Dr Bruno Di Biase

Biography

Roles and Responsibilities in UWS:

Senior Lecturer, Second Language Acquisition, Italian; Supervisor PhD and BA (Hons) students.

Qualifications:

PhD (Linguistics) Australian National University;
BA (Hons) (Macquarie University) Linguistics;
BA (Macquarie University)in Linguistics and Anthropology;
NAATI 3 in Interpreting (Italian-English) and Translation (Italian-English and Spanish into English);
Former NAATI Examiner.

Background Information:

Acting Head of School September 27th July 2009 - 1st December 2010.
Associate Head (Languages,  Academic) October 2006-July 2009.
Commenced employment at UWS in 1982 (Milperra CAE) and introduced Italian Language Studies and Translation /Interpreting Studies.
Deployed 50% to the University of Sydney 1989-1994 where I worked with Manfred Pienemann to set up the Language Acquisition Research Centre of the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia, with a branch at UWS (with Stuart Campbell). As Deputy Director of LARC I also worked with Ian Thornton, Alison Mackey, Jenepher Phelp, Malcolm Johnston and helped organise research and SLA (@LARC) courses with Patsy Lightbown, Cathy Doughty, Mike Long; Charlene Sato among others. In 2000, organised at UWS (with Gisela Hakansson and Satomi Kawaguchi) the first Symposium of Processability, SLA and Bilingualism. This has become an International event moving each year to different countries (n. VIII was held in Verona, Italy in 2008).

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Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise

Second Language Acquisition, Processability Theory and Bilingual first language acquisition, bilingual development in children of immigrants. Relationship between Language learning and Language pedagogy. Morphosyntactic analysis and its connection to Lexical mapping, discourse pragmatics-syntax interface (using mainly Lexical Functional Grammar ). Public policy in languages education.

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Grants / Current Projects

2010 ongoing: Development of LEXIFUN (for Italian) and extension to Chinese, Japanese and Spanish (software for development of L2 listening and vocabulary skills).

2009-2011 Listening to L2: A study of Interpreting and Translation students linguistic profiles.

2007-2009 (Project Leader) Development of Online Level 1 Language Resources for the implementation of blended learning in 5 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Spanish).

2006-2007 NSW DET Community Languages Schools Board, Federation of Community Languages Schools Project on NSW Community Languages Schools Program.


2003 Timing and Gesture: A Window into the Art of Teaching with Stephen Malloch and Catherine Scott.

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Awards and Recognition

Invited University of Innsbruck (Austria) MA Series on Italian Acquisition 2006

Invited Oxford Round Table on ESL and Bilingualism 2008

Invited University of Verona Linguistics PhD Seminar Series on Processability Theory 2008

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Publications

Books

Cardona, B., Noble, G. & Di Biase, B. (2008). Community Languages Matter! Challenges and opportunities facing the Community Languages Program in New South Wales. Sydney: University of Western Sydney.

Di Biase, B. (2007). A Processability Approach to the Acquisition of Italian as a Second Language: Theory and Applications. PhD Thesis, Australian national University (online)

Di Biase, B. (Ed.) (2002). Developing a Second Language: Acquisition, processing and pedagogy issues in Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, and Swedish. Melbourne: Language Australia.

Di Biase, B. (2000). Second Language Acquisition: Notes and Exercises. Melbourne: Language Australia.

Di Biase, B., Andreoni, G., Andreoni, H. & Dyson, B. (1994). Unlocking Australia's Language Potential: Profiles of 9 Key Languages in Australia. Volume 6: Italian. Canberra: National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia.

(1988) Di Biase, B. & Dyson, B.. Language Rights and the School: Community Language Programs in Australian Primary Schools. Sydney: FILEF Italo-Australian Publications and Inner City Education Centre.

(1988) Campbell, S.J. & Di Biase, B. (eds.) Translation Practice in an Australian Context. Sydney: Macarthur Institute of Higher Education, School of Education and Language Studies.

