title: Sites of power : Documentary ethics and representation of child abuse

authors: Visage, Anthea Nadine

subjects: Documentary

abstract: New Zealand has one of the highest child abuse rates in the developed world. Discourses about child abuse are stigmatised, and this stigma thrives in silence. Documentary films provide a unique site of power in which child abuse discourse can be represented to challenge such stigma and promote social change. The existing literature surrounding documentary ethics and representations of child abuse is minimal despite the centrality of ethics to documentary practices. Documentarians may use a range of representational strategies to represent such discourses, which may help negotiate ethical concerns or present additional ethical concerns in relation to the participants, audience and filmmakers. 
This thesis has three objectives: to determine the discourses about child abuse represented in the documentaries Tarnation, Daughter Rite and Breaking Silence, to identify the representational strategies used and to identify the associated ethical concerns. In order to examine these discourses and representational strategies, the methods of critical discourse analysis and affect analysis are applied through the analytical framework of Bill Nichols’ documentary modes. The identification of the discourses and representational strategies has allowed for the identification of the associated ethical concerns. The results show that discourses about the cyclical nature of abuse are present in the documentaries, and that there is ethical tension between the autobiographical filmmaker’s impulse to tell their truths and the potential exploitation of participants. This thesis concludes that there is a need for academic exploration around the therapeutic outcomes of autobiographical documentary filmmaking.

text: Sites of power : Documentary ethics and representation of child abuse New Zealand has one of the highest child abuse rates in the developed world. Discourses about child abuse are stigmatised, and this stigma thrives in silence. Documentary films provide a unique site of power in which child abuse discourse can be represented to challenge such stigma and promote social change. The existing literature surrounding documentary ethics and representations of child abuse is minimal despite the centrality of ethics to documentary practices. Documentarians may use a range of representational strategies to represent such discourses, which may help negotiate ethical concerns or present additional ethical concerns in relation to the participants, audience and filmmakers. 
This thesis has three objectives: to determine the discourses about child abuse represented in the documentaries Tarnation, Daughter Rite and Breaking Silence, to identify the representational strategies used and to identify the associated ethical concerns. In order to examine these discourses and representational strategies, the methods of critical discourse analysis and affect analysis are applied through the analytical framework of Bill Nichols’ documentary modes. The identification of the discourses and representational strategies has allowed for the identification of the associated ethical concerns. The results show that discourses about the cyclical nature of abuse are present in the documentaries, and that there is ethical tension between the autobiographical filmmaker’s impulse to tell their truths and the potential exploitation of participants. This thesis concludes that there is a need for academic exploration around the therapeutic outcomes of autobiographical documentary filmmaking.

year: 2021

title: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu)

authors: Rangelov, Tihomir Rumenov

subjects: Ahamb

abstract: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

text: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

year: 2020

title: Turning a negative into a positive: Aquatic weed harvesting Lake Rotoehu

authors: Mallinson, Richard

abstract: The submerged aquatic weed hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) has become widespread through Lake Rotoehu since its establishment in the lake around 2000. This exotic pest plant is surface reaching in large parts of this shallow lake making it a perfect candidate for mechanical harvesting.
As part of the Te Arawa - Rotorua Lakes Programme the Lake Rotoehu Action Plan sets out nutrient reduction targets for nitrogen and phosphorus. Realising these targets is integral if lake water quality is to be restored to the trophic level index (TLI) target for Lake
Rotoehu. Restoration measures have included land use management efforts to arrest nutrient inputs, phosphorus locking through alum dosing, floating wetlands, and most recently the deployment of two aerators. To date the most successful in-lake nutrient reduction method has been mechanical harvest of hornwort.
Aquatic weed harvesting has resulted in reaching a significant portion of the annual nutrient target for the lake catchment. Attaining this level of nutrient removal has manifested in tangible water quality gains in the past few years. Most noticeable is the reduction in cyanobacterial (blue-green) algal blooms which had been prevalent in the lake in summer months. We discuss the practicalities and problems of submerged lake weed harvesting, disposal options, and impacts of this activity on the lake.

text: Turning a negative into a positive: Aquatic weed harvesting Lake Rotoehu The submerged aquatic weed hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) has become widespread through Lake Rotoehu since its establishment in the lake around 2000. This exotic pest plant is surface reaching in large parts of this shallow lake making it a perfect candidate for mechanical harvesting.
As part of the Te Arawa - Rotorua Lakes Programme the Lake Rotoehu Action Plan sets out nutrient reduction targets for nitrogen and phosphorus. Realising these targets is integral if lake water quality is to be restored to the trophic level index (TLI) target for Lake
Rotoehu. Restoration measures have included land use management efforts to arrest nutrient inputs, phosphorus locking through alum dosing, floating wetlands, and most recently the deployment of two aerators. To date the most successful in-lake nutrient reduction method has been mechanical harvest of hornwort.
Aquatic weed harvesting has resulted in reaching a significant portion of the annual nutrient target for the lake catchment. Attaining this level of nutrient removal has manifested in tangible water quality gains in the past few years. Most noticeable is the reduction in cyanobacterial (blue-green) algal blooms which had been prevalent in the lake in summer months. We discuss the practicalities and problems of submerged lake weed harvesting, disposal options, and impacts of this activity on the lake.

year: 2015