Dr. Ki Young Choi has been a researcher and educator in the field of Korean language, conducting research and teaching at universities in Korea, Thailand, and Australia since 2010. His key research interests include the critical analysis of Korean textbooks. Dr. Choi employs methods such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Visual Image Analysis (VIA) to examine how ideologies, norms, and cultural values are represented in educational materials. His work significantly contributes to understanding and improving the quality of Korean language education internationally, aligning with broader efforts to promote Korean language and culture globally.
I am originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina where I achieved a tertiary level degree as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. In the year 2000, after completing these studies, I came to Australia as an international student to complete a BA (Hons) in Languages and Applied Linguistics. I then continued my postgraduate studies in the area of critical intercultural language pedagogy. For nearly two decades, I have been involved in teaching across Applied Linguistics, English, Italian and Spanish language programs in Australian higher education. I am a passionate languages and intercultural education scholar whose theoretical and empirical work centre on how insights from critical pedagogy and decolonial theories can help us un/re-learn the ways in which we engage with the world. In my teaching practice, I am committed to creating innovative and inclusive, liberatory learning experiences for language learners and fellow language educators to become critically aware of intersectional, power-bound dynamics in everyday interaction.
I'm a linguistic anthropologist who studies how communicative events in Indonesia figure in the building and maintenance of social relationships and common knowledge among Indonesians. During my PhD and post-PhD early years my research often involved long periods of fieldwork in Indonesia. As research funding and sabbatical have become scarce, I have increasingly turned to publically available data, such as Indonesian films, newspapers, social media and so on. I have published extensively on my research, including Language, Migration, and Identity: Neighbourhood Talk in Indonesia (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Language and Superdiversity: Indonesians Knowledging at Home and Abroad (Oxford University Press, 2015), Global Leadership Talk: Constructing Good Governance in Indonesia (Oxford University Press, 2020); Reimagining Rapport (Oxford University Press, 2021); Rapport and the discursive co-construction of social relations in fieldwork settings (Mouton De Gruyter, 2019); and Contact Talk: The Discursive Organization of Contact and Boundaries (with Deborah Cole and Howard Manns, Routledge, 2020).
Dr Kayoko Hashimoto’s main research areas are language policy and language education in multilingual and multicultural contexts. Her latest work is Asian Studies Review special issue “Japan and Southeast Asia: Language, mobility and employability” (Dec 2022) as the guest editor. Her publications include an edited book (Japanese Language and Soft Power in Asia, 2018, Palgrave Macmillan), a co-edited book (Professional Development of English Language Teachers in Asia: Lessons from Japan and Vietnam, 2018, Routledge; with V. T. Nguyen), and a co-authored book (Beyond Native-speakerism: Current Explorations and Future Visions, 2018, Routledge; with S. A. Houghton & D. J. Rivers).
Dr Wenying (Wendy) Jiang taught at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Alberta in Canada and The University of Western Australia in Perth before taking a position at School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland in Australia. She is a specialist in Applied Linguistics, a graduate of Qufu Normal University (BA 1988, MA 1998) in China, University of Luton (MA 2001) in UK and The University of Queensland (PhD 2006) in Australia. She taught English at Taishan Medical University in China for more than ten years before switching to teaching Chinese as a foreign language in English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia. She has been publishing regularly in the fields of second language acquisition, language teaching and learning, and computer assisted language learning (CALL) since 1992. Her monograph "Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language" was published by Mouton de Gruyter in 2009. Her article "Measurements of development of L2 written production: the case of Chinese L2" appeared in the journal Applied Linguistics in 2013 is a widely cited piece of publication.
I am an applied linguist specialized in studying intercutlural communication and public health communication. I am deeply engaged in using multimodal discourse analysis to understand how language, gestures, eye gaze, and material objects co-create meaning in social life. I investigate the processes of language and cultural learning during studying abroad and in classroom settings.
My recent work focuses on communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and food-safety discourses. I have published in international journals on pandemic topics including wearing masks, reporting the first pandemic death, and narrating a pandemic. The COVID-19 project received the 2021 Humanities Traveling Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities. I have a forthcoming book titled Health Crisis Communication: Multimodal Classification for Pandemic Preparedness. The book uncovers features of multimodal (mis)communication and provides practical advice and evidence-based recommendations for strengthening health crisis preparedness.
