School of Education

Dr Xiaofang Yao

Position: Lecturer, TESOL
Study area: Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism
Location: Berwick Campus, Building 901, Room 130E
Phone: 5122 6281
Email: x.yao@federation.edu.au

ORCID ID:  0000-0002-7980-5391

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy – The University of Melbourne – 2021

Master’s in Applied Linguistics – The University of Melbourne – 2016

Master’s in Interpreting – University of Westminster – 2014

Bachelor’s in Management Sciences – Nanchang University – 2013

Teaching

Programs

  • Master of Specialist Teaching (TESOL)
  • English and Academic Preparation Program
  • English Language Support Service

Courses

  • Language Acquisition (EDBSP 1013)
  • Professional Inquiry A (EDMED 7074)
  • Analysis and Inquiry: Reading and framing the research (EDMED 7038)
  • International Student English for Academic Purposes suite of courses (ISEAP)
  • English Language Studies B: Phonetics, Phonology and Communication (EDMST 6113)

Biography

Xiaofang is an applied linguist working in the School of Education. She joined Federation University Australia in 2022. Previously, Xiaofang worked at Swinburne University of Technology where she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Swinburne Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society. She is also a NAATI certified translator and interpreter (Chinese and English) and has extensive experience in the translation and interpreting industry in both China and Australia.

Areas of expertise

Xiaofang works across a variety of areas in the fields of applied linguistics, the sociolinguistics of globalisation, and discourse analysis. She has a special interest into the translanguaging practices of migrant communities, and the phenomenon known as Linguistic Landscape or Semiotic Landscape in multilingual societies. Xiaofang has published in the areas of language and space/place, culture, identity and power especially with diaspora Chinese in Victoria, Australia. Along with this, she has broad research interests in other facets of language use, including language learning and teaching, language assessment, translation and interpreting, and digital methods to processing languages.

Research interests

  • Linguistic/semiotic landscape
  • (Critical) discourse analysis
  • Multilingualism/metrolingualism/translanguaging
  • Multimodal communication on social media
  • Chinese diaspora community
  • Interpreting and health communication

Supervision

Available to supervise coursework and research students.

Publications

Refereed journal articles

Yao, X. (2021). Face masks, materiality, and exclusion in the COVID-19 semiotic landscape. Social Semiotics. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2021.2016032

Yao, X. (2021). Commodification or shared ownership? A case study of Chinese communities in the linguistic landscape of Bendigo. Applied Linguistics Review. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2020-0045

Yao, X. (2021). Metrolingualism in online linguistic landscapes. International Journal of Multilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1887197

Yao, X., & Gruba, P. (2020). Power through the semiotic landscape. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. http://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1737090

Yao, X., & Gruba, P. (2020). A layered investigation of Chinese in the linguistic landscape: A case study of Box Hill, Melbourne. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 43(3), 302-336. http://doi.org/10.1075/aral.18049.yao

Yao, X. (2020). Material narration of nostalgia: The linguistic landscape of a rural township in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies, 14(1-2), 7-31. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.37218

Yao, X. (2021). 语言景观研究的理论框架和研究方法 [Theoretical frameworks and research methods of linguistic landscape studies]. Journal of Beijing International Studies University/北京第二外国语学院学报, 04, 101-115.https://doi.org/10.12002/j.bisu.349

Yao, X., & Zhu, C. (2017). 中国学生在综合写作测试中的引用模式 [Chinese students' source use patterns in an integrated reading-to-writing test]. Overseas English/海外英语, 02, 84-87.

Book reviews

Davidson, L., Diskin-Holdaway, C., Elder, C., Fan, J., Frost, K., Kelly, B., McNamara, T., Morton, J., Price, S., Storch, N., Thompson, C., & Yao, X. (2021). Review of the book Language as symbolic power, by Claire Kramsch. Applied Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab027

Yao, X. (2020). Review of the book There isn’t only one way of being Chinese”: Language, culture, and identity in two Chinese community schools, by S. Ganassin. Language and Intercultural Communication, 21(1), 132-133. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2020.1808426

Yao, X. (2020). Review of the book Posthumanist applied linguistics, by A. Pennycook. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 266, 143-145. http://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-2116

Yao, X. (2020). Review of the book Language and subjectivity, by T. McNamara. Sociolinguistic Studies. 14(3), 395–397. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108639606

Yao, X. (2019, October 24). Review of the book Dialogues with ethnography, by J. Blommaert. Linguist List, 30, 4050. https://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=36524919

Research reports

Yao, X., McCosker, A., Albury, K., Maddox, A., & Farmer, J. (2021). Building data capacity in the not-for-profit sector: Interim report. Swinburne University of Technology. https://doi.org/10.26185/ey72-s303

Refereed conference proceedings

Yao, X. & Nambu, S. (2021, September). Multilingual official signs in the linguistic landscapes of Japanese Brazilian communities. Paper presented at British Association of Applied Linguistics 2021 Conference, UK (online).

Yao, X. (2021, June). Translanguaging on public signs: The linguistic landscape of Melbourne. Poster presented at 6th Language for Specific Purposes and Professional Communication Conference (LSPPC6), Hong Kong (online).

Yao, X. (2021, June). Unsettling linguistic landscapes: Metrolingualism in the collapsed context of WeChat. Paper presented at Sociolinguistic Symposium 23, Hong Kong (online).

Yao, X. (2020, November). Exclusion in the ephemeral linguistic landscape. Paper presented at Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) Annual Conference 2020, Australia (online).

Yao, X. (2019, June). Power of Chinese assemblages: An ethnographic investigation of the linguistic landscape of Bendigo. Paper presented at XIScape: 11th Linguistic Landscape Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand.

Yao, X. (2018, September). Beneath the sign: The linguistic landscape of a rural township in Australia. Paper presented at 2nd International Conference on Sociolinguistics, Budapest, Hungary.

Yao, X. (2018, June). Journeys into the rural linguistic landscape. Paper presented at Ethnoforum, Melbourne, Australia.

Yao, X. (2017, September). Indexing identities: Bilingual messages in the linguistic landscape. Paper presented at Identities in Translation International Workshop 2017, Melbourne, Australia.

Associations

  • Australian Linguistic Society
  • The Applied Linguistics Association of Australia
  • British Association for Applied Linguistics
  • Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators