Staff profile

Dr Donna Starks

Senior Lecturer

Faculty of Education

Faculty of Education - Melbourne (Bundoora)

Room/Location EDU1: 346, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

PhD (Manitoba), MPhil, BA (Newfoundland)

Area of study

Applied Linguistics
Primary teaching
Secondary teaching

Brief profile

Donna Starks is a Senior Lecturer in Language Education based on the Bundoora campus. She has research and teaching interests in all issues dealing with language and identity. For her PhD dissertation, she wrote a description of Woods Cree, a First Nations language spoken in Canada’s North West. More recently, she has worked with Japanese, Korean and Pasifika communities on a number of language revitalisation projects. Her work considers the interplay of first and second languages, particularly the development of ethnic varieties of English, code-mixing and language attrition. Recent projects have focussed on the accented Englishes and how they are used as expressions of identity. She has completed a number of school-based projects on students’ attitudes towards languages and language policy in New Zealand.

Teaching units

EDU4UET Understanding English for Teaching

EDU5SGT Sociolinguistics for Language Teaching

EDU5FFE Forms and Functions of English

Recent publications

Starks, Donna; Taylor-Leech, Kerry & Louisa Willoughby 2012. Nicknames in Australian secondary schools. Names 60, 3: 135-149. Starks, Donna. 2012. Working with K-12 students. Case study: Research in schools. Data Collection in Sociolinguistics: Methods and Application. Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs & Gerard van Herk (eds). New York: Routledge. Starks, Donna; Nicholas Howard & Shem Macdonald. 2012. Structured reflective communication as a metagenre in teacher education: Creative uses of ‘critique’ in a language teacher education program. Australian Journal of Teacher Education 37,3, paper 3. Hatoss, Aniko; van Rensburg, Henriette & Donna Starks. 2011. Finding one's own linguistic space: Views on English, Afrikaans and identity in a semi-urban Australian context. Sociolinguistic Studies 5, 2: 257-289. Massam, Diane; Starks, Donna & Ofania Ikiua. 2011. Questions and answers in Niuean. Joachim & Claire de Moyse (eds), Oceanic Morpho-Syntax. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. Starks, Donna & Kerry Taylor-Leech. 2011. A research project on nicknames and adolescent identities. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics 17, 2: 87-97.   Hatoss, Aniko; Starks, Donna & Henriette van Rensburg. 2011. Language maintenance in an Australian Afrikaans community. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 34,1: 4-23. Nicholas, Howard; Starks, Donna & Shem Macdonald. 2011. Relating ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ in language teacher professional learning: an in-service teacher workshop for language teachers. TESOL in Context 21: 23-41. Starks, Donna & Jeong Kim. 2010. Rethinking methodology: what language diaries can offer for the study of code choice. Language Awareness 19(4): 233-248. Starks, Donna. 2010. Being Niuean or being Niue?: an investigation into identity labels. Language, Identity and Education 9(2): 124-138. Kim, Sun Hee Ok & Donna Starks. 2010. The role of Korean fathers in L1 maintenance and L2 learning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 13(3): 285-30. Starks, Donna & Laura Thompson. 2009. There’s not many Niueans: singular/plural agreement in existential constructions in the New Zealand Niuean community. World Englishes 28/3: 319-335. Van Rensburg, Henriette; Hatoss, Aniko & Donna Starks. 2008.  L1 literacy amongst Generation 1b: A study of an Australian South African community. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics 14: 83-92. Kim, Sun Hee Ok & Donna Starks. 2008. The role of emotions in L1 attrition: the case of Korean-English late bilinguals in New Zealand. International Journal of Bilingualism 12: 303-319. Starks, Donna. 2008. Potential variables for the study of grammatical variation in Niuean English. Journal of New Zealand English 22:36-44 Starks, Donna. 2008. National and ethnic identity markers: New Zealand short front vowels in New Zealand Maori English and Pasifika Englishes. English Worldwide 29: 176-193. Starks, Donna; Thompson, Laura & Jane Christie, 2008. Whose discourse particles? New Zealand eh in the Niuean migrant community. Journal of Pragmatics 40:1279-1295. Starks, Donna; Knoch, Ute  & Gary Barkhuizen, 2007. The changing language attitudes of New Zealand’s intermediate and secondary students. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics. Starks, Donna; Christie, Jane & Laura Thompson. 2007. Niuean English: initial insights into an emerging variety. English Worldwide 28: 2: 133-146 Knoch, Ute;  Barkhuizen, Gary, & Donna Starks. 2006. Language practices, preferences and policies: contrasting views of Pakeha, Maori, Pasifika and Asian students. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 27(5):375-391.