My new project explores the communication of food safety crises, such as the mushroom poisoning in Australia and the rice-noodle poisoning in Taiwan. I aim to use my research to help health professionals effectively communicate public health and update health communication guidelines.
I am available to supervise PhD/MPhil/Honours projects on the following topics: health discourses, intercultural communication, and language learning and teaching. Please contact me to discuss your proposal.
Narah Lee is a Lecturer in Korean at the School of Languages and Cultures. She started teaching Korean at the Australian National University, where she obtained her PhD in linguistics, and has been teaching the Korean language and culture at various levels and in different contexts. Her research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis and sociolinguistics.
Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Giselle Newton (she/her) is a digital health sociologist at the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and has worked at UQ since the completion of her PhD in 2022. Giselle is currently employed as a Research Fellow in the Australian Ad Observatory Project of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.
Giselle's research program is organised around three themes: 1) Exploring how reproductive and genetic technologies reshape relationships, families and parenthood; 2) Examining processes of participation, representation and listening in policy and legislative contexts 3) Developing participatory, digital and creative methods for social research.
Giselle holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Lecturer at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW, Sydney. Giselle is a co-convenor of the Australian Sociological Association Thematic Group on Families and Relationships. Giselle was awarded the Early Career International Visiting Fellowship, University of Sheffield for 2024-25.
Research
Current projects:
Targeted digital advertising in fertility, reproduction and parenting
Understanding stakeholders’ perspectives on public inquiries in sexual and reproductive health
DNA datascapes: how individuals seek information about family via direct-to-consumer DNA testing
Past projects:
How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on social media, using the Australian Mobile Ad Toolkit (contract research project commissioned by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education Limited, with A/Prof Nic Carah and Lauren Hayden)
On target: Understanding advertising in the fertility sector with data from the Australian Ad Observatory, a winter research collaboration (with Romy Wilson Gray and Maria Proctor).
Everyday belongings: how Australian donor-conceived adults’ use digital technologies to bond, sleuth, educate and strategise. Giselle's PhD study won Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Theses in 2022.
Understanding care endings: Sociological and educational approaches to support pathways out of caring
Research supervision
Current students:
Lauren Hayden (PhD candidate, UQ) - Digital advertising and cultures of alcohol consumption on social media platforms (with A/Prof Nicholas Carah, Prof Daniel Angus)
Simone Sanders (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Representations of breast cancer predisposition testing on TikTok: a qualitative content analysis
Lina Choi (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Direct-to-consumer DNA testing content online
Past students:
Cushla McKinney (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - The impact of direct-to-consumer DNA testing on genetic counselling practice (with Dr Lisa Dive, A/Prof Aideen McInerny-Leo, Dr Vaishnavi Nathan).
Diya Dilip Porwal (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Experiences of carrier screening and genetic testing in gamete donors (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive).
Areas of supervision: Giselle welcomes research proposals focused on social research in digital identities and cultures; family relationships and practices; DNA and genetic testing/screening; reproductive health and donation.
Teaching
Giselle has coordinated and lectured across undergraduate and postgraduate programs in courses in humanities, social sciences and health. She was course coordinator for COMU2030 Communication Research Methods in 2023 and lecturer in HHSS6000 HASS Honours Research Design.
I’m a researcher and lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. My expertise is in critically evaluating how people and organisations use language to communicate about themselves and shape the world around them. I’m committed to doing research that promotes justice and equity, and helps government, the media, and industry communicate for the common good.
My recent research has explored sustainability in the arts and culture sector, news reporting on violence against women and girls, and COVID-19 crisis communication.
I’ve recently collaborated with various peak bodies in the Australian arts and culture sector such as Theatre Network Australia, and arts companies of various sizes (e.g., Queensland Ballet and La Boite Theatre) to develop a free peer coaching program known as “Creating out Loud.” This program builds networks of mutual support for artists and arts workers across all levels of the arts and culture sector.
Enriching the arts and culture sector is of high importance to me. In 2021, I was awarded an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to support arts workers recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
To find out how I can help your organisation, email me at k.power@business.uq.edu.au. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.
Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Senior Lecturer
School of Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
I am Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland (UQ).
My research interests lie within the broad areas of pragmatics and discourse analysis, particularly, the pragmatics of social interaction (face-to-face and online), identity construction, humour, (im)politeness, getting acquainted and family talk. I have been working with different types of data, including naturally-occurring conversations, reality television discourse, qualitative interviews, corpora and social media.
