Dr Nerida Jarkey

BA, Australian National University; PhD,
Senior Lecturer
545 Brennan Building

+61 2 9351 6805

Nerida Jarkey teaches Japanese reading, grammar and linguistics. Her primary research is in the field of Asian area linguistics, with a focus on two languages: Japanese and White Hmong. As part of her role as director of First Year Teaching & Learning in Arts, she also conducts research on the experiences of first year students in higher education.

Dr Jarkey is currently working with Carol Hayes and Shun Ikeda of Australian National University toward the production of a reference grammar of Japanese entitled Modern Japanese Grammar: A Practical Guide, to be published in the Routledge Modern Grammars series.

Further research on multi-verb constructions will be published as a chapter to appear in a volume on Complex Predicates, being edited by Mengistu Amberber, Brett Baker and Mark Harvey, entitled “Cotemporal Serial Verb Constructions in White Hmong”.

Dr Jarkey’s broad interest is in how languages use grammar to convey meaning. She gives particular attention the theory of semantic transitivity, by which transitivity is viewed not simply as a ‘black and white’ issue associated with a single verb, but as a scalar property of entire clauses. With her colleague Mami Iwashita she has investigated subtle variations in semantic transitivity in “Setting the scene: A comparative study of the ‘attributive passive’ and the ‘-te aru’ construction in Japanese” (Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society). This builds on Dr Jarkey’s earlier work, including “Case marking of objects of stative predicates in Japanese” (Australian Journal of Linguistics, 1999), in which she investigates the semantic motivations for the alternation between nominative and accusative particles in stative clauses, and her exploration of the relationship between transitivity and point of view in “Subjectivity and the ‘accusative’ -te aru construction in Japanese” (Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society).

Another area in which Dr Jarkey has a significant research profile is that of multi-verb constructions. Here again, her focus is on the ways meaning is conveyed through grammar. Her work in this area includes, “Complement Clause Types and a Complementation Strategy in White Hmong”, in Complementation: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, edited by R.M.W. Dixon and Alexandra Aikhenvald (2006). She has also explored the relationship between serial verb constructions and semantic transitivity in “Process and Goal in White Hmong”, in The Hmong of Australia: Culture and Diaspora (2004), edited by Nicholas Tapp and Gary Lee.

In the field of tertiary learning, Dr Jarkey’s research on the first year experience has resulted in the article “Participatory Action Research in an Arts Transition Program” in The Transformed University: Scholarship of teaching and learning in practice, edited by Angela Brew and Judyth Sachs (2007). Here, she explores the value of certain methodology in creating not only understanding but also change. She also examines both educational theory and practical outcomes in her article “Orientation as an ongoing learning experience: Student focused and holistic” (Research and Development in Higher Education, 2004).

Dr Jarkey currently teaches reading and grammar for Japanese Levels 5 and 6, and ‘Readings in Japanese Sociolinguistics’.

She has supervised or is currently supervising postgraduate research in the areas of: semantic transitivity and aktionsart; voice, tense, modality and aspect; verb and clause linkage; particles; personal pronouns; conversation analysis, discourse analysis, politeness, speech acts and gendered language; and endangered language in Okinawa.

Dr Jarkey is delighted to discuss postgraduate research with any students interested in topics in Japanese linguistics.

Nerida was the recipient of the University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Learning and Teaching in 2002, and she is coordinator of the Arts Network Mentoring Program, which won the V-C’s Award for Support for the Student Experience in 2006.

In the Faculty of Arts she also coordinates the Tutor’s Development Program and the ‘Not Drowning, Waving’ Program for students at risk, and she represents the Faculty on the Equity Advisory Committee, the Indigenous Education Strategic Working Party and the Sydney Welcome, Orientation and Transition Project Group.

In addition to her role as Director of First Year Learning and Teaching in Arts (2003 to present), she has held the position of Director of Learning and Teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculties (2004 – 2006), and is currently chair of the University’s First Year Experience Working Group. She was also a tertiary sector nominee on the NSW Board of Studies Ethical Scholarship Project in 2006.