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The UC Research Repository collects, stores and makes available original research from postgraduate students, researchers and academics based at the University of Canterbury.
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The recording and normalisation of the UC-4AFC monosyllabic word list
(2024) Anderson, G.L.
Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is characterised by challenges with understanding speech despite normal peripheral hearing thresholds. Individuals with APD may face difficulties understanding speech in the presence of background noise, or when parts of the speech signal are missing or distorted. The University of Canterbury Adaptive Speech Test- Filtered Words (UCAST-FW) is a low-pass filtered speech test that may be used as part of a diagnostic assessment battery for APD. Although the UCAST-FW has shown promise in its ability to discriminate between children with and without APD, there were concerns about its applicability to New Zealand (NZ) listeners, as it initially used an Australian recording of American test materials. To make the test more appropriate for a NZ audience, Murray (2012) developed the UC-4AFC monosyllabic word list, designed to be used in a four-alternative forced choice picture-pointing procedure. Prior to the current study the UC-4AFC existed only on paper. The present study aimed to record an audio version of the UC-4AFC word list in a typical New Zealand English accent, and to use Gibbins’ (2017) normalisation technique to ensure homogeneity across test items. Additionally, new images were required to accompany each of the test items so that it could be used with children who are pre-literate. This study involved 35 English-speaking adults with normal hearing, assessing their ability to discriminate speech items before normalisation. Psychometric functions, depicting percentage correct versus low-pass filter (LPF) frequency, were established for each word. However, due to unexpected challenges in data gathering and time constraints, the
normalisation of the word lists could not be completed. Nonetheless, the study identified 50 words that performed well enough for inclusion in the UCAST-FW open-set paradigm. Further evaluation is needed for the closed-set words in future studies, as well as the completion of the normalisation process.
The development of the cultural landscape in the Wakatipu Basin (Central Otago)
(1978) Yule, Susan Jane
During the last one hundred and twenty years, the Wakatipu basin in Central Otago has flourished as a farming, goldmining and tourist resort. The tracing of the development of the cultural land scape over this period has confirmed the thesis that the ‘cultural landscape' that is in existence today was formed during the first twenty years of European habitation of the district.
The features associated with the human habitation of the area, the ways in which they have changed the patterns of economic-activity and the effects of the environment upon the development of the region are discussed using a combination of the 'chronological' and 'cross-sectional' approach to historical geography. Thus to illustrate . the contribution of the factors of settlement and development in this area, topics such as exploration, settlement growth, agriculture, goldmining, tourism and communications have been employed as the main themes in the narrative chapters and modified cross-sections are drawn for years characterised by relative stability
Feminine identity in New Zealand : the Girl Peace Scout movement 1908-1925
(2000) McCurdy, Diana
This is a study of feminine identity in early twentieth-century New Zealand through the life and work of Lieutenant-Colonel David Cossgrove (1852 - 1920). In 1908, Cossgrove established Peace Scouting, New Zealand's first adult-sponsored youth movement for girls. Peace Scouting was a character-training scheme that Cossgrove adapted directly from Robert Baden-Powell's Boy Scout movement. He developed and organised it independently from Girl Guiding, which was Britain's official "feminised" adaptation of Scouting. For most of the movement's 17 years, Cossgrove acted as Peace Scouting's figurehead, and was the central source of its unique identity.
Unlike the Guide movement, which constructed femininity within the broad western ideals of population ideology, the Peace Scout movement appealed to a distinctly New Zealand construction of femininity. It brought into the same pioneering ideology that historians have identified as a foundation of New Zealand's masculine identity. In doing so, the scheme assumed a more equal, connatural relationship between male and female than that accepted in traditional western ideology. Despite the imperial origins of its activities, the Peace Scout scheme identified New Zealand's physical and ideological indigenes - whether physical or ideological - not just as a source of difference, but as a sign of unique ideology that should be celebrated. As such, it provides a site of complex interplay between nationalism, colonialism and imperialism in the construction of New Zealand femininity.
Rape and beyond : women empowering women
(1995) Rathgen, Elizabeth
The issue of rape was brought into the public arena by the women's movement in the 1960s. Radical feminists, in particular, explored the political nature of sexual relations of which rape is an outcome. The notion of women's inferiority and their exclusion from the public arena has been constituted by a patriarchal social order which supports the interests of men. Feminist poststructuralism examines the historical and social context of patriarchal discourses which perpetuate notions of male dominance and control.
This study, Rape and Beyond: Women Empowering Women, explores rape from the perspective of women for whom rape constitutes an injury. This viewpoint is in contrast to that of the male perspective which categorises rape as a crime. Throughout the study, the tension between these two positions continues to be highlighted. Traditional stereotypes associated with rape, present conflicting images of women as both passive and vulnerable, and yet at the same time, ultimately culpable. Despite the fact that rape is perpetuated by men, women are often blamed and their innocence is thus disputed. The propensity for victim-blaming is reflected in the responses made to women who have been raped by social institutions, such as the legal system, medicine, religion, and the family. This approach exacerbates rather than ameliorates the injury rape inflicts on women.
These issues are the focus of the empirical component of the study. Interviews conducted with six women who have had personal experiences of rape, and who are also involved in rape crisis service organisations, provide the data which are explored through the processes of both content and discourse analysis. The· analysis of the women's narratives draws on the French school of psychoanalysis which attends to the connection between language and the unconscious. The content of the women's narratives reveals several themes, including the losses the women have experienced as a result of rape, and the strategies they have devised to resolve their trauma. Analysis of the narratives articulated by the women, in accordance with feminist poststructuralism, reveals the underlying discourses, in particular those disseminated by patriarchy, that have affected the ability of the women both to understand the meaning of their experiences, and to reintegrate a sense of subjectivity in the aftermath of rape. The ability of the women to resist the domination of patriarchal discourses, and to employ various means to empower themselves and others is also highlighted. This, I argue, makes visible the strength of women as they continue to wage the battle against male sexual violence.