I am Associate Editor in the Journal of Pragmatics and the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics journal, and an Editorial Board member in Advances in (Im)politeness Studies (book series), Springer.
I regularly review grant applications and I am a member of:
College of Experts, European Science Foundation (from 2021)
Review College, FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders) (2024-2027)
I am also a mentor as part of the IPrA mentoring programme.
I'm originally from Lithuania, where I graduated from BA in English Philology and MA in English Studies. While at university, I spent part of my study period in Spain (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Quebec (Université de Montréal). After teaching two years at Vilnius University, in 2012 I started my PhD in Linguistics at the IPrA Research Center at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. After my PhD studies, I joined UQ as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and then in a continuing position as Lecturer.
I've always loved languages, maybe because I've always been surrounded by a variety of them. I'm a native speaker of Lithuanian (lietuvių) and Russian (русский), I spent many years studying and then also teaching English and I also have a certificate for teaching Spanish as a foreign language (español como lengua extranjera ELE). Due to my study/research relocations, I can also communicate (sometimes extremely poorly) in Dutch (nederlands), French (français) and Portuguese (português), and at the moment I'm struggling with Modern Greek (ελληνικά) and Japanese (日本語)!
Chilmeg Elden (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The establishment and management of interpersonal relationships in early encounters between Australian and Japanese language exchange partners
Zhiyi Liu (principal supervisor; with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang and Prof Ping Chen): Relationship management in everyday Mainland Chinese and Chinese-Australian family talk
Andrea Rodriguez (principal supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The role of categorical membership and accountability in the negotiation of action ascription
Nicholas Hugman (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Footballer identity, humour, and the digital interactional domain
Chantima Wangsomchok (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Conversational humour in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) workplaces
PhD (completed)
(2023) Amir Sheikhan (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): Conversational humour in intercultural initial interactions in English
MA (completed)
(2023) Yeisy Vanessa Maldonado Ramirez: Reporting offence to friends in Spanish: A pragmatic analysis of moral grounds and impolite behaviour
(2023) Shea-Lea Wheeler: A discourse study of fictional self-presentation in Dungeons & Dragons gameplay
(2021) Zhiyi Liu: Constructing identities of a mother and an older sister/adult child: Membership categorization analysis of Chinese-Australian family talk
(2021) Maria Nagao: English teachers of young learners in Japan: A discourse analytical study on identity construction
(2021) Shupei Ni: Relational work in video game live-streaming interactions: Case studies of jocular abuse and joint fantasizing
(2021) Andrea Rodriguez: “Ay no, I do feel exhausted”: Interactional co-construction and interpersonal management of complaints in Spanish phone conversations between friends and relatives
(2020) Duyen Hong Ngoc Luong: Teaching English as a foreign language in Vietnam: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the English-only approach and code-switching in the classroom
Sinkeviciute, Valeria and Andrea Rodriguez (eds). (2025 forthcoming). Rules of engagement: Relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse.
