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Department of Linguistics

Communication in Professions and Organisations

Research Students and their Topics

PROGRAMS IN COMMUNICATION IN PROFESSIONS & ORGANISATIONS  

Students who have enrolled in the Doctor of Professional Communication
(transferring to the PhD (Professional Communication)): 

Janet Brady
TOPIC: A discourse approach to the interactions and learning that accompany the transition to management

Janet's doctoral research explores the interactions and learning that accompany the transition to management. A discourse-focused approach allows the fine-grained analysis of the communicative processes that facilitate the interactionally achieved goal of transition to management. A key research question will be how new managers acquire the practical competence, values and judgement that is congruent with their new role. She has several papers planned from her research (one submitted) and has presented at one international and two national conferences.

Janet and Alen Janet Brady and Alan Jones Chris and Catherine
Catherine O'Grady and Chris Candlin
Simon Brushfield
TOPIC: Discourses of persuasion in religious contexts.

Simon is qualified in Fine Arts & Design, and works as academic director in Raffles Design Institute (Jakarta), but will research discourses of persuasion as used in religious contexts. Simon’s fine art is sold through many professional galleries, and his paintings are on display in private and corporate collections throughout Victoria, New South Wales, Europe and the U.S.A.

Pat McDowell  (International)
TOPIC: Conflict, crisis and communication in the workplace

Based in Canada, Pat works in crisis counseling and will research discursive practices and strategies used in the context of structured group debriefings of crisis survivors.

Kevin Knight (International)
TOPIC: Discourses of leadership in educational institutions.

Kevin is a manager and academic in a large Japanese university. He is particularly interested in leadership as a process that is discursively constructed and performed. He is sponsored by his institution

Joseph James Alvaro (International)
TOPIC:  TBD

Joseph is based in a large company in Japan, and his application has just been accepted. He is interested in the discourses of  leadership, both in educational institutions and more broadly (details of topic to follow). 

 

Master of Communication in Professions and Organisations:  theses current/planned

Dana Skopal (intending PhD candidate)
TOPIC: Writing practices in public and private organisations

Beginning in Semester 2 2009, Dana is developing templates to identify and define written communicative expertise in relation to the readability of collaboratively produced documents in public and private organisations. She has worked for some years as a writing consultant for the Plain English Foundation; will use empirical data to test the ideology of “plain writing”.

Geoff Knoke
TOPIC: Interaction processes in Insolvency Proceedings

Geoff is an Insolvency Practitioner, Accountant and a Senior Manager. Beginning in Semester 1, 2010, he plans to research the communicative practices and strategies of professionals working in this field of insolvency. There has been no systematic discourse-based study of this event type. He is supported by his professional association in terms of data access.

Jeanette Polley
TOPIC: Discourses of retailing: custonetr-sales person interactions

Jeannette has an U/G background in Linguistics (from MacU) but now runs a successful women’s swimwear business. Her research will be on the discourse of ‘word-of-mouth’ phenomenon in marketing and sales focusing on the creation of buyer communities through an exploration of the discourses of retailing.

 

Master of Communication in Professions and Organisations:  completed prior to 2009

Eric Healy (completed 2006) (International)
TOPIC: Negotiating Trust Along the Supply-Chain

Eric investigated how people and businesses work together along supply chains where there are significant risks unique to such enterprises. His research revealed that the participants engaged in an obligation ritual, through which they constructed acceptable story lines which filled in enough of the missing information to allow them to trust each other. Eric received the Vice Chancellor's Commendation for Postgraduate Coursework.

Libby Bassett (completed 2006; awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s commendation)
TOPIC: Voicing as an Involvement Strategy in Decision Making in Oncology Consultations

Libby (who was and is a GP but now is also a GP Trainer) wrote her thesis on the basis of close discourse analysis of consultant-patient consultations in critical moments in decision-making in oncology treatments, focusing on the issue of expert behaviour. She has presented her research at the Medical Faculty at Sydney University, and at  the COMET conference in Lugano (2008).

Karin Bernhard (completed 2008; awarded Vice-Chancellor’s commendation)(International)
TOPIC: Just words? An investigation into the role and relevance of communication in SAP projects.

Karin investigated the consultancy processes of a firm in Germany as consultants interact with clients. The thesis provided empirical evidence of the importance of communication in such interactions and offered guidelines whereby the effectiveness of such negotiations with clients could be investigated using discourse tools.

Nicole Baker (completed 2005)
TOPIC:  Effective Communication within Meetings

Nicole was the first graduate of the MA program and undertook a discourse analytical study of key meetings in her workplace, focusing on issues of role and identity construction.

Jose  Alejandro Mesa (completed 2006)  (International)
TOPIC:  Information design for multi-channel retailing: A comparative evaluation of the IKEA print catalogue, online catalogue and website

Jose, who is from Colombia, undertook a study of multimodality in relation to information design, drawing on data from publicity materials from a major international retailing firm.

 

Postgraduate Diploma in Communication in Professions and Organisations

Catherine Manning
Jayne Ross (ongoing)

 

Postgraduate Certificate in Communication in Professions and Organisations

Ana Maria Fonseca
Megan McCracken


PhD students studying topics in Professional Communication

(Note: these would in all probability have enrolled in the DProfCom if not for the expense. We expect the new PhD arrangement with no fees for domestic students to greatly enhance the attractiveness of the PhD (Prof Com)):

Catherine O’Grady (MQRES)
TOPIC: The nature of expert communication as required for the General Practice of Medicine – a discourse analytical study 

Catherine’s research is under the aegis of the Royal Australia College of GP’s and focuses on the nature of expertise in the GP consultation, especially as it relates to issues of the assessment of professional performance. Catherine has presented her research at three international conferences in the UK and the USA, and two national ones. She is a regular co-member of an ongoing research project on GP Education and Training in association with WentWest Paramatta, Macquarie, and the University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine.

