Elizabeth Thomson

BA (Macquarie), MA (Sydney (TESOL), Ph.D (UoW)

Dr Elizabeth Thomson teaches English and Japanese Linguistics in the School of English Literatures, Philosophy and Languages. During her time at the University of Wollongong, she has engaged in the development of the Japanese Language major and also was instrumental in the development and implementation of a new major in English Language and Linguistics, producing a CD-ROM on academic English as part of the program. The CD-ROM was the winner in the 2001 Australian Tertiary Technology Showcase Category. In 2002, she received her Ph.d in Linguistics which was a systemic functional description of the textual metafunction in Japanese. In brief, the study looked at how Japanese organises above the sentence and described the grammatical resources which are deployed to organize clauses into coherent texts. Also in 2003, Dr. Thomson received the Vice-chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning (Arts) for the development of the curriculum and teaching/learning materials of the English Language and Linguistics major. Dr. Thomson is currently the coordinator of the English Language and Linguistics (ELL) major.

Some of her more significant publications include:

• Thomson, E.A. & White, P.R.R. (eds.) (December 2007) Communicating Conflict: multilingual case studies of the news media, Continuum: London.
• Thomson, E. & Armour, W. (eds.) (forthcoming Nov. 2006) Systemic functional perspectives of Japanese: descriptions and applications, Equinox Publishing: London
• Thomson, E. (2005) Informing curriculum design using genre analysis: A study of three genres in Japanese in Bourke, B (ed.) Innovative Practice in Japanese Language Education, Queensland University of Technology Press: Brisbane pp.17-41
• Thomson, E. (2005) Theme Unit Analysis: A systemic functional treatment of textual meanings in Japanese in Functions of Language 12.2, John Benjamins Publishing Company pp.151-181
• Woodward-Kron, R., Thomson, E. & Meek, J. (2001) Academic Writing: a language-based approach CD-ROM Gonichi Languages Services, Wollongong

Searchable RIS publications from 2000 to date

Dr. Thomson's research interests are in two areas: theoretical systemic functional descriptions of languages other than English, particularly Japanese language and applied functional linguistic analyses in education and community including descriptions of English, specifically in relation to academic English, media discourse and environmental discourse.

Her Research Projects include:

1. Mapping the Genres of Japanese Project
   This project is a long term project which aims to map the written genres of Japanese, particularly those in the workplace and those found in the education system. The project seeks to identify, describe and provide reference material for teachers of Japanese as a Second/Foreign Language in order to better tailor curricula to the vocational needs of students.
   View powerpoint presentataion as pdf [41kb]
2. The News Project
   This project, consisting of 11 academics across Australia and overseas, aims to investigate the ideologies behind 'reporter' voice in news articles in varieties of English, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Vietnamese and Arabic.
3. Attitudes and the Environment Project [pdf 813kb]
   This project aims to investigate the correlation between attitudes and sustainable environment practices by identifying the set of attitudinal types which have a positive impact on the environment.

To view Dr. Thomson's full CV please click here.

E-Mail ethomson@uow.edu.au
Phone: (02) 4221 4002