2023: "Talking families into being: Analysing family interactions in Australian multilingual context" funded by Research Fund, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2022: "‘Who we are’ in multilingual Brisbane: Family talk in Spanish and Russian speech communities" funded by HASS Enabler Funding Scheme (HASS EFS), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (UQ)
2021: "Conversational humour in multilingual Australia: A closer look at Tennant Creek’s Indigenous and Brisbane’s Spanish speech communities" (with Dr Samantha Disbray and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang) funded by Strategic Researh Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2021: ""I'm nearly old enough to be your mother": Using membership categorisation analysis to explore identity construction in getting acquainted interactions" funded by ECR Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2020-2021: "The co-construction and negotiation of multilingual and multicultural identities in Australia: A case study of online interactions" funded by Targeted Research Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2019-2022 (CI: Assoc. Prof Marta Dynel): "FUNGRESSION: Humour and impoliteness on social media" funded by National Science Centre (Poland) (2018/30/E/HS2/00644)
2018-2019 (with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): "How far can an Aussie joke travel? Intercultural perspectives on Australian humour" funded by Strategic Research Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed). 2024. Advances in the study of social action in online interaction. Internet Pragmatics https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.7.1
Haugh, Michael and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2021. The pragmatics of initial interactions: Cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives. Journal of Pragmatics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/special-issue/10DB1P3LJJ8
Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed.). 2019. The interplay between humour and identity construction. Journal of Pragmatics 152. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/vol/152/suppl/C
Dynel, Marta and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2017. Conversational humour: Spotlight on languages and cultures. Language & Communication 55. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02715309/55?sdc=1
Reviews of my monograph "Conversational humour and (im)politeness: A pragmatics analysis of social interaction":
Yang, N. (2022). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.2019. Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Journal of Politeness Research 18(2): 451-455. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2020-0015
Tsami, V. & Saloustrou, V. (2021). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.(2018). Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. The European Journal of Humour Research 9(3): 179-183. https://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/544/556
Murphy, J. (2021). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness: A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction, Valeria Sinkeviciute. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2019). 274 pp. ISBN 9789027262110 (e-book). Journal of Pragmatics 183: 105-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.07.010
Krendel, A. (2020). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Valeria Sinkeviciute, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2019 (e-book), ISBN: 9789027262110. Corpus Pragmatics 4: 479–483.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41701-020-00086-w
22-27 June 2025 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - (Cross-)linguistic studies on relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse, at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2025, Brisbane, Australia
9-14 July 2023 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - Membership categorisation and interpersonal relationships in social interaction, at the 18th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2023, Brussels, Belgium
9-14 June 2019 (with Marta Dynel) - Aggression as (im)politeness on social media, at the 16th International Pragmatics Conference, Hong Kong
6-8 February 2019 - Metapragmatic labels and commentary on humorous practices: An (inter-)cultural perspective, at Australian Humour Studies Network conference, Melbourne, Australia
1-3 November 2018 - Panel organiser (with Wei-Lin Melody Chang), Doing ‘being ordinary’ in reality television discourse, at 4th International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), SUNY, Albany, USA
16-21 July 2017 – From self to culture: Identity construction in humour-related discourses, at the 15th International Pragmatics Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland
26-31 July 2015 – (with Marta Dynel), The Pragmatics of Conversational Humour, at the 14th International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, Belgium
11 December 2024 - “Tú quieres que yo te dé un premio?”: Acción social y categorías en las conversaciones familiares. Talk at Seminario Permanente de Análisis de la Conversación (SPAC)
11-13 October 2024 - Online interaction as multimodal accomplishment of the social order. Plenary talk at the 3rd Interactional Conference on Discourse Pragmatics (ICDP-3)
21 January 2021 - Social interaction and identity construction. Guest lecture for postgraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
20 January 2021 - Pragmatics and social action. Guest lecture for undergraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
14 November 2019 - “Hey BCC this is Australia and we speak and read English”: Linguistic diversity and impoliteness on Brisbane City Council’s Facebook page, invited talk at Linguistics Seminar Series, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland (https://languages-cultures.uq.edu.au/event/session/5365)
27 September 2019 - Studying linguistics, what's next? An invited speaker at UQ Linguistics Society's Careers Night.
26 May 2017 - Evaluating (im)polite interactional behaviour: From reality television to qualitative interviews, talk at the Research Seminar at the School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland, Australia
10 May 2017 - Metapragmatics and humour, guest lecture at The University of Queensland, Australia
6 November 2015 - What makes teasing impolite? “Step[ping] over those lines […] you shouldn’t be crossing”, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium
25 November 2014 - “[Sometimes] it’s not particularly funny, [sometimes] it’s just rude”: Getting a laugh and/or taking offence to teasing, talk at the Research Seminar at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
6 December 2013 - (Im)politeness in context, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium
Journal of Pragmatics / Pragmatics / Journal of Politeness Research / Discourse Studies / Lingua / Language & Communication / Research on Language and Social Interaction / Internet Pragmatics / Discourse, Context & Media / Contrastive Pragmatics / Pragmatics and Society / Gender, Work & Organization / Sociolinguistic Studies / Pragmatics & Cognition / Journal of English for Academic Purposes / The Sociological Review
Ken Tann is an in-house linguist at the UQ Business School. He specializes in applying linguistic and semiotic techniques to interdisciplinary research, and helps industry professionals add value to their professions through effective communication. His analytical framework has been applied across media, forensic, education and workplace contexts. He is currently supervising PhD research in marketing, finance and aged care.