Louise Collingridge (PhD awarded 2009)
TOPIC: Patient-professional interactions in clinical settings in Audiology

Louise was Manager of the Audiology Clinic within Linguistics and a General Staff colleague. Her research is one of very few studies into the nature of the client-audiologist interaction focusing on the roles of the professional practitioner, in particular the diuscursive and professional tensions that arise between the professional advising and the commercial selling of hearing aids, and how such advising can be evaluated. Louise has presented her research at two national conferences and is currently co-authoring a journal article from her research. She received a research scholarship from the universitry for General Staff and also recently gained an Innovation Award from the university for her research.

Andrina Lou  (International)
TOPIC: The sociolinguistics of business student discourse with a focus on professional practice in marketing

On the basis of close analysis of specialised written texts and etnographic investigation of participants’ responses to those texts, Andrina’s research explores how undergraduate students of Marketing gradually display, to various extents, their increasing command of  marketing discourse and marketing role during their study, and how the academic assessment of these learned abilities contrasts with the demands and evaluations of the ‘real world’ of marketing outside the academy. Andrina has already presented her research at three international conferences.

Darryl Hocking
TOPIC: Text and Context: the genre of the art and design brief

Darryl’s research focuses on the issue of ‘creativity’ in the fields of Design and how the construct of ‘creativity is discursively negotiated among participants ion this process, both students, tutors and expert designers, with a special focus on the ‘Design Brief’. Darryl jhas already presented his research at two international conferences and is at present finalising a chapter for an invited collection of papers on Discourse and Creativity.

Victor Huang Ho  (International) (under examination)
TOPIC: Making requests across cultures: A study of the influence tactics and request strategies employed by members of an organization in electronic communication

Victor’s research addresses issues of textual and discursive variation in the interpersonal negotiation of knowledge, stance and belief among distinct groups in a higher education institution in  Hong Kong, focusing in particular on the discursive construction of emails to authority and vice versa.

Jennifer Eagleton
TOPIC: Discourses of democratization in Hong Kong

Jennifers’s research lies within the critical discourse analysis of the formulation of the concept of ‘democratization’ in Hong Kong as evinced in the Chinese and English print media, supported by analyses of policy documents, policy announcements, structured interviews etc and backgrounded by a careful analysis of political tensions among ‘rival’ political groups in contemporary Hong Kong. She has already presented her research at four international conferences.

Arthur Firkins
TOPIC: Discourses of risk in the management of  Social Care

Arthur’s research draws on his background with the Department of Community Serrvices in NSW to analyse issues of risk and risk behaviour in the work practices of social workers, with a particular focus on crisis events such as those appertaining to child abuse and child death. The thesis extends to other, more generalised issues of risk and how risk is discursively constructed and may be evaluated. He has already published two co-authored papers and has presented at international conferences.

Aditi Bhatia  (International) (PhD awarded 2008)
TOPIC: Discourse of illusion: a critical study of the discourses of terrorism

Aditi’s research draws on print and video data to explore the construct of terrorism as illusion, drawing on political speeches by President Bush and PM Tony Blair, together with video and audio data from panel discussants and print accounts. She was an awardee of the Division of Linguistics and Psychology for her pre-thesis submission published work (some four articles in international journals), and has presented at four international conferences.

Britt Larsson
TOPIC: Writing apprehension and assertiveness training in the Public Relations industry

Britt has found that writing apprehension in the PR industry is widespread, and is situational, resulting from dysfunctional organizational structures and asymmetrical interpersonal relations rather than from individual deficiencies or dispositions. Her work represents an innoivative marriage of social psychological and discourse analytical research.

David Rear
TOPIC: The challenge of higher education in Japan: Perceptions of human resource managers regarding the attributes, skills and competencies of graduates from Japanese universities.

Dave is investigating discourses of work skills and graduate attributes in Japan. He has found a contradiction and a public struggle between discourses of the Japanese government concerning the skills and attributes needed to equip university graduates for the twenty-first century workplace and statements being made by influential employer groups like Nippon Keidanren. He is currently preparing a paper for publication from his research

Heather Jackson (MQRES)
TOPIC: Negotiating Trust in Business Discourse

Heather is examining the ways in which mutual trust is (co-)constructed – or not – in business negotiations, drawing on her work experience as a Community Liaison Officer with a major works and building construction project in Sydney. She was previously a MA student at Macquarie and a research assistant on a well-published ARC funded project on the discourse of Enterprise Bargaining.

Samantha Sin  (MacU faculty member)
TOPIC: Conceptions of professional practice in accounting: Comparing students and practitioners.

Samantha is continuing her research into the discourse of accounting practices, on which topic she has already co-authored a book with Dr Alan Jones (Pearson Education) which is now widely used in CPA training. She has presented her research at national and international conferences.

Paul Cheung (Completed 2006)
TOPIC:  Quality of Life Among the Hearing-Impaired: A Quantitative and Discourse-Based Qualitative Investigation

Paul drew on the results from, and the participants in a major quantitative research study of hearing impairment among older Australians, to explore using discourse-based qualitative methods their responses to post-treatment experience, the effect that treatment and its processes had on their perceptions of quality of life, and concluded that considerable weight
needed to be given to how such treatments were conducted and explained.

aj/cnc  aug09

 

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