognition, i.e. the ability to process specifically social information. Communication disorders also arising from frontal lobe damage are directly relevant to this field but have been ignored to date. This project represents cutting edge research putting Australia at the forefront in this endeavour. Not ....The role of emotion and social cognition in communication disorders. Social neuroscience is a rapidly emerging field that has identified the frontal systems of the brain as critical to social cognition, i.e. the ability to process specifically social information. Communication disorders also arising from frontal lobe damage are directly relevant to this field but have been ignored to date. This project represents cutting edge research putting Australia at the forefront in this endeavour. Not only is this research theoretically important but it is directly relevant to clinical management and remediation of the thousands of people in Australia who suffer brain injury annually and who suffer psychosocial disorders as a result. Read moreRead less
When do gestures become linguistic? Understanding the gesture-language interface through a corpusbased study of pointing signs in signed languages. This project will use corpus-based and experimental studies to compare pointing signs in three sign languages with pointing gestures used by hearing non-signers in order to answer the question: What relationship do gestures have to language? It will help us understand how pointing works as part of a sign language system, and how it is used as co-spee ....When do gestures become linguistic? Understanding the gesture-language interface through a corpusbased study of pointing signs in signed languages. This project will use corpus-based and experimental studies to compare pointing signs in three sign languages with pointing gestures used by hearing non-signers in order to answer the question: What relationship do gestures have to language? It will help us understand how pointing works as part of a sign language system, and how it is used as co-speech gesture. Both spoken languages and sign languages make use of pointing, and thus it represents a unique case study for the investigation of the relationship between gesture and language. This project will provide a distinctive contribution to our knowledge about the relationship between language and other aspects of human communication. Read moreRead less
Australian Aboriginal conversational style. This project aims to re-examine claims that Aboriginal Australians conduct conversations in different ways to Anglo-Australians. It will investigate and compare ordinary conversations in these groups on a large scale. The project expects to provide new evidence to explicate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal conversational norms, pinpointing differences which may lead to intercultural miscommunication. Expected outcomes include endangered language documenta ....Australian Aboriginal conversational style. This project aims to re-examine claims that Aboriginal Australians conduct conversations in different ways to Anglo-Australians. It will investigate and compare ordinary conversations in these groups on a large scale. The project expects to provide new evidence to explicate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal conversational norms, pinpointing differences which may lead to intercultural miscommunication. Expected outcomes include endangered language documentation, and evidence-based findings to disseminate to service providers, to communities and to Aboriginal organisations to improve ways of engaging with each other. In addition, the project will benefit Aboriginal communities with new approaches to language revitalisation.Read moreRead less
Preventive health care: how compatible are clinicians' identity and practice with transition to the new roles that health reform requires? This project is designed to assess how health care workers cope with the various impacts of health reform and to explore ways of enhancing their preparedness for and commitment to these reforms, particularly as these reforms herald new roles, responsibilities and expectations. The significance of the project lies in the way it links reform to the in situ enac ....Preventive health care: how compatible are clinicians' identity and practice with transition to the new roles that health reform requires? This project is designed to assess how health care workers cope with the various impacts of health reform and to explore ways of enhancing their preparedness for and commitment to these reforms, particularly as these reforms herald new roles, responsibilities and expectations. The significance of the project lies in the way it links reform to the in situ enactment of clinical practice and reflection through video-recording and practitioner auto-review. The project's outcomes include increased understanding of: the tension between situated practice and reform; employee commitment to the interactive implications of reform, and video-based research as individual and organizational change methodology.Read moreRead less