Di Biase, B. (ed.) (1978). Terrorism today in Italy and Western Europe. Sydney: G. Di Vittorio.

Chapters in books, and journal articles

Di Biase, B., Bettoni, C., & Nuzzo, E. (2009). Postverbal subject in Italian L2: a Processability Theory approach in Research in Second Language Acquisition: Empirical Evidence across Languages, Joerg-U. Kessler and Dagmar Keatinge, Newcastle, UK, pp 153-174, [ORS ID: 209621]

Kawaguchi, S., Di Biase, B. (2009). Aligning Second Language Learning and Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Networking the Language Class, Tandem Learning and e-movies, The International Journal of Learning, vol 16, no. 10, pp 287-302, [ORS ID: 211168] Di Biase, B. (2008). Focus-on-form and development in L2 learning. In Kessler, J.-U. (Ed), Processability Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (pp. 197-220). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars.

Bettoni, C. and Di Biase, B. (2008). Teaching learnable grammar. In E. Occhipinti (Ed.), New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture: Case Studies from an International Perspective. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.

Bettoni, C. and Di Biase, B. (2008). Lessico verbale e questioni di processabilita' in Italiano L2. In Barni, M., Troncarelli, D. & Bagna, C. (Eds.), Lessico e apprendimenti: Il ruolo del lessico nella linguistica educativa (pp. 260-267). Milano: Franco Angeli.

Bettoni, C. Di Biase, B. and Ferraris, S. (2008). Sviluppo sintattico e sviluppo morfologico: ipotesi di corrispondenze nella Processabilita dell italiano L2 In G. Bernini, L. Spreafico, A. Valentini (Eds.) Competenze lessicali e discorsive nell'acquisizione di ingue seconde. (pp. 355-382). Perugia: Guerra.

Di Biase, B. (2008). Focus-on-form and development in L2 learning. In Kessler, J.-U. (Ed), Processability Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (pp. 197-220). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars.

Di Biase, B. & Bettoni, C. (2007). Funzioni discorsive e processabilita in italiano L2. In M. Chini, P. Desideri, M.E. Favilla & G. Pallotti (a cura di) Imparare una lingua. Recenti sviluppi teorici e proposte applicative (pp. 209-233). Perugia: Guerra Editore.

Bettoni, C. and Di Biase, B. (2007). Come sviluppare la resa in grammatica del lessico in italiano L2: Un esperimento in una scuola primaria di Sydney. Studi di Glottodidattica 2, 80-92

Qi, R., Di Biase, B. and Campbell, S. (2006). The transition from nominal to pronominal person reference in the early language of a Mandarin-English bilingual child. International Journal of Bilingualism, 1, 3, 301-329.

Bettoni, C. and Di Biase, B. (2005). Sviluppo obbligato e progresso morfosintattico: un caso di Processabilita in italiano L2 Itals III-7. 27-48.

Pienemann, M, Di Biase, B., Kawaguchi, S. and Hakansson, G. (2005). Processing constraints on L1 Transfer. In J. F. Kroll and A. M. B. de Groot (Eds.), Handbook of Bilingualism: Psychological Approaches. (pp. 128-153). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Pienemann, M., Di Biase, B. Hakansson, G. & Kawaguchi, S. (2005b). L1-L2 Transfer is developmentally moderated. In M. Pienemann (ed.) Cross-linguistic aspects of Processability Theory, (pp. 85-116) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Pienemann, M., Di Biase, B. & Kawaguchi, S. (2005). Extending Processability theory. In M. Pienemann (ed.) Cross-linguistic aspects of Processability Theory, (pp. 199-252). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Burnham, D., Stevens, K., Di Biase, B., Bucholz, J., Kitamura, C., Malloch, S. & Wiggins, M. (2004). Research at MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney. Acoustics Australia 32, 2 69-73.

Di Biase, B. (2004). A comparative study of second language teaching program outcomes under different implementation conditions in upper primary school Final Report ARC SPIRT grant C59906982